The one minute manager

Have you ever experienced this scenario:
David is meant to be on games for this week. He turns up 2 minutes before youth group is meant to start. When you ask him what he has prepared, he looks startled, and tells you that he forgot he was on for this week. You frown at him, he looks remorseful and is losing his confidence, and you wonder how much longer you need to have him on your team.

A classic lose-lose. This situation doesn't build teams, it divides them.

Now our role as leaders is to build teams. So how do we do this on a regular basis?
Ken Blanchard gives some great ideas in his book The One Minute Manager.
Let me outline the concepts. In essence, there are three activities you should be involved in each week:

1) Goal setting
Often a situation can lead to people complaining or a group being immobilised. You need to help them identify the problem and move towards a solution.
To do this they need to get to the core of the problem (what should be fixed). Identify the goals and behaviours that when implemented will overcome the problem (Make sure there are steps rather than a leap in the dark). Get them to write down  the goals and continue to discuss how things are going.
2) Praise
Feedback can be either nerve racking of uplifting. So when we go to speak with someone, they'll be nervous.
That's why it is important to inform people that you will give feedback and what the feedback will be about (ie goals and behaviour).
More importantly, you want to catch people doing something right. Then you want to tell them (and be specific with this). Let it sink, then encourage them to do more of the same (finishing with some gesture of goodwill).
Now Australians are TERRIBLE at giving praise. So a simple tip: you can never praise enough.
3) Reprimand
The situation I gave above could have been avoided by using goals and praise. But if your leader did turn up unprepared, it would call for a reprimand. They let the team down.
Now it is important that you reprimand immediately. Don't leave it for a month or raise it when something else goes wrong. Make sure you're specific. Be clear that you are unhappy with what has happened.
Now comes the important part of the reprimand. You need to show them that you are on their side. So remind them of how you value them and the potential you see in them. This could provide a good goal setting opportunity. So take it to show that there is a solution and you are working on it together. Be clear that when the reprimand is over, it's over. You can do this again with a gensture of goodwill.

For me, I need to work on goal setting and praising. I also need to make sure that I am ready to give a reprimand for their benefit and not because I have to get something off my chest. That said, I hope to build teams where people contribute and we get the maximum benefit from them.

How do you read the Bible

How do you read the Bible?

Do you treat it like a crystal ball that could answer the question on your mind?

Do you see it as a deep book, where you need to look beyond the words to find the mystery beneath?

Do you accept that what it says it how it is, and so you expect to see a big red dragon soon (Rev 12)?

Reading the bible requires exegesis.

The goal of Biblical exegesis is to understand what the author is trying to tell us. So we explore the meaning of the text which then leads to discovering its significance or relevance.

Exegesis sounds like a complicated concept that is best left in the hands of the experts. So let me use a different word- comprehension.

That’s right, exegesis is comprehension (all those years in English at school can now pay off).  The methods you use to read and understand other books are the same methods you employ here (with the help of the Holy Spirit).

Now I could finish the article there, but let me go over some of the basic in comprehending a text.

1.    What’s the form of the passage?

Why wouldn’t you believe that the trees of the field could lead our praise times at our 6.30pm service (Psalm 96:12)?

It’s because you have understood the form of the Psalm to be poetry.

Whenever you open any book, you determine if it is fiction or non-fiction. This shapes your approach to reading the text.

Identifying the form will determine how your reading (and guard against literalism).

2.    What is the meaning of individual words?

“He’s sick”

Now this could be a good or bad characteristic. It all depends on the understanding of the word “sick”. The meaning of the word comes from its’ use by the author. So if you had read earlier, “Did you see the sick move Ken did on his skateboard?”, you’d realise that sick has the meaning of admirable.

Understanding meaning of words from their context is important. For example, we often think the word “church” means “building” or “a Sunday service”. But if you look at the beginning of Paul’s letters, church refers to the people he is writing to. And in Acts 19:23-41 the word for church is translated as “assembly”.

We must make sure we don’t import our ideas into the words we read.

3.    Where does the passage fit in the book?

Are we at the beginning, middle of the end? How does this continue from what came before? How does add to what just read?

4.    Why was the book written?

In John 20:31 we are told “But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.”

That’s why He has written. He didn’t right to give a complete account of Jesus life. You may have wondered what happened to Lazarus or the blind man, but John isn’t interested in these details.

