Thurlowe Gingerich

Thurlowe Gingerich

I spent some time with my 83 year old father over the holidays. He was asking me a bunch of questions about how to better use the iPhone he bought last year. He thought he was bothering me by asking so many questions but I saw it as a blessing to have a dad who still wants to learn and grow in his later years.

The desire to grow is a wonderful aspiration. I get a bit annoyed inside when I hear someone say, “I’m too old to learn that” or “I know everything I need to know at this point in my life.” Really?

The desire to grow is an enormous benefit. We know that growth increases our sense of joy and contentment. It increases our self-confidence and sharpens decision-making.  And it produces a depth of wisdom and understanding that impact the quality of our relationships.  With all these benefits, who wouldn’t want to grow?

GrowingThe problem usually isn’t the lack of desire for growth. It’s more often the lack of discipline.  So often, people don’t grow until they are forced to by tragedy, loss or pressure. They lose a job, a spouse dies, or they feel the pressure of younger leaders moving past them in their career, so they push themselves to grow and try something new.

When life is going along smoothly, it’s easy to put our personal development on hold.  The truth is, growth always requires surrender and sacrifice.  If I want to grow as a leader, I must sacrifice having an abundance of leisure time for the sake of having adequate learning time.  If I want to grow in my marriage, I have to push myself to listen better, care deeper, and communicate more intentionally. If I want to grow in my relationship with God, I must surrender the will of my flesh to pursue the desires of the Spirit. When I refuse to surrender or sacrifice I won’t have the margin to grow to my greatest potential.

Still Learning2King Solomon implies that growth is never free.  He wrote in Proverbs 23:23, “Buy… wisdom, instruction and understanding.”  We must always exchange something we value for wisdom, instruction and understanding. Growth will always cost you: time, money, energy, pain or greater humility.  And the crazy thing is, when you pay the price, you value it even more.

 

QUESTION: What is one area of your life you plan to pursue growth in? Share it in the Comment section.  Thanks!

 

 

Linda, my wife, was recently going through a coaching workbook she had been reading a few years ago and noticed her hand-written note in the margin, “I have been so used to being the ‘fed leader,’ now I am the ‘lead feeder.’” A second note in the margin read, “Ada, your death…has caused us to rise up.”

Ada with roseAda Hostetler was a mentor and coach to my wife. Beginning as Linda’s cabin counselor at age 12 while at summer camp near Kidron, Ohio, Ada invested in Linda’s success as a girl, and later as a young woman, a mother and a leader. Some 43 years, later when my wife was 55, Ada ended her life-to-life investment in Linda at age 90. The final 23 years, they served alongside each other in ministry together as core members of a church plant in Cape Coral, FL.Dennis Linda Tony Ada

Ada invested in many young girls and women over the years because she was a true coach—an expert at helping others shine. Her personal success was found in releasing others to succeed. At Ada’s death, Linda realized that she was now called to be more than a leader who was looking for the next feeding and coaching experience from the older generation. Linda recognized her role as a 50 something adult was to now be a leader who feeds others who are in the generation below her.

Ada Xmas DayNow my wife is empowering the lives of young women in their 20’s and 30’s to succeed as moms, wives and leaders. She’s finding joy in helping others succeed. Linda’s taking all the things she learned from Ada and inspiring the next generation to transformissonal living.

The Bible is full of stories that describe what happens when a coach or mentor speaks into the lives of ordinary people, devoting time especially to those who show leadership potential. The short list includes: Moses with Joshua; Jesus with Peter; Barnabas with Paul; and Paul with Timothy.

You have something to offer the generation under you. You just need to have a mindset of fostering development and growth in the generation after you. I know some older folks who only lament or criticize the lack of certain values in the younger generation. Instead, what if every one of us made an effort to pour into one or more persons from a generation or two below us? We might just change our world, one life at a time. Maybe it’s time to become the lead feeder and not just the fed leader.

 

QUESTION: What are some ways you are investing in the next generation? Please share in the Comment section below. Thanks!

 

Limited edition cars, clothes and paintings are popular. When you have the limited edition, you feel special. You have something extraordinary. Something few others have. It’s distinctive. And you feel, maybe just a little superior.

Limited EditionI remember spending time in a Thomas Kinkade gallery that was managed by a friend. I learned a lot about limited edition paintings and prints. I learned they are numbered. The fewer for sale, the higher the price.

Time is one of those things that should be seen as a limited edition model. There is a finite amount of it. You can’t make more of it. There are only 60 seconds in a minute, 60 minutes in an hour, 24 hours in a day. The fact that time is limited, makes it incredibly valuable.

