The MacDonald Files

A farmer needs a deep well. An athlete needs great conditioning. A businessperson needs “deep pockets.” A communicator needs a versatile and fertile file of ideas and reference material if he or she is going to keep fresh and creative. With that in mind, I’d like to open some of my files month by month and offer a sampling of things that are provoking me to think and (hopefully) grow.

My files include some stuff that may end up as a book, an article, a sermon, or a lecture. On the other hand there are more than a few things that seemed significant at the time of their discovery but lost their charm.

The one thing I ask most of my files is that they stimulate my thinking and my creativity. At the outset I’m not worried about their profundity, their orthodoxy, or their practicality. That comes later.

My files are found in three places: in loose-leaf notebooks (carefully cross-referenced on my computer), in a filing cabinet in typical file folders (also numbered) and in my journal—the place where I record my day-to-day experiences and thoughts. What follows comes from all three sources.

So stick with me; tune in this time each month. Maybe there’ll be something that will grab your mind and get you going on that next presentation. Maybe it’ll just get you thinking—and that’s good enough.

From My Journal—File Under Durability:

Last week I spent a few hours with a very happy pastor. Funny that one feels the need to start with this description, but perhaps it’s because we too often hear about so many unhappy ones. One comes to expect that pastoral chatter will often center on burnout, being spiritually empty, and/or disillusionment with people. Sort of a bleak assessment, but alarmingly true all too often. But this guy sounded as if he’d found a groove in which there is an experience of persistent self-renewal. So I listened carefully.

As he talked, I picked up several themes that appear to have contributed to a life of continuous self-renewal. For example, I found him to be:

1. A person who is diligent and unafraid to set aside approximately two hours a day to seek after his own welfare (physical, spiritual and intellectual). Result? He likes himself (in an appropriate way); he’s abounding in new ideas; he hears God speaking into his life. This discipline—the pursuit of two hours each day—has been going on for several years now. He’s broken the “I-don’t- have-the-time” barrier.
2. He’s a person who has cultivated a relationship with his board that is not adversarial, but supportive of his leadership, pays attention to the state of his soul, expresses concern for his family, and is careful to evaluate to his work as a leader. Result? He knows where he stands with the people; he learns from his mistakes; he doesn’t have to guess whether or not he’s doing a worthy job. Oh, and his wife apparently feels secure knowing that the board will make sure he never gets consumed by his work. What strikes me in particular is that he’s unafraid to accept correction. How did he get rid of all that pride that makes some feel like they always have to be right?
3. I learned that he’s a person who has a two or three personal, same-gender friends who make sure that he has adequate play-time, that he can safely air his occasional exasperations, and who are quite ready to challenge him when they sense that he is flagging in the pursuit of his personal goals. Result? He has no doubts about the authenticity of his manhood or the correct direction of his Christian life. I call those kind of guys no-nonsense friends.
4. One of the reasons I was quickly drawn to him was because he’s a person who has come to realize that one of the deadliest environments in which to do one’s work is in the church office. He has determined that he will spend significant amounts of time in the larger world where his people work. Result? His ministry centers on the life people lead from Monday to Saturday, and not the one they lead on Sunday. People listen to him when he preaches and when he talks because they know he’s been in their worlds at their point of personal competence.
5. He’s a person who has made peace with the fact that a ministry that generates life-change is usually achieved over the long haul, in the routines, and in the context of Christian actions not religious words. To use a baseball analogy, life’s “game” is full of singles and doubles, a walk or two, and more than a few strikeouts. But if one keeps coming up to bat, you end up putting points on the board. Too many people are obsessed with homeruns. They’re spectacular, of course, but there aren’t many of them.

File Under Reading:

J. Alvin Schmidt has written a fascinating book, Under the Influence (Zondervan, 2001) that offers an overview of the contributions of the Christian movement to Western civilization. Great chapters on Christianity’s role in the elevation of women, the healing arts, art itself, the sciences, democracy, work ethics, literature, and initiatives toward the oppressed and enslaved. Not so deep that one bogs down; and not so shallow that one isn’t forced to think.

For the Sermon File:

From the International Herald Tribune (8/30/02): “Let us acknowledge that the world in which we are living is getting worse every day and, each and everyone of us—regardless of our professions, race or religion—is responsible for and has a role to play in the process of making it a more just and livable place.” (My thought: How do we Evangelicals burst out of our little sub-culture and bring the love of Christ to bear on the great issues facing humanity, issues we hardly pray about much less even think about).

“I’ve-Got-to-Do-Some-Fresh-Thinking” File:

From A.W. Tozer: “Anything God has ever done, He can do now. Anything God has ever done anywhere, He can do here. Anything God has ever done for anyone, He can do for you.” Well, that certainly cleanses the air on a Monday morning.

Copyright © 2002 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal.Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.