Category Archives for "thoughts"

You Are Here

 

I took this picture last year while on a Cub Scout field trip to the Franklin Institute.  This sign was located in a stairwell between exhibits.  I just thought it was funny.  What can I say?  This is my humor, and you’re stuck with it if you’re still reading my blog.

As I think about the sign, “You Are Here,” I think it’s a good reminder for me.  Sometimes, it can be easy to get stuck in our past –  where we dwell on either our victories or defeats.  Let’s face it, we often like the way things were just because that’s what we’re used to.  Does that make sense?

On the other hand, sometimes, it can be easy to get caught up in the worries (and hopes) of the future.  I think it’s good to have hopes and dreams and to go after them.  But sometimes, we deal with anxiety because we’re so focused on what might happen in the future.  We are crippled by questions which have answers that are out of our control.

As I think about this, two passages come to mind:

He says, “Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.”  Psalm 46:10

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes?  Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?  Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?

“And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin.  Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these.  If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith?  So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’  For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them.  But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.  Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”  Matthew 6:25-34

These offer great reminders to rejoice in today – this moment in time when the past is in the past, and God holds the future in His hands.

I am here.  Where are you?

Unplugged

I took the weekend off.

I basically unplugged from the blog world.

There was not a regular Stretched Week in Review post this weekend.

I didn’t read any blogs.  And I didn’t even work on my own blog.

Hard to believe?  For me, yes is hard to believe.

There was too much living to do this weekend.  This is what occupied my time this weekend:  Jazz Festival on Friday night, running on Saturday morning (along with a few errands), Groundhog Day party on Saturday afternoon, basketball game late Saturday afternoon, The Mousetrap at The Walnut Street Theater on Saturday night, church, and a surprise 40th birthday party for one of my good friends.

There really wasn’t a lot of time for much else.

It was good to unplug for a couple of days.  As bloggers, we (or I) can get so consumed by what comes next on our (my) blog posts.  We’re always looking for ways to tie real life into our (my) blogs.  Sometimes, we need to put our (my) blogs aside, so we (I) can just live.

I had fun doing that this weekend.

What did you do this weekend?  Have you “unplugged” recently?

Stretched Perspective

I don’t like change.

I’m a man of routine and discipline.  I get up at 4:40AM.  I spend time in God’s Word.  I read.  I blog.  I exercise.  I eat a bowl of cereal.  I shower and get ready for work.  I drive the same way to the office.  And my day continues.

It drives me crazy when things get switched around with the patterns that exist in my life.

I came home from work last night excited to see my family and hungry for dinner.  We were having leftovers which doesn’t bother me at all.  In fact, I like to eat the same things we ate earlier in the week.  (I usually eat the same exact thing for lunch every day – yogurt, cheese stick, granola bar, and two pieces of fruit.)

When we sat down for dinner, I was “directed” away from MY normal seat at the dinner table to a new seat.  My wife said I needed a change in perspective.  I’ll admit that I was reluctant to sit anywhere besides MY normal spot at the table.  But I have also come to realize that a change in perspective can STRETCH me to experience new things, to see things that I would normally miss, and to walk in other people’s shoes.

My “new” spot at the dinner table wasn’t all that bad – except for the glass of water my son spilled on me.  We joked that my new perspective was a wet perspective.

How can you change your perspective today?  How could a change in perspective change things for you?  How could this change STRETCH you?

Who’s [on] First?

I love the Abbott and Costello skit where the comedy pair go back and forth about the names of baseball players on a team.  The skit starts and ends with “Who’s on first!”

The skit is very funny, and it’s what initially comes to mind when I think of Jesus’ teaching from Matthew 19 and 20…

But many who are first will be last, and many who are last will be first.  Matthew 19:30

So the last will be first, and the first will be last.  Matthew 20:16

Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave.  Matthew 20:26-27

Clearly, Jesus is calling His followers to serve others.  Three times in a short period, Jesus tells His followers to pursue being last.  This is so contrary to our society where everyone is driven to outdo and out-position each other.  Jesus tells us to serve others and we will naturally (or supernaturally) gain the first position.

I’m an extremely competitive person, I strive to win.  I strive to be number one.  I strive to be first.  Reading these words in Matthew a few days ago provided a great reminder for me personally.  I’m sure I’ve written about it in the past, but it’s so easy to put myself first.  When people ask the question, “Who’s first?”  I admittedly want the answer to be Jon Stolpe.