KinkadeWhile you can’t create more time, you can make choices about what you do with the time allotted to you each day. You can use it well. You can use it poorly. You can maximize it or waste it.

What will you do with your time today? What will you do with the 168 hours you have been granted this week? You have something extraordinary. It’s precious. It’s irreplaceable. It is the ultimate limited edition. How will you invest it?

 

QUESTION: What is one thing you want to spend more time doing this week? Share it in the Comment section below.

 

When I walk through a cemetery, the most important thing on a gravestone is not the dates of birth and death. Forget the two dates. Just concentrate on the space between the two—usually a dash. What does that dash represent? What happened there? What did that life contribute? After the second date formed the final bookend of that person’s time on this earth, what was left behind?

GravestoneIn The Janitor, the book I’ve been reflecting on the past few posts, Bob (the Janitor) was in the hospital and very ill when he whispered to Roger (the CEO), “It’s not the number of years, but what you do with them that counts.” In other words, it doesn’t matter if you live 20 or 90 years. What matters is how you fill the space between the dates on your gravestone.

The sixth and final axiom that Bob’s wife Alice had passed on to him before her death was simple: “Leave a Legacy.” All of us want to be known for what we left behind more than what we took from the past. Will you leave more value behind you than what you’ve sucked up while on this earth?

Have you had one of those amazing days when you were incredibly busy, going fast and hard all day yet so much was accomplished? At nighttime you take a shower and get ready for bed and all the memories of the wonderful day are flashing through your memory. Your body is tired and exhausted but you know your rest is coming. You know that indescribable feeling of well-being, right?legacy word in vintage wood type

That’s exactly how I think it will feel when we have fulfilled our legacy. We may not have a lot of energy left, we may be tired, but we are ready. Exhausted and happy at the same time. Spent and fulfilled all at once. Leaving a legacy behind.

What you are filling your days with right now is what you will be remembered for in the future. The choices you make today will determine the legacy you will leave tomorrow. Are you leaving the kind of legacy that you want to leave? If not, what is one thing you can change today?

 

QUESTION:  What is one thing you want to be remembered for? Please allow us to be encouraged by your story so share it in the Comment section below. Thanks!

 

 

 

For decades, I’ve chosen to use the term “invest” instead of “spend.” I originally started to use the terminology of investing when I was contemplating advertising our newly-launched church in the community through youth soccer team sponsorships, direct mail and signs on the Little League field. Sometimes people looked puzzled and would ask, isn’t that an expense?

Invest

In The Janitor, a book I recently read, the fifth life-axiom shared is “Don’t spend; invest!” While we tend to think of spending and investing as a financial matter, it really relates to what I call the “Triple T” (time, talent and treasure).  We must evaluate all our activities in life as either an investment or an expense.

Here’s an exercise: Try hitting the pause button and taking the time to reflect on your activity and the brain time that you are currently putting into a task or decision. Now try to fast-forward the activity a bit to imagine and visualize where your work (and maybe your stress) is heading. Finally, ask yourself whether the outcome has any significance. You can even take it a step further and ask yourself whether the upshot you are envisioning could have any eternal significance.

Invest2Your answers to this little exercise will tell you whether you are spending or investing. In the book, Bob explains it to Roger this way, “It is easy to tell the difference. Usually when we are focused on our own agendas, we are spending. We spend our time, money, talent, and so forth. But when we are focused on our God-given purpose, we are investing” (Chpt 12).

It helped me over the year’s to simply stop and ask myself these kinds of questions when I’m caught up in the busyness of life.  Does the outcome of my activity help fulfill the purpose that God created me for? Does it have any eternally significant impact on someone else? This question isn’t just for pastors like me. Everyone has a purpose. Everyone can make an eternal impact. Our biggest challenge in life is to try to understand and fulfill that purpose. How are you doing with your investments?

 

QUESTION: What is one investment you’ve made?  I would love to hear about it in the Comment section below.

 

 

I know, a few of you may remember this title as a song by the 1990’s group, the Kottonmouth Kings, who are describing stoned friends passing around a marijuana joint. For sure, that’s not at all related to this post. Over the last days, I’ve been highlighting six life proverbs from “The Janitor,” a short impactful book by Todd Hopkins and Ray Hilbert.

BatonBob (the Janitor) shares with Roger (the CEO) that a key to successful leadership is to pass on what you have learned. The best way to learn is to teach. The best way to empower is to give away. Benjamin Franklin said, “Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn.”

