Church Leadership Conference

One of the reasons that I haven't posted anything lately is that I've been preparing a presentation. I have the priveledge this fall to have been asked to lead a break-out session for the Church Leadership Conference being organized and led by the Southern Baptist of Texas Convention (our state's collection of churches, the SBTC). I prepared and led a discussion on Effective Web Sites geared primarily at churches.

The Leadership conference is being held in three locations -- Euless (between Dallas and Fort Worth), Spring (north of Houston), and Tyler. The Conference locations and dates are as follows:

• Euless was held last Saturday, September 9th,
  
• Spring is on Saturday, September 23rd, and
  
• Tyler is on Saturday, October 7th.

If you are interested in more details, feel free to check out the press release or the accompanying Web content on the Conventions site.

The first conference was tons of fun and I had a good turnout at the sessions (3 sessions per conference). As is usually the case, my first presentation was the worst and my third run-through was the best. The SBTC recorded the sessions and they are planning to have the audio files available for download on the Conference Web site at some point (of course the taping was of the first session!). I am planning on looking into a file service so that I can share my presentation slides through this blog and I will link to the SBTC site once they get the audio available.

Katrina - Evacuation Strategies

One thing that was very interesting was how the families evacuated. We primarily worked with two large family groups, one of which was much bigger than the other. The smaller family group had around 14 family members who evacuated at once and the larger group had well over 30. The widespread understanding among everyone was that they were getting out of the city for 2-3 days and then were coming back home.

The smaller family group seemed to sense that it might be longer than that. Their evacuation plan was basically to take as many vehicles as they could and stuff them with important items before leaving town. The larger family group's plan was that the people were the most important thing and they all piled into as few vehicles as possible and got the heck out of there.

Needless to say that in the long run, the smaller family with more items, more documentation, and more vehicles ended up adjusting easier than the larger family who had fewer material possessions.

Not everyone in our group got to ride in a car out of the city. One gentleman in our group went to help some of his older family members evacuate and got stuck in the city through the storm. He woke up the next day and mistakenly thought that the worst had already passed. He remembers walking down the hall of the house and hearing what sounded like a stampede. He looked out the window and all he saw was water coming from the direction of the levy. He ran to the kitchen and grabbed a loaf of bread and a jug of water and made it into the attic while the water was rising in his house. He finally made it to the Superdome and found some other family members there.

One lady joined our group when she ended up in the same general Superdome area as other members of the large family. She was alone and trying to sleep when one of the men came over to her and told her to get into their circle. You see, the men of the family were sleeping surrounding the ladies to protect them. Truly a horrible place with rampant crime, little food and water, false rumors being spread, and sick/dying/dead people just left in place.

Let me say that we love the people so much that God put in our path! Our lives have truly been touched and we have been changed for the better by knowing and befriending such great people. We watched the news from time to time amazed at some of the horrible things that were done and horrible attitudes displayed by some of the evacuees across the country. Yes, of course, we had a few individuals who needed the occasional "attitude adjustment." Our mindset was who wouldn't need a little adjustment after all that they had gone through. What great people we were privileged to serve!

Katrina - from the Motel to the Apartments

So, we committed to coordinating. What do we do now?

The first goal was to get to know the families and get them into the apartments and out of the motel. The majority of the evacuees signed their contracts with the complex within a few days but we realized that they couldn't really move into apartments with no furnishings -- no bed, no chairs, no nothing! The bedding seemed to be the highest priority. We had a lead from our church's newly formed network (see previous post) on some beds that were purchased in bulk and our church was promised an allocation of those beds. To make a long story short, several days went by with no sign of those beds and we made a decision to just move forward on our own.

It was a good thing that we did since the "beds" turned out (a week and a half later) to be futon mattresses with no frames. That would have been a big disappointment. However, we took money that was donated to our church for the relief effort, along with other money we could find, and purchased a bunch of beds (frames, box springs, and mattresses). I don't think that we ever made a spreadsheet so I don't know how many but they had to deliver them with 2 trucks that were full. We bought them on Saturday and determined that if we were going to get help with this it would need to be on a weekend. By the way, the company we bought the beds from is called Sleep Experts, a local family owned business -- thanks guys!