Selfish.  Prideful.  Short-sighted.

Interestingly, the things we (I) strive for first place in are often shallow.  They are things that fade away – things that don’t last.  Jesus’ words point towards things that matter – things that are eternal – things that don’t make sense to the “Me First” generation.  Great reminders for me today.

Getting back to Abbott and Costello, who’s [on] first in your life today?


Resource Review: EntreLeadership Podcast

A couple of years ago, I had never heard a single podcast.  Now, I listen to several podcasts that STRETCH me on a regular basis thanks to the wonders of technology and the iPod.  In keeping with the recent trend on The Stretched Blog, I’d like to use this Monday to provide feedback on a resource.  (Last week, I reviewed The Circle Maker by Mark Batterson.   And the week before, I reviewed an eBook by Michael D. Perkins – Manifesto On Being Myself.)

Today, I’m passing along my two cents on the EntreLeadership podcast.  EntreLeadership is based on a book of the same name written by Dave Ramsey.  The EntreLeadership podcast launched on August 17, 2011 by Dave Ramsey and his team.  Since then, twelve podcasts have been published (twice every month) that have highlighted different aspects of leadership.

The podcasts vary in length between 35 and 50 minutes.  Each podcast which is hosted by Chris LoCurto typically starts with an excerpt from a Dave Ramsey speech followed by interviews from various leaders.  These leaders have included Jim Collins, Dan Miller, Tony Dungy, Tim Sanders, Dan Cathy, Simon Sinek, and others.  Each podcast is focused on a leadership topic.  The topics have included servant leadership, recognition, mission, accountability, unity, and decision-making.

I typically listen to the podcasts while I’m running or driving.  Occasionally, I’ve had to pull the car over to jot down a key point or note from what I’ve just heard.  The podcasts are filled with wisdom for leaders.  Whether you are starting your own business, leading in your company, leading in your church, or leading in any type of organization, I would recommend checking out the EntreLeadership podcast.  The podcast provides information that will inspire you and encourage you to step out and be the best leader you can be.

Do you listen to the EntreLeadership podcast?  If so, what is one of your biggest take aways from what you’ve heard?  What other podcasts do you recommend and listen to regularly?

January 22, 2012 Week In Review

The week in review for was pushed back a day thanks to the wonders of our winter wonderland and the need to take care of some things at home.  It was a good week on The Stretched Blog.  On Wednesday, The New Stretched Blog experienced the highest traffic day so far!  I will be traveling this week, so I’m turning the blog over to some great guest bloggers for a few days.  Please read the excellent posts by Diane Karchner, Chad Jones, and Kevin Stone and join the conversation in the comments.

Here’s a recap for this week:

Your continued contribution to the blog through comments is greatly appreciated.  Your comments are what makes this Stretched Community!  Please remember to take the time to Subscribe to the NEW blog, so you can have Stretched delivered daily to your e-mail inbox.  Also, don’t forget to stop by the Jon Stolpe Stretched Facebook fan page.  Become a fan to keep up with some additional Stretched stuff.  I am sharing more blog highlights from other blogs that I read regularly.  I think you’ll find some great stuff here.  Thanks!

Here are a few of my favorites from around the blog world this week:

How about you?  How was your week?  If you’re a blogger what happened over your way this week?  Did you read any great blog posts this week?  Share with the rest of us!

Managing Conflict – A Leadership Stretch … Guest Post by Frank Chiapperino

Today is a big deal for me!  I get to share Frank Chiapperino with my readers.  Frank is a great friend who has my deepest respect.  Frank has a huge heart for leadership and for connecting people to each other and to God.  For several years, I served on Frank’s small group ministry team at our church in Pennsylvania.  I’ve had the privilege of hitting a few conferences with Frank, catching several breakfasts and lunches with him, and sharing leadership/social media/blogging ideas.  Frank is probably the biggest reason that I started The Stretched Blog.  Frank is now pastoring a church in Minnesota, but we still keep in touch from time to time.  You can follow Frank on Twitter or at one of his two blogs – Frank Chiapperino and techpastor.net.  Check out these sites and become one of his regular readers.

(If you’re interested in sharing your STRETCHING story as a guest blogger here, drop me a comment so we can connect.)