Pass it onRoger discovered that when he passed on what he learned from Bob to his neighbor Andrew, a budding entrepreneur, he became aware that he rose above his own problems and actually discovered new answers to his own questions.

 

Pass itI’ve learned in my leadership journey that passing it around is a source of great joy. Even more than getting credit for what I do, seeing those I’ve mentored get acknowledged in their success is deeply gratifying. Pass it on. Give it away. Invest in others. It’s the most rewarding kind of leadership.

 

QUESTION: What is the greatest joy you’ve had in passing “it” around? Please share in the comment section below.

 

 

I’ll never forget the day I was in Selma, Alabama on the 39th remembrance of “Bloody Sunday.” It was March 2005. It was a sobering time for me. I was the lightest-skinned person in a crowd that mingled at the foot of the Edmund Pettus Bridge where state and local lawmen drove back civil rights marchers with billy clubs and tear gas when they attempted to march to the capitol in Montgomery to seek voting rights for African Americans.

 Edmond Pettus Bridge

Alabama 040I had just spent four days in nearby Montgomery attending a conference. On the plane ride to Alabama, I read my friend Arnold Gibbs‘ gripping fiction, The Ties That Blind, of his own near-to-real-life journey through bigotry and racism. During open times in the conference schedule, I drove to the significant sites of the Civil Rights movement led by Martin Luther King, Jr.  I was poingnantly moved by the epic bygone happenings at each location. History reveals, those risk-taking demonstrations eventually shook the conscience of our nation and President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act of 1965.


Alabama 095I grew up in rural Oregon
, attending a 3-room K-8 grade school. Our family didn’t have a television. I was surrounded entirely by white people except for a few seasonal farm-laborers from Mexico. I didn’t know any African Americans until after I graduated high school. From the northwest area of the United States, I knew very little about what was going on in the opposite corner.

I met my wife during our first year in college and learned her experience was the reverse of mine. She grew up as the minority white girl in inner-city Youngstown, Ohio. Most of her classmates and friends were African-American. She remembers the schools shutting down due to racial tension. In our early years of dating, I was on the fast-track of learning our nation’s embarrassing history as I visited her community and met her friends. For the first time, I realized just how sheltered I had been from the nauseating evils that had occurred in our nation’s journey to freedom for all people.

MLKJrSo on this Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, and the day of the second inauguration of our African-American President, I’m grateful for leaders who paid a huge price to pave the way for the generations behind them. While the journey has been long and grueling and we still have a distance to travel, we have made progress. And, this is a memorable day.

QUESTION: Any reflections you care to share? Use the comment section below.

 

Things don’t always turn out as we plan. Health, finances, relationships, careers and our kids don’t always follow the script we’ve written for them. We always have choices. We can complain to anyone who will listen. We can point fingers of blame toward everyone around us. We can get angry at God. We can mope. We can pout.

Praying Hands

Are there other options? Of course! Alice’s third directive to her husband Bob who passed it on to Roger was simply, Pray; don’t pout. In case you didn’t know, I’m referring back to the recent winner of a book I read, The Janitor, by Todd Hopkins and Ray Hilbert. Bob (the Janitor) regularly passed on to Roger (the CEO) in their weekly evening interactions, six axioms or directives that his late wife Alice shared with him during the time he used to lead a company during his younger years. The first principle was about Recharge vs. Discharge and the second was about Family—Blessing or Responsibility?  This one is about choosing either to pray or to default to pouting.

Maybe you don’t know what to pray or how to pray when things start to unravel. The beauty of prayer is that God already knows your situation. He even knows what tomorrow holds. He is just waiting for you to let Him help you. So, you can just talk to Him and ask Him to give you clear insight into the challenges you are having at work, at home, in your relationships, or in your personal life.

Passion for LifeI love King Solomon’s prayer found in the Hebrew Bible. His father David, a legendary king in Israel’s history, had just died and Solomon was feeling totally inadequate to fill his shoes. Here’s some snippets of how Solomon prayed, “Now, O Lord my God, you have made me king instead of my father, David, but I am like a little child who doesn’t know his way around…Give me an understanding heart so that I can govern your people well and know the difference between right and wrong. For who by himself is able to govern this great people of yours?” (1 Kings 3:7-9).

Listen to God’s response to this humble prayer for wisdom: The Lord was pleased that Solomon had asked for wisdom. So God replied, ‘Because you have asked for wisdom in governing my people with justice and have not asked for a long life or wealth or the death of your enemies—I will give you what you asked for! I will give you a wise and understanding heart such as no one else has had or ever will have! And I will also give you what you did not ask for—riches and fame! No other king in all the world will be compared to you for the rest of your life!'” (1 Kings 3:7-13).

