Simon Biles is an amazing woman. She is powerful, charismatic, but still only human after all. After she pulled out of the event in the Olympics, much digital ink has been spilled. I grieve for her.

Last year, I had a car accident. A driver ran through a stop sign, came across to the far lane, and I couldn’t avoid him. He was convicted of “failure to yield.” His words were that he “looked down.” That’s a story for another day, including back pain for me, lessons learned about neck injuries and other things. It was a horrible accident, but fortunately my daughter and I lived to see another day.

What was unexpected was the panic attack. 2 months later, my family loaded up our van to move from Elk River Minnesota to Montreal, Canada where we would being serving our new ministry assignment. The stress of a move is always significant. This time, we would be pulling a trailer, moving a dog and cat, all during COVID. We were excited but also tired, emotional and overwhelmed.

Our day got a late start. I had documents that needed faxing and the locations weren’t open. Who needs a fax anyway? Heading out, we went through Wisconsin and started heading up towards the Upper Peninsula along the shores of Lake Michigan. We didn’t want to go through Chicago traffics so we decided to take the scenic route. If you’ve traveled with a family, you know trips take longer than expected. Night arrived long before we found our way to the hotel.

And I found myself driving deep in the woods of Wisconsin, pulling a trailer, responsible for my wife, my three wonderful kids, a dog and a cat. And suddenly, every side road became a danger. Every intersection hid an unseen vehicle that might fly out at any moment. My blood pressure is rising while writing this memory down. Trying not to concern the family, I didn’t tell them of my growing panic. I held on to the steering wheel and prayed for it to end. Mercifully it did, some 3 hours later.

I was shaken. I’m a grown man, have driven in some of the wildest cities in the world on both sides of the road. I’ve ridden my bike downtown through a European city (sorry mom, didn’t tell you.) I’ve bungee jumped, been charged by a gorilla and a herd of wild elephants. I have proof of all of these. But I never expected the panic attack. It was horrible, merciless, relentless and completely out of my control.

What is missed in the conversation is 2 things. What these gymnasts do is super dangerous. Who in their right mind does this kind of stuff? For those who say stuff like “if you can’t handle the heat,” well, I would invite you to try one of those flips. Just one. And i’ve been driving for 30 years with no accidents until I had one, an almost died. Ms. Biles gets it wrong and she is permanently injured, maybe dead.

The second is, what does it say about us as a nation that we lampoon someone because they fail our collective expectation. Strangely, we didn’t say that when she met the expectation.

I can understand, though I disagree, with political vitriol. But these kinds of attacks should remind us not of Simon Biles incredibly death defying, crazy skills. Rather, we should remember that there are things we still don’t understand about our minds and our emotions. And we should give grace. Because I sure needed it.

Coaching questions drawn from Chris Voss 

Never Split the difference

As a former FBI kidnapping negotiator, Chris Voss’s book “Never Split the Difference” is a great resource for business. But as I listened to it, it dawned on me that many of his ideas are firmly grounded in the best practices of amazing coaches. Here are some quick takeaways.

1 Coaches can apply the Mirror principle.

Simply put, to keep someone talking and opening up, all you have to do is…

Use Voss’s Jedi trick. Repeat the last 2-3 words of what the client says as a question. This simple technique is amazingly effective at getting someone to go deeper into their thought pattern.

2, Coaches hear the client say… you’re right.

Coaches know when a client says “you’re right” that you have moved from coaching to mentoring or directing because the coach has contributed, not drawn out information, 

A good “that’s right” comes from a good summary, without interpretation, of the argument made by the client.

3. Coaches never ask why….

“Why?” is a roadmap to counseling, not coaching. Why is subjective and can be altered with time.

4. Coaches sit with silence…

Silence is the coaches awkward tool. Most people do not enjoy silence and will enter the gap with new information, often self-revelatory.

5. Coaches avoid ego traps… 

“What do you think? You’ve got more experience than me.” Questions like these present ego-traps (my words, not Voss’s) to the coach to be able to assert their knowledge, experience and competency. A good coach recognizes this as a detour from the main issues. 

1.     Bad question: explain to me…

a.     Good questions.. explore that idea

2.     Bad question: why did you?

a.     Good question… tell the story about when you… 

As I sat and watched my home country turn upon itself in the last few months, my heart and my head have been, like many of you, asking “how could this happen?”

Many pundits have pointed digital fingers. Bad actors, fake news, real news called fake news, foreign influences, the list is long and varied. 

I would like to suggest the Algorithm. AI, or artificial intelligence.

As AI has progressed in computing power, conversations have begun among ethicists about what ethical and moral AI would look like. I would argue the conversation is functionally too late.

My kids are Avengers fans, and Age of Ultron is a disturbing look at when computer reach sentience (or come to life if you will), and then by choice do the math on humanity and decide to annihilate their creators. Perhaps this is in the future, but I would contend its already too late in other areas.