Managing Conflict – A Leadership Stretch

I’m so delighted that Jon asked me to guest post on his blog.  I’ve known Jon for quite a few years and valued his friendship as I served and led ministries at the church he attends in the suburbs of Philadelphia.  Currently I serve a church in Rochester, Minnesota and my role has changed.  What is stretching me now is leadership and managing conflict as our church works through change.

It kind of reminds me the challenges I navigate with my boys as a parent.  My boys are getting older and beginning to play together more and more often.  You know what that means… they fight more often too.  One time my wife Shelli made us some great french toast and we enjoyed breakfast together at the table as a family.  Shortly after, Shelli went up to shower and the boys were playing with cars and toys on their train table. They were enjoying themselves and seemed to be fine so I began reading today’s paper.

All of a sudden I hear my oldest son scream, “No AJ, NOOooooooo.”  Anthony (AJ) looked like King Kong on a path of destruction in the little town Michael had created on the train table.  Michael gave him a big shove and my youngest boy brandished his teeth like a german shepherd on the attack, going at his arm for the bite in defense. Luckily, I stepped in just in time and separated the construction engineer from the wrecking ball before any injuries occurred.  What I did next was set some ground rules for the boys. I gave them each a side on the table to play on and they each took a few toys to play with and asked them each to stay on their side. The rest of our morning was quite peaceful.

Sometimes as leaders we need to be a guiding presence and help others navigate through conflict. There are times I will have a staff member or another volunteer leader at our church call me and say, “Frank, I need help. There are some members of my team that are at each other’s throats.” For some strange reason they don’t share my joy when I say, “THAT IS GREAT!” When I manage conflict I normally start where many Christian leaders do, following Matthew chapter 18:

15″If your brother sins against you, go and show him his fault, just between the two of you. If he listens to you, you have won your brother over. 16But if he will not listen, take one or two others along, so that ‘every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.’ 17If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, treat him as you would a pagan or a tax collector.

  • Go to them privately and confront them on the issue
  • If a private discussion doesn’t work take a witness. That means someone who has seen the behavior you are speaking to them about.
  • If that doesn’t work attempt to involve church leadership to aid in resolution of the problem.
  • If that fails, end the relationship.

That is pretty much what Matthew lays out, and it is sound advice that works. However, I do have a few other guiding principles I follow that aid in confrontation and conflict resolution:

  • Be wise with your words. Everything you say in a confrontation will either escalate or de-escalate a conflict. Try to use words and responses that we de-escalate the tension.
  • Don’t discuss nameless people. Sometimes people will say, “Someone told me…” If they refuse to use actual names of real people, don’t acknowledge it as a leader in the church. It only leads to pointless discussion because you can’t get the real person behind whatever it is involved.
  • If you’re wrong, admit it right away. This is powerful in conflict resolution. Think about it for a minute. How often do you hear people actually admit they are wrong? Not often, it is a real sign of maturity and it will have an immediate affect on the situation.
I find these guiding principles useful and I hope you do too. By the way… take a look at the picture below. Can you tell which side of the table belonged to Michael and which side was AJ’s?–

What would you add to Frank’s list above when it comes to resolving conflict?

Book Review: The Circle Maker by Mark Batterson

Last month, I shared that leaders are readers.  One of my goals for 2012 is to read more – at least one book per month.  This may not sound like a lot to many of you book worms out there, but I’m a slow, deliberate reader so this goal will be a challenge for me.

The first book I finished this year is The Circle Maker by Mark Batterson.  The Circle Maker is a book about prayer based on a Jewish man named Honi who lived during first century BC.  He was known for drawing circles in the ground where he would stand praying until he received an answer.  Batterson discovered Honi while reading a book about legends from this history of the Jewish people, and Honi’s story inspired Batterson to pray more deliberately and with more conviction.

In The Circle Maker, Batterson relates the story of National Community Church (the church he started in Washington, DC) and the story of Honi to inspire readers to dream big, pray hard, think long, and to keep circling.  He also shares personal stories of how he has seen the power of prayer in his own life.

When I started reading The Circle Maker, I quickly decided to use a blue pen to take notes in the margin and to underline key sentences and points in the book.  I highlighted many things that spoke to me, and I wrote in the margins questions and comments that came to mind as I read through the book.  I was inspired and motivated to pray bigger prayers.  I was challenged to be much more specific in my prayers.  And I was encouraged to keep praying even when the answer doesn’t come right away.