His aim is to help you believe that Jesus is the Christ.

That means we must read the Gospel of John to understand why he thinks Jesus is the Christ, what the Christ does and what it means to believe in Him.

This is important. It’s easy to read about the woman at the well and think, “How am I like her?”. WHO CARES HOW YOU ARE LIKE HER? John wants you to realise that the person who stands before her is the Messiah and she should follow Him.

5.    Where does this passage fit in the structure of the book?

Take Genesis and the genealogies (now there is a yawn if ever you needed one). Why are they there? Well, back in Genesis 3:15 God says, “And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel”

We’re looking for the serpent crusher. Now it could be anyone.

It could come from Lamech’s line in Genesis 4:23-26 (unlikely!), it looks like Noah in Genesis 5. Then there is the table of nations in Genesis 10.

But God makes promises to Abraham (Gen 12:1-3). Now that’s narrowed it down.

But Abraham doesn’t have any children and is 80 years old! When we finally meet his grandchildren, the chosen one Jacob is an absolute jerk! And then the one to whom Jacob’s family will bow (Joseph) is sold into slavery.

Genesis 3 sets the scene for what God will do in history. The rest of Genesis is watching, what appears against the odds, God restoring creation to a blessed situation.

How do you do exegesis? You use comprehension.

The more you read to comprehend, the more you’ll can get the hang of it.

Biblical Theology

Metanarratives are in vogue. You can see this in TV series such as 24, Lost or The Wire.
Here we see that there are unique episodes which are held together by a common theme.

This is how we ought to read the Bible. We open to a particular passage and understand it in it's context, but we then relate this to the theme of the Bible.

Now this is important. The writers of the Bible assume you are reading the rest of the Bible (notice the constant quoting of the Old Testament by Paul and how Joshua,Ruth and Esther begin with "and"). So how do we tie the whole together?

There are features that help see the unity of the Bible story
1) Jesus is the key
Luke 24:25-29 and 1 Peter 1:10-12 see that the different authors wrote about a single subject: the Christ and the salvation He would bring.
This means that our reading of the Bible is to understand God's plan of salvation and how Jesus achieves it. It also means that rather than reading the Bible to make a decision about jobs or money I read the Bible to determine how I can take part in the salvation that Jesus offers.

This of course means that we notice types (patterns) which provide us with insight into what the Christ will achieve. Hebrews 7-10 provides a good example of what I mean.

What I've said is pretty straight foward, but it then applies to our understanding of who God is and we have acted so that we need to be saved. So the book of Judges shows God providing a saviour in the form of a judge, but also the sinfulness of God's people (and need for salvation), the rule of God (even when it seems chaotic) and the difficulties that Israel will encounter in the Promised Land.

2) You build on what came before
Ezekiel is a bizarre book if you don't have an understanding of the glory of God being with His people (cf Exodus 19-30, 34, Leviticus, Psalm 46, 48). It is also bizarre that God just ups and leave Jerusalem unless you have read 1 & 2 Kings.
Again the first five books of the Bible are held together by God's blessing in creation and then promise of blessings to Abraham (Gen 1:26-28, 12:1-3). The question is- can God deliver on what He has promised to do (particularly with the people He is working with)

Each write builds on what was written before. So be aware of what books are before the one you are reading.

3) Realise the different eras
We must not only notice how it all ties together but how it is unique. Let me give a quick outline of different eras
Genesis 1-11- The patterns of how God designed the world and also the pattern of rebellion
Gen 12- Deut 34- The promise of restoration and the threats to this promise
Joshua-2 Samuel- Life in the land under the rule of God
1 Kings- Malachi- Desolation and hope of a new covenant in the last days
New Testament- The last days and the fulfillment of all things in the kingdom of God

Now, I have never lived in Palestine and I am not Jewish (nor am I 3000 years old). So when I open 1 Samuel as I currently am with my daughters I understand which era this belongs to and then how it point to the Christ.

4) Look at how the writers tie the Bible together
The great thing about all the quotations of the Old Testament in the New is that it gives you an insight into how to read it. For example, why is Cain's sacrifice unacceptable? Or why does Abraham appear so at ease with killing his son? The answer is given in Hebrews 11.

Sometimes we are not told the full significance of an event. It's only later that another writer brings out it's full significance to the story of the Bible as a whole.

Well, here is an outline of how to work at Biblical Theology.