The one thing our nation and our world can agree on is that we are polarized. We have become binary in our opinions, and we all live in the “echo chamber” of said opinions. Search on google and the results will return the echo chamber of your own opinion. Check your social feed, and find the echo chamber of your own beliefs. How did this happen? The AI, the algorithm, the code is written this way because on a moral assumption. That assumption is that people want to hear their own opionions and those who do hear their own opinions are more likely to purchase what advertisers are selling. Seems like a perverse logic, doesn’t it?

And we become more and more binary, black and white, us vs. them, survivalists. To the winners the spoils. To the losers, reparations and payback. Wait, didn’t they try that until WWI? Weren’t the seeds of WWII sown in the payback model of WW1? But I digress.

Should we be surprised? When building these supposedly all powerful algorithms, we coded for binary. That is how the actual physics of the machines work. On, off, on, off. A billion times a second. However, these are ultimately commercial enterprises, and  engineers put in lines of code that operate out of a system that seeks to maximize profits. Here is where I believe the immoral part came in. Systems that create echo chambers and view users not as consumers but rather the products to be sold, for, as Seth Godin so elaborately expands, we are the product, we are the data that is sold to the companies to whom we are the consumers. These systems are maximized for profit, not for the good of society. 

But a moral AI, a moral algorithm can take into account the need we have for diverse opinion. The need we have for humanizing the other side. A search can be customized not only to show favorite results, but unexpected. Or what if every google search not only revealed adds and search results, but non-profits doing good?

I am a deeply opinionated person. I have a strong worldview and an uncompromising faith in a few things. One of those beliefs is I am deeply convinced in the dignity of each person. You are far more complex than your single opinion on any given issue. Yet our world is being built not by informed opinions of elders who have walked for generations. Our world is not being shaped by considerate voices but rather technical giants who are still developing their moral compass as young people. Their funding? That comes from people who have already decided what they believe.

My kids are awesome but they simply do not have the reasoning skills to deduce the implications of their moral decisions. Does it make sense to have them coding our lives, turning us into lines of data to be sold across platforms to maximize the profits of media/marketing giants?

What then is the solution?

I would like to suggest coding for conscientious culture creation. What does that mean? That those who write the algorithms that run our lives be given mentors, elders, and coaches. They be given lessons on the impact of their coding on the daily lives of the data creators, their moms, their dads, their families.  Young adults have the malleability to learn the code and write the future. Who could have helped them deduce that their decisions 10 years ago about how to answer searches and find friends would get us here?

Because the future is here, and its’ very binary. If our future is going to be more nuanced, we need to code for it. 

I hadn’t blogged in a few weeks, when I had an idea and opened my WordPress interface to post my new thoughts. Low and behold, a whole slew of new comments were waiting for approval. Excitement surged until I saw that most of them were from one person. They all started fairly amicably enough, the commenter used my first name. But I noticed a pattern after 2 of them. They were all negative. Nit picking. Nuance seeking.

If you read any kind of thought blog or opinion blog, or list blog, you agree with some, hate some, and forget 99% of what you read. The best you can hope for is “interesting thoughts.”

But I when I recently read “ignore all negative comments” I wondered, was that too far? Was I being too thin skinned? But I realized that my feed, my blog, my comments are mine.  I have enough acquaintances and family that can help correct me. Constructive criticism almost never is. Its merely destructive. Criticism takes a piggy back ride on the work and efforts of others. It should only be received in the context of relationship from someone who is alongside in the trenches, trying to make the world a better place.

Not someone who trolls your blog to tell you how wrong you are.

So turn off the comments. Delete them. If the person really wants to give you constructive feedback, they’ll call you or email you personally.

Oh wait, they can’t because they don’t have either of those.

1. Zoom/Conference Call/youtube/facebook live recorded Bible Studies so that people continue to learn (especially while they may have more time and self-quarantining.) Dig deep into the scriptures. Take the time you don’t normally have to do an in depth Bible study.
2. Call the older people in your church and make sure they understand the HOW TO of connecting with technology. Can they find your live feed? Do they understand how to access the resources you are providing? Connect them with a teenager to be their “technology buddy.”
3. Individually call everyone in your congregation or has dropped a kid off at your church (assuming they need to register their name, phone, address, etc. to be in childcare). See how they are doing and how you can pray for them. Invite them to join your social media, youtube, zoom calls, etc.
4. Contact local nursing homes/hospitals/care facilities to see if you may speak to those who are living there. They likely have limited interaction with others there and their family because many of them are locked down due to many of them being high risk. A call, encouragement and prayer may go a long way. See when you can call them again to pray with them.
5. Offer to pick up groceries or other needs for people who cannot leave their homes. Have those individuals pay you the cost of the groceries/needs. This could be offered to families staying at home, at-risk individuals,
6. Use your social media channels to share ideas of what those you speak with are using to keep busy, sane, useful while in this season. Maybe have a games/puzzle exchange – drop off and pick up at the church, sidewalk chalk to help keep the kids active,
7. Utilize facebook ads to reach people who may be in need in your local community. Invite them to request help from your church, join in on zoom calls/conference calls/video/social media/etc. So that they received words of encouragement and don’t feel alone.
8. Idea sharing of what people are doing to entertain their kids. Simple games, entertainment, shows, arts and crafts, getting outside, etc. Post those ideas on your social media or record videos with those ideas – give credit to those who submitted the ideas. Add the ideas to your website, link from social media to that page. If more advanced, show video or still pictures of those ideas in practice. Additional opportunity, have designs on paper that people can cut out with the words of “thank you” “you rock!” “you are not alone” “in this together” and other encouraging words. You can also include the ability for your church name to be cut-out and chalked.
9. Hear and share how people are seeing God move, answers to prayers. Give people encouragement that in what may feel overwhelming, how is God moving and showing himself as greater than this (He’s greater than all things).
10. Let the community and your congregants share with you via social media or text messaging or email their prayer needs. Maybe even offer up corporate prayer time for others that want to join you on a conference call to pray over the requests for the day(s).
11. Drive by– parking lot prayers– sidewalk visitation (depending on stay at home or social distrancing orders locally)