This is the perfect book to read for starting the new year.  Here are a few ways that The Circle Maker stretched me:

1.  I decided to start actively keeping a journal of my prayers.  Through Batterson’s encouragement, a prayer journal will help me keep a closer record of my prayers so I can stay in tune with how God answers my prayers.

2.  I decided to be more deliberate in praying circles around my wife, my kids, my church, my town, my extended family, and my job.

3.  I decided to be more intentional in dreaming big.  I am working on my Life Goal List (or Bucket List).  I’ll post this at some point, and I’m asking The Stretched Community to hold me accountable to this.

So how can you be stretched by The Circle Maker?  Pick up a copy of it for yourself.  I’m actually going to give away a copy of The Circle Maker to the top commenter this month.  You could also head over to Mark Batterson’s blog and join in the 21 Days of Prayer.  I think they’re on Day Six, but it’s not too late for you to get plugged in on this challenge.  Finally, I’d recommend starting a prayer journal for yourself.  Start today dreaming big, praying hard, and thinking long.

How’s your prayer life?  How have you seen your big prayers answered?  What or who are you circling with prayer?

Why Did I Change To My Own Domain?

This week I changed from a WordPress domain to a self-hosted domain.  It was a big step.  And it still is a big step as I figure this whole thing out.  So why did I change domains?  That’s a great question, and I’m honestly still working through the answers to that question.  Here’s my answer so far:

1.  Having my own domain gives me an opportunity to try new things and add new things to my blog.  I like to play with the different widgets and gadgets.  The WordPress domain was limited in what I could add and tweak on my blog.  The new self hosted domain gives me more flexibility.

2.  Doesn’t jonstolpe.com sound better than jonstolpe.wordpress.com?  Maybe this is an ego thing, but it’s one of the answers to the question.

3.  I’ve heard that there is an opportunity to make money on my blog by switching to a self hosted domain.  This  brings me to answer number four.

4.  I want to do something great with my blog.  I’ve been wrestling this week with the financial impact of self hosting my blog.  Yes, there’s an initial upfront cost to getting this off the ground, and there will be a small fee associated with keeping it going, but I’m hoping that The Stretched Blog will start to make a little money.  So the question is what happens to this money.  I haven’t figured this all out yet, but my general answer is that I’d like to give it away to do something bigger – something that STRETCHES me.

Today at my church, I received some confirmation that this was the right direction.  Our pastor showed a video about the power of blogging and the power of doing something way bigger than ourselves.  Check out the video and let me know what you think.


Do you self host your blog?  Do you make any money through blogging?  If so, what do you do with it?  Finally, would you be game to do something big together through The Stretched Community?

Ice Breaker – Back to the Future

Like I explained yesterday, I’m planning to keep things going on the NEW Stretched Blog (jonstolpe.com), so it’s that time of the week again…time for an ice breaker question!  One of my favorite movies of all-time is Back to the Future.  I’ve always been intrigued with the possibility of time travel, so today’s question has to deal with time travel.  For those of you who are new or who forgot, ice breaker questions are used to help people get to know each other – to “break the ice” so to speak.  I love hearing what other people have to say and how they think.  So for today, I’m excited to throw out another simple ice breaker question.  I’ll answer it first, then it’s your turn.  Answer the question by leaving a comment for us all to enjoy.  Thanks!

Question:  If you could go back in time (or forward), what time period would you like to experience?

My Answer:  Here you go….

I would only use this time machine if I knew for certain that I could return to right now.  I’m so thankful for where God has me right now.  So assuming this was secured, I would choose to go back to the 1950s.  This is the time period in which my parents grew up.  It would be interesting to see what they experienced.  What were the fads and trends?  What pressures were they up against as kids?  The cars were pretty cool back then.  It just seems like a more simple time frame.  The technology that we now experience wasn’t there which could be seen as a blessing or a curse.  They didn’t have the same distractions that we experience in 2012, but they also didn’t get to experience so many of the luxuries that we now take for granted.

On a personal note, I’d love to meet some family members who passed away before I was born.  I’d especially like to meet my great grandparents.

So there you have it, my answer to the question.  Now it’s your turn….I can’t wait to hear what you’ve got to say!

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