We decided to fast track this and get it done the next day. We talked Sleep Experts into it and asked for a specific time since this would require lots of coordination. Then, we put the word out that Sunday afternoon we needed all hands on deck including the evacuees to let us into the apartments to put the beds down. We made phone calls, sent e-mails, everything to get the word out. We made announcements on the stage in front of the whole church about the afternoon. The other challenging aspect of all this (which I didn't think of until Sunday morning) was the Dallas Cowboys were playing a 3:00 game which was exactly the time we had the mattress delivery! The turnout at the apartment complex though was totally amazing -- there were people from our congregation everywhere I turned!

After buying the mattresses on Saturday, Heather and I also worked hard to ensure that every evacuee family had a church family or Bible study class matched with them since this would be the perfect opportunity to start to build that relationship. We were still down a few church families heading into Sunday morning but our cry from the pulpit was effective and that afternoon we were able to match up everyone to my recollection. We really prayed over the match-ups especially since we did not know the evacuee families that well yet. The Lord answered our prayers in many ways. The vast majority of the families worked very well together and many are still friends to this day and keep in regular contact. In one pairing, both families had twin girls of a similar age. What are the odds of that? Just God.

After getting the mattresses moved in, we really challenged the sponsor families (the church members) to take the lead to get the apartments of their evacuee family furnished enough to move in. We gave them resource lists to find things and allowed the evacuees and our sponsor families to go through all of the donated items that we had in the apartment clubhouse. We had lots of "little things" like bedding, blankets, clothes, shoes, toys, etc. We relied on our network and the network of our sponsor families to find the big items like couches, dining tables, etc.! The amazing thing is that by the end of that week, the majority of the apartments were move-in ready! Can you believe that -- from nothing to fully furnished in one week!

Next Katrina post . . . Evacuation Strategies

Places to Live

I got an e-mail from a friend with this interesting Web site called Find Your Spot. It basically asks you a bunch of questions and tries to gauge the best places for you to live. Here are the top 6 recommendations for me:
Knoxville, Tennessee
Norfolk, Virginia
Nashville, Tennessee
Jacksonville, Florida
Greenville, South Carolina
Charleston, South Carolina

Others in the list (in order but I removed some from the list):
Asheville, North Carolina
Tulsa, Oklahoma
Charlotte, North Carolina
Tallahassee, Florida
Hampton, Virginia
Memphis, Tennessee
Lexington, Kentucky
Louisville, Kentucky
Orlando, Florida
Durham, North Carolina

Katrina - Our Response

After the Wal-Mart run and drop off for our first evacuee family (mentioned earlier), we went home and felt a little better that we had done something tangible to help those in need. So . . . why did I still feel restless? Why did I still feel like I couldn't mark that task completed?

In the meantime during that first week and a half, our Pastor and others in our church were coordinating with other local congregations and charities. Together they found many, many evacuees in our area that needed help. Working together across theological and denominational lines, they formed a very organized and effective consortium. Some churches stepped up and donated warehouse space to store food in one location and furniture and house wares in another location. Some churches short on funds and physical buildings offered their manpower to staff these facilities by sorting and distributing the goods. Some churches that were blessed financially started buying what was needed. Some churches blessed with the skills started working on resource lists, basic intake forms, counseling centers, job training and staffing locations, and on and on. Some churches like ours also offered to be a "host church" to take a group or several groups of evacuees under our wing long-term and partner with them through this ordeal.

When my wife and I heard about this long-term "host church" type of arrangement, we began to pray about how we should be involved. We learned that our church had agreed to "host" a group of evacuees and they were looking for families or Bible study classes to sign up to work with individual families of evacuees. My Pastor called and asked what role we might play in this relief effort. Our family discussed what a commitment like that would take and how it would affect our lives and busy fall schedule. We had a little baby, a 4 year old, and a 1st grader. We had no idea what "long-term" meant or exactly what would be required of us and no one could answer those questions. We called some friends of ours who also felt like the responsibility of hosting a whole family of evacuees by themselves would be a little overwhelming. So, both of our families agreed to share the responsibility of helping one single family of evacuees. It felt good to e-mail our Pastor and let him know that we were stepping up to the challenge and were willing to help by being personally involved in a long-term commitment with an evacuee family.

