Barnabas File

When I was in Mississippi several years ago, I heard the story of the driver who was pulled over by the Highway Patrol officer going south on Interstate 55 at 80 miles per hour. The officer asked, “Where are you going?” “To Memphis,” the man replied.     “You’re headed south.     This won’t get you to Memphis.”    “I know,” the driver said, “but I’m making such good time.” I was reminded of this story when I read Seth Godin’s post about being on the wrong bus.  Yes, it was not easy to get on the bus, you are comfortable, and it’s getting dark outside, but you are still on the wrong bus.  You have made a mistake and you need to correct it. Godin writes, “ If you really want to get where you set out to go, you're going to have to get off the wrong bus.” The moral of these stories is that if you are heading in the wrong direction--in your professional life or with your church or organization, you need to admit it and change...

I put my foot in my mouth recently.  You know how that works—you make an off the cuff statement and suddenly realize that you may well have offended someone in the room.  I was leading a training session for lay leaders in a congregation and I said something to the effect, “I don’t really think much of long range planning.” I immediately realized that this evoked a reaction among those present, and then it was driven home when one person said, “Well, I guess he just stepped on your toes, pastor.”  Rather than explaining what I meant, I pushed on. The pastor and I are still friends, but I should have clarified  the difference between several terms we use interchangeably. First, “long range planning” is still a very popular term in corporate America, even though most companies have no idea where they will be a year from now much less 5 to 10 years down the road.  The world is too unstable to assume that plans and goals set today will have any meaning in a re...