Issue No. 134 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting is not an easy book to read. You might want to skip this issue. But if you have the courage, read at least the first 50 pages of Rich Stearn’s new book—then you’re hooked and you’ll finish it. Don’t delegate your reading on this one. It’s that important. And this reminder, check out my Management Buckets website with dozens of resources and downloadable worksheets for your staff meetings.
Not Mother Teresa in a Business Suit
Few of us get up in the morning and encourage ourselves by reading a book about poverty in some far-off land. But if by chance we looked deep into the sad eyes of a hungry, malnourished child at our front door this morning, our well-toned spiritual gifts would spring into action. We’d likely be on Fox News by 9 a.m. and started yet one more non-profit organization to address the problem by noon.
And that’s the problem says Rich Stearns. The corporate CEO who has stewarded World Vision U.S. since 1998 warned the World Vision’s search committee that he was not quite “Mother Teresa in a business suit.” Far from it. In this remarkable book, WV’s president oozes with transparency (you’ll be shocked) and tells you what he’s learned along the way.
He asks, “What does God expect of us?” Stearns carefully balances Scripture, his own pilgrimage from CEO of Lenox (the fine tableware and gift company) and his corporate Jaguar…to the Ugandan thatch hut of another Richard (this one a 13-year-old, with two younger brothers, and no parents). Along this reading journey, your heart will break often, but you’ll be blessed to hear what God is doing around the world.
Before you read the whole book, scan the chapter titles and the more than 50 wisdom quotes and moral jabs (my words) from some of the world’s great thinkers, including Mohandas Gandhi who said, “I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.” Stearns seems to agree. Caution! He challenges the church. He challenges you. He challenges me.
In the RESV rendering of Matthew 25 (the Richard E. Stearns Version), he nails it: “For I was hungry, while you had all you need. I was thirsty, but you drank bottled water. I was a stranger, and you wanted me deported. I needed clothes, but you needed more clothes. I was sick, and you pointed out the behaviors that led to my sickness. I was in prison, and you said I was getting what I deserved.”
Stearns says we have a hole in our gospel—our walk with Christ is missing the “public and transforming relationship with the world.” Bono (not our pastors) is admonishing the world that “15,000 Africans are dying each day of preventable, treatable diseases—AIDS, malaria, TB—for lack of drugs that we take for granted.” Apparently, we don’t care. That’s a big hole in our gospel.
To order this week’s book from Amazon, click on this title: The Hole in Our Gospel: What Does God Expect of Us? The Answer That Changed My Life and Might Just Change the World, by Richard Stearns.
Your Weekly Staff Meeting Questions:
1) Bob Pierce, the founder of World Vision, said “Don’t fail to do something just because you can’t do everything.” What can you do?
2) Stearns quotes Frederick Buechner: “The place God calls you is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.” Where is that place for you?
Failsafe Proofreading - Insights from Mastering the Management Buckets: 20 Critical Competencies for Leading Your Business or Nonprofit
One of the big ideas in the Printing Bucket, Chapter 19, in Mastering the Management Buckets, is to create a failsafe proofreading system.
The buck stopped with me, so it was my mistake. Some years back, we had outsourced a project to a vendor who would be using their own printer for a quick print run of 10,000 copies. There was one typo in the headline: “Order the audio version of these workshops and encourage your team members to become life-long learner.”
We spotted the typo immediately, circled the word “learner” and faxed it back with the instructions to make “learner” plural.
The vendor followed our instructions perfectly. We received 10,000 copies of the order form with this headline: “Order the audio version of these workshops and encourage your team members to become life-long plural.”
Yikes! It’s funny now. Wasn’t then. The irony is that we had a failsafe system in place for proofreading—but we didn’t use it. After all, it was just one typo and we were confident that it would get fixed. Wrong.
One of my favorite Murphy’s Laws is: “Proofreading occurs best after publication.” The brochure is on the press. The website is live. The order form has been mailed. The CD packaging is on the truck. And, bingo! Someone spots a typographical error.
Many organizations employ a variety of best practices to catch typos before publication (the preferred sequence!). I’ve always used some version of a Printing Purchase Order (PPO) that details quantity, pricing, paper, ink colors, folds, and so forth. The clincher part of the PPO is a section that requires the written sign-off of the project champion and two or three others designated by the project champion. That’s where the proofreading kicks in. For more help, you can download the PPO form and other resources from the Printing Bucket page of my website.
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