After a few days, we learned that one group of evacuees that our church had accepted responsibility for was a large group currently staying in a hotel. Someone working with them had found an apartment complex that was willing to allow them to move in on a temporary basis and sign short-term leases.

Throughout this time period, it seemed like we received many calls and e-mails from people asking about what to do and where to take items that they had gathered. My wife is a natural at this sort of thing and when we didn't know an answer to a question, she would find out and pass the word along. Not knowing what our evacuee family would really need, we decided to go ahead and start gathering things and working our contacts of friends and associates. Pretty soon, I couldn't park my car in the garage anymore it was piled full of stuff!

Finally, we got a call that we could take the items that we had gathered to a central spot for the evacuees that we would end up hosting as a church. We were told that the apartment complex had offered some storage space on their property even though the evacuees had not signed their contracts yet. At the complex, we mostly just organized our items in the storage area. There were lots of people from our church bringing lots of different items including food, water, bedding, pillows, blankets, towels, you name it and we had it. Just as it happened over the last several days, for some reason people asked my wife and I a few questions and we helped direct traffic a little.

Talking with some of the church staff that were there at the apartment complex, I learned that our church had actually agreed to "host" about 3-4 different groups of evacuees and others in the church had already started meeting the needs of some of the other groups. However, this group of evacuees was perhaps the largest group and the closest group in proximity to the church. Our Pastor said that he had been able to recruit one point person or one family to coordinate the other groups but had been unable to find anyone to coordinate this group who would soon move into the apartment complex. He asked me if our family would be willing to coordinate. Thinking back to the discussions that my wife and I had in trying to decide what we were able to realistically do AND knowing that the results of those discussions ended in us deciding to share the responsibility of hosting one evacuee family, I told my Pastor that "Oh no, we just can't coordinate all this besides we don't know how to do that. But, we are willing to host one family."

As my wife and I drove home from the apartment complex, I just felt strange. Restless. Anxious. Unfinished. I started thinking about the past few days. I was reminded of a time the day before when my wife had made a good decision about a donated item. I thought about a question that I had answered from another church member that seemed like the right thing to do and it had worked out well. I prayed right then and asked God why I felt restless and to show me what to do. I told my wife how I was feeling and she said that she felt the same way. We ended up deciding that like it or not, whether it's convenient or not, regardless of if we have the time or not, we already were taking leadership in a sense. We already were in this thing over our heads.

When we got home, I looked up my Pastor's cell phone number and called him to tell him that we would coordinate the group of evacuees moving into the apartment complex. So, that's the story of how one little family who started off sharing the responsibility of caring for one evacuee family ended up helping to coordinate an effort for around 36 apartments holding over 75 people hosted by over 25 families and Bible study groups in our church.

I talked with one of my dear evacuee friends tonight just to check in and see how she was doing since today is the official anniversary. Ms. D was very emotional today. She has been volunteering her time at a local charity and giving back to the community. She mentioned to me that when she started volunteering she didn't know what she was supposed to do. I counseled her on something that I had heard several times -- God doesn't care as much about our ABILITY as He cares about our AVAILABILITY. I was able to share that with Ms. D with conviction since my family lived that out. We had no idea what we were getting into and no idea how to do the job we had just volunteered for. However, we were obedient to His call and made ourselves available. It wasn't easy, but He was faithful to provide "all that we can ask or imagine" (Ephesians 3:20).

Next Katrina post . . . to Apartments

Katrina - Slow Response and Leadership

We spent a good amount of time watching TV and checking out what was going on in both New Orleans and Mississippi (don't forget that it wasn't just New Orleans affected by this storm). Like everyone else, we were shocked by the slow response from those organizing the relief. Looking back I have not devoted much time to studying the research, analysis, and news reporting (those 3 are not always the same thing by the way) to have developed an educated opinion as to who was at fault for what. Because of that, I do not have a strong opinion positively or negatively toward any of the main characters (President Bush, FEMA's Michael Brown, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, Governor Blanco, etc.). What I do have an opinion about is what I believe is to blame for the slow response in general -- weak leadership!