God still answers that same type of prayer. You will never go wrong asking for wisdom and discernment. When your plate is full and life is overwhelming, God can make all the difference in the world. Whatever you may be facing in your life today—pray; don’t pout.

 

QUESTION: What is one thing you will pray about today? If you don’t mind, share it with our readers in the Comment section below. Thanks!

 

I’ve heard plenty of men say, “My family is my responsibility. The main reason I work is to put food on the table and a roof over their heads.” Have you ever heard anyone say that? Have you ever said it? In my recent encounter with Todd Hopkins and Ray Hilbert’s book, The Janitor, I was reminded that my upbringing thankfully helped me to see my family as much more than a responsibility.

Gingerich Family

In the book, The Janitor, former business leader Bob is now the part-time janitor in the evenings at the company led by Roger, the CEO. Their weekly encounters bring transformation to Roger as Bob shares some poignant axioms that his late wife Alice taught him. The second directive that Roger received through Bob—View family as a blessing, not a responsibility.  Roger was in the middle of a disintegrating marriage and a disconnection from his two young children. He paid attention to this advice from his janitor who was fast becoming a mentor.

Very simple. If you view your family as a blessing, not a responsibility, you can experience joy with your family. Then you are able to experience your work in a fresh and free way—free from viewing it as slave work to provide for home.  You actually become free to uncover your real purpose for work.

If you view family the other way around, this mind-set leads to several problems. It becomes hard to enjoy work because work becomes a necessary evil to meet the burden of responsibility at home. If the purpose of work is defined as providing for home life, then it becomes hard to enjoy either work or home. So when work is miserable, naturally it is home’s fault.

Now, be honest. Which view most closely resembles your default thinking? Have you viewed your family as a responsibility or a blessing? What is one step you will take today to make needed adjustments?

 

QUESTION: Did you receive any advice that has helped you to see your family as a blessing? Please pass it on it in the Comment section below. Thanks!

 

 

“A burned up brain won’t start.” Pardon? Yep! That’s what Alice told Bob, “A burned up brain won’t start.” You see, Bob is the night-time janitor in a large company that cleans the CEO’s office. Alice was Bob’s late wife. Bob was telling Roger, the CEO of the company, that Alice use to tell him, “a burned up brain won’t start.” What does that mean?

Battery ChargerThe book I read on the plane ride back from Oregon last week was The Janitor, by Todd Hopkins and Ray Hilbert. It’s a delightful quick read about six directives that Alice passed on to her husband Bob during his career life as a business leader. Now semi-retired, Bob encounters Roger at night in his office, totally stressed, over-worked, exhausted, losing touch with himself and his family. So Bob and the CEO started to meet every Monday night for a few minutes and Bob passed on to Roger the wisdom that Alice had imparted to him before she died. That’s the setting of this enjoyable and helpful book.

Alice’s axiom, “a burned up brain won’t start,” is a simple truth. If you only do things that use up your physical, emotional and spiritual resources, you will be empty and dry. So, the first directive that Bob revealed to Roger was the principle of Recharge vs. Discharge. Are you aware of the things that charge you and the things that discharge you? What energizes you? What de-engergizes you?

Burned Out BrainThink for a moment of all the things you are involved in. Which ones fill you up and which ones drain you? Can you identify the activities in you job or your daily undertakings that recharge your batteries? Can you name the people that inspire you and the ones who discourage you? Maybe just being around people drains you or fills you—depending on your personality. Do you know which recreational activities make you come alive and which ones exhaust you?

Burn OutCall it leisure, call it “me” time, call it creative time, call it a hobby. The truth is, we each need to have something that recharges us regularly. If you keep pouring out energy you will deplete your battery reserves and eventually burn out. A burned up brain won’t start.

And don’t forget, what someone else considers fun might feel like work to you. You have to find what revitalizes you—physically, emotionally, relationally and spiritually. Certain kinds of devotional activities recharge others spiritually and other kinds recharge me. I meet with a group of local pastors every Monday that energize me in multiple ways. I’ve discovered that photography recharges me. I’ve even found a way to finance my hobby and be a visual inspiration to others through my website.Brain

Life is too short to spend all your time doing things that discharge you. I love the fact that many of the things I get to do in my ministry career recharge me. But, some things do drain me so I’ve learned to divert daily, withdraw weekly and abandon annually to keep my life in balance. How are you doing?

 

QUESTION: What is one thing that recharges you? Please share it in the Comment section below. Thanks!