1. Use your congregation leadership to help reach out to people. Focus on empowering leaderhsip, not on doing the ministry. BE Ephesians 5. There’s no need to do all of this yourself. Use your team. If you want to build your team, now is a great time to ask people to step up to help with some of these things. Engaged congregations are happier congregations and more impactful. They also tend to give and tithe more.
2. Are there homeless, single parents or others around town who may need help? Talk to the local police/politicians/fire/ambulance/hospitals to see what you can do or supplies that can be provided. Food delivery services are becoming very busy (think Meals on Wheels). If supplies are needed and your congregation can help, help them out. You could also provide a meal to the fire/nurses/drs/etc. as a way to thank them for their work.
3. Use facebook ads or door to door flyers to drop on people’s doors asking them if/how they need help or prayer and how to reach you or someone at the church. Maybe park a car with a sign that if someone needs help or prayer to contact you if you don’t want to go door to door.
4. Encourage and support local businesses so they can continue to have business/revenue. Maybe even have a way for people to put in orders and the church can deliver those meals to people in the congregation or in need.
5. If there are people who are truly at risk of losing their homes, apartments, etc. because of the job shut down, raising funds to help those people through or decreasing other costs (gift cards, food, electric/gas bills, etc.).
6. Do you have preferred children’s programming (youtube channels, large church websites, etc.) you like that you can recommend to parents so that they aren’t having their kids watch movies or TV. If someone doesn’t have the internet but has Veggie Tales DVDs/VHS they are willing to let others use, that may be a great way to share.
7. Wheaton College’s Humanitarian Disaster Institute has prepared an excellent strategic guide: “Preparing Your Church for Coronavirus (COVID-19): A Step-by-Step, Research-Informed and Faith-Based Planning Manual.” It’s a good resource beyond what is written here.
8. Post your recorded sermons online (facebook, youtube, etc.) online so that people can binge watch your sermons/teachings. If you don’t have them, offer up other sermons you like to help people stay engaged and encouraged. Or record some of your past sermons and post them online.
9. Send a note/postcard/letter to your congregation. Mail can be very nice to get when you are stuck inside. Encourage them. Thank them for being part of the church. Let them know how they can engage and be more engaged.
10. Post songs/youtube videos of songs that encourage and strengthen you. Let them watch and respond to the song via social media.
11. Encourage people to get out for walks and exercise. Share what they saw/heard while out there.
12. Provide daily, weekly prayer lists for what people can be praying for – i.e. local, state, national leadership, healing for people, to reach the lost, missions efforts, businesses to stay in business, rain and sun for farms, nurses, doctors, police, teachers, kids in schools, etc. If you can name specific people in the community, add those names to the prayer list. Include people in the congregation for prayer time – just that you are praying for them (not specific prayer needs unless they asked for them and want you to share.
13. Have children of your congregation visit other congregates and write chalk messages on their driveways/sidewalks with encouraging words. This can also be done for many other people in the neighborhoods.
14. Design a “Thank you!” that people can put in their windows to thank those driving by, their postal carrier, etc. Add your church logo to the design.
15. Have a “hang out” time, with coffee or tea. Do an open “Zoom” or Google Hangout room, and tell people that the leaders will be there. Have it a “come and go” situation.
16. Daily competitions: do a daily art challenge, clothing design, short story competition? run all sorts of daily competitions.
17. Memories of our elders: ask the older people in your church to share their best testimony. They can call it in to the church, or post it on facebook.
18. Neighborhood “bear hunt” for kids. People can put teddy bears in their windows and as people go for walks with kids they can be doing a bear hunt to keep the kids engaged and wanting to walk/bike further. It’s a reason to get out if people are going for walks/exercise.
19. Have staff members call not just adult members but talk to the children. Sunday school teachers call their kids, youth workers call young people.

Thanks Tom!

What are other things you are seeing people do?