Personally, I do not believe that President Bush is specifically to blame and I do not believe that he is racist or that he did anything intentionally wrong. He may not have asked the right questions or pushed the right buttons to keep wheels moving however. In some information that I have seen, it seems like Michael Brown was sitting back waiting for something to happen rather than being proactive. We were also amazed at the inefficiency with which FEMA operated even months after the event.

Being administratively minded, I tend to place more blame on the local leaders. It's easy to say "get help down there" or "bring buses to evacuate." But it's another thing to know specifically what kind of help, where should they go, how should they get there, where are we evacuating people, where are the people who have already been evacuated that need help, etc. New Orleans is below sea level for goodness sakes, what is their disaster plan for a flood! Of course, the plan may not be on the same scale as reality but it's a starting point. I have a negative overall impression of New Orleans Mayor Nagin. I don't want to leave out mentioning that the leadership of Lt. General Honore seemed to be outstanding.

I am frustrated also by the lack of leadership in the non-profit sector. I have a very favorable impression of:
* the local churches, synagogues, and charities;
* the Southern Baptist, Catholic, and Methodist response teams;
* and the Salvation Army.

Surprising to me, the organization who was not impressive was the Red Cross! They were sitting on millions (perhaps billions) of dollars, resources, and volunteers and in my opinion they were unresponsive, unorganized, and squandered their resources. That is not to say that they didn't do anything right. We were just continually frustrated to hear what they were doing or not doing. Even on our grassroots level, we knew several things were a waste of time and money and not meeting the real needs of any of the people that we had daily contact with. We had donated to them during the tsunami in Indonesia but I don't think that I'll be giving them any more of our money after seeing them in action (more like inaction) during this crisis.

Next Katrina post . . . Our Response

Katrina Anniversary

Coming up soon is the one-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. I intend to use this forum to document some of my thoughts and experiences from the past year relating to Hurricane Katrina.

In the Old Testament/Hebrew Scriptures, the Lord consistently asked His people to remember their experiences by setting up memorials. One example is when Joshua and the people crossed the Jordan River. God told the people to pick up 12 stones (one for each tribe) from the river bed and set them up on the other side to remember how the Lord stopped the flow of the river so that they could cross on dry land. We have a nice box in our home that we call the "Joshua Box" where we write down the ways that the Lord has directed our family so that we will not forget His faithfulness. I would like to take the next week or so to make this a virtual Joshua Box as a testament to His faithfulness to His people.

Since the DFW Metroplex is far inland, typically the main thing that crosses our minds when we hear "hurricane" is that maybe we'll get some rain and we hope it doesn't do too much damage on the coast. Before Katrina's landfall in Louisiana and Mississippi, we were much more aware due to the intensity of the storm and the possibility of having a few people in our area running from the storm. In the aftermath of the storm, however, my family was just like everyone else, riveted to our TV watching in horror how people were flooded out, stranded, in need of rescue, and then in need of the basics to survive.

The first few days, my thoughts were all external -- I hope someone can get those buses to the Superdome, what a tough job for the National Guard and Coast Guard, is the state of Louisiana able to get enough food and water for all of those stranded folks? Toward the end of that first week, we heard of evacuees in our area and my thoughts became internal -- what can I do to help, what food and water can we get to those folks, what other things do they need that we can get?

We sent some of our offering money to national relief that first week, but Sunday, September 4th was our first face-to-face interaction with evacuees. A resourceful church member had started calling hotels and motels in our area looking to see if anyone needed anything. She found some families in a motel and made contact with them. They didn't get out with much and our friend made a list of their needs. After e-mails, phone calls, and announcements in church that morning, they had their list completed in one day. When we went to drop off our donations after a Wal-Mart run, I looked into their eyes, talked with them, and played with their kids. That's when my thoughts became personal. What if this was me and my family? Where would we go and what would we do? How would I feel if I was unable to provide for my family and we had just lost every material possession that we owned?

We had no idea exactly what was in store for us, but my wife and I started talking and praying about what we should do and how we should respond. Little did we know that one year later our lives would be richly blessed by new experiences, new frustrations, new skills, new foods, new perspectives, and most importantly by new friends.

Next Katrina post . . .

A vending machine for electronics?

In a recent article from USA Today, they reported that Sony is implementing vending machines for electronics in venues such as airports first as a trial, then potentially in grocery stores, malls, and hotels. The article mentions that credit and debit cards will be used to purchase items such as headphones, digital cameras, batteries, MP3 players, and memory sticks.

There is nothing on Sony's Web site about this but I can't help but question their strategy for this distribution method and wonder about their research to back this idea. It seems to me that a vending method of distribution is effective for commodity products where you know what you'll be getting. Certainly some consumer electronics have reached that point including some of the items mentioned in the article (headphones, batteries, and memory sticks).

Many other consumer electronics though such as digital cameras, MP3 players, and video cameras, etc. rely heavily on the user experience. My sense is that most people won't pay much for a product like this that they can't hold, simulate it's use, or get some measure of its quality. Sony may think that it's brand speaks for itself or their research may indicate that people will pay for it as long as it's convenient and from a respected brand. This certainly is an interesting concept.

Orange belt in Tae Kwon Do

Well, we did it! Collin and I passed our orange belt test today with Mamaw, Papa (my dad), Heather, Caris, and friends Jake and Suzanne in attendance. What a workout!

They started us on the Chon-Ji form (kata in other martial arts) which took the longest for us to perfect for this test so that was perfect. Then, we did all of the punches, kicks, and combinations. We broke up with partners next and demonstrated self-defense and one-step sparring. One-steps are a basic set of four movements to defend against an attacker (one block with follow-up counters). It's like a mini-form, not really fighting.

Before putting all of our pads on and really sparring (touch fighting), we did board breaks which is the most fun part but mentally challenging. We don't ever practice it except for the tests, but it's really fun because you have no idea if you can really do it! I was so proud of Collin! For our last test, the Gold belt, we only were "required" (really only required for age 13 and above) to break one board with your hand. Last time, the board really intimidated Collin and he kept stopping his hand at the board instead of going through it for the break. For our Orange belt, we were "required" to break two boards -- one with our hand and one with our feet. Our favorite instructor, Mr. Garner, worked with Collin very well and told him exactly what to do. Collin broke both boards and was walking on air! It was so fun to share that with our family and friends who were there. Collin broke his boards with a hammer fist (think of using your fist like a hammer) and an axe kick (coming down on the board with your heel). I broke my boards with a knife hand (think karate chop) and a side kick (using the outside edge of your foot toward your heel).

Sparring is Collin's favorite part, it's so fun to see this sweet, gentle boy really going at it! It was a lot of fun, but exhausting! Thankfully, we went out for a great lunch afterwards to celebrate. It was a great lesson to both of us in hard-work paying off and the rewards of self-discipline, practice, focus, and giving our best effort.

Tae Kwon Do update

Collin and I are working toward our orange belt in Tae Kwon Do on August 26th. I was a little worried about our progress until our workout on Saturday when lots of things really came together for us and now we have all week to practice.

The order of the belts is White (beginner), Gold, then Orange. In order to get a new belt, we must demonstrate all of the requirements for an instructor individually and then pass a formal belt test. The requirements are various punches, kicks, self-defense, forms (or katas, simulated fights), and in our class scripture memorization. The belt test itself consists of the demonstration of all of the requirements in front of multiple instructors who evaluate your mastery of the skills. Also, you must spar (or fight) with an instructor using the skills that you have learned.

I have been fascinated with martial arts since reading comic books as a kid. Other than just thinking it's cool, now I can see its value in life especially taking it with Collin. Martial arts develops self-discipline, respect, fosters hard work, and exercise. This is evident in the primary Tenets of Tae Kwon Do (easier to remember using the acronym CHIPSI): Courtesy, Humility, Integrity, Perseverance, Self-control, and an Indomitable Spirit.