There was a missionary to Togo, West Africa in the service. She is a nurse who works with a hospital in Togo as well as many other hospitals through her mission agency as a leadership counselor. I refer to her several times in the message.

I wanted to put this up here because a friend recently asked me how a church can be a blessing to their missionaries. This is just a small part of what I want to tell her, but it is a good introduction to what I have to say. Maybe I will write a series of posts and share the ideas I have with you as I share them with her.

I found Travis’ name and looked up his website. Come to find out, while I did not know him personally, it seems that we had a lot of mutual friends in the ministry. I sent him a quick email and he replied positively about doing an interview. When we got on Skype together I asked him what he knew about Missionary Talks. Turns out he had never even heard of Missionary Talks previous to my email. That is not unusual for the missionaries I interview, but the fact that he was gung-ho about doing the interview with me made me think he probably was a listener.

We are in the middle of trying to get ready for our move to Argentina while also being involved in a pastor’s conference this week, traveling to a church in Kentucky this weekend and spending most of next week in a mission’s conference in Tennessee. I am trying to do anything I can to distract me from the fact that I should be packing for a major move in 13 days. So, I spent all morning yesterday recording an interview and editing it. Seemed like the responsible thing to do.

As an added bonus to this episode, if you go to the Missionary Talks fan page on Facebook you can listen to a clip of the interview that did not survive the editing process, but was a very interesting section of our conversation. Don’t forget to become a fan if you go there.

Yes, the above linked Twitter account is the account where I say more mature type things as opposed to my other Twitter account which is the real me.

While I tend to agree with many pastors that business books can be dangerous when you try to apply the principles of running a corporation to a church, I also think that there are many good things we can glean from reading books that make businesses successful. This book is not so much a business book as it is about communication; regardless of the work environment.

The authors, brothers Chip and Dan Heath, have isolated 6 principles that help make an idea ’sticky.’ What I loved about the way they explained the principles is they used urban legends as many of their examples. There are reasons that urban legends get passed around and tend to stick no matter how much information is on the web to the contrary. If you could communicate real ideas, stories and principles in a way that cause them to stick like an urban legend, then you would get your message across. The book is filled with real examples as well.

In Made to Stick you will find the 6 principles and examples illustrating those ideas. Not every sticky idea will contain all 6, but the more you can communicate using the 6 principles, the stickier your communication will be.

What are the principles? Simple, Unexpected, Concrete, Credible, Emotional and Story. SUCCESs is used as the trigger to help you remember these principles.

Simple: Find the core of what you want to communicate. This has to do with the idea you want to share more than the way you share it. Sometimes an elaborate story can get the message across in a more sticky way than just sharing the core. Therefore, Simple is about the message, not necessarily the way it is delivered.

Unexpected: At the end of the story did you expect that the person was going to wake up in an ice-filled tub having had his kidney’s stolen? Giving examples of how you want your sales staff to meet the customer’s needs is much more sticky than saying, “Take care of the customer.”

Concrete: Help your audience work through the thought process instead of just teaching them the bottom line. An example is how students learn math better when they think through adding members to make up a baseball team as opposed to just telling the students that 3+6=9.

Credible: Being credible is not just being able to spout off statistics that no one will remember. Credibility can come through showing an example of a person going through a similar problem and how they are dealing with it. Better yet, have that person become your spokesperson. Real people dealing with real issues.

Emotion: Help people see themselves either experiencing the problem or being a solution to the problem. Instead of asking the crowd to give money to support all the missionaries in South America, I should help you understand that if you support my ministry in Argentina I will be able to share the Gospel of Christ with a deaf boy in La Plata who may never have another person love him enough to teach him the Bible. By sending $50 a month you can help my family do just that.

Story: Take any opportunity you have to illustrate with a story as opposed to just giving the facts. In the book they say that the story and the moral are both important. However, if you just tell the story the listener can figure out the moral. But if you only have the moral (the facts) then the listener has no clear understanding of what the moral means nor a good way to remember it.

I have to say that this is probably THE BEST BOOK I have read in a long time. While I borrowed this copy from the local library, I will be on the lookout for a copy of my own. This is a book that I could easily read several more times and go back and reference often in the future. I think it is a great book for missionaries and pastors as well as anyone who needs to communicate a message.

Made to Stick. Chip and Dan Heath. Random House, 2007. 291 pages.

I got a chance to chat with Mr. Beardsley at length. He was signing books and chatting with the crowd. Because I was a volunteer there I was able to catch him when there was no one around. I really enjoyed my 10 minute conversation with him. I bought the book he wrote several years ago titled Staying The Course: A Runner’s Toughest Race.

Staying The Course is an autobiography of his running career and his involvement with and recovery from addictions. The first half of the book takes the reader through that famous Boston Marathon while the second half leads you through his spiral into substance abuse. Unlike Duel in the Sun though, this book has a much more satisfying conclusion. While Dick Beardsley’s story is not yet over, this book concludes with an air of certainty of where his life is headed. At the end of Duel in the Sun I was not sure that Beardsley had gotten in control of his addictions. Staying the Course removes my doubts.

If you ever get a chance to meet Dick Beardsley you will find that he really is as upbeat and positive as his book portrays him to be.

As I was reading the book I was struck by how much I enjoyed reading a man brag about his accomplishments. Of course he has to tell about what has taken place in his life, but you don’t feel like he is bragging. The man makes his living by going to races and talking about himself. He has learned how to talk about himself so that the audience does not feel he is being braggadocios. Therefore his memoir is readable and not boastful.

The writing style did not flow very well at times. Some passages had to be read over to understand what was being said. However, when I was reading those same passages out loud to the family, they seemed to make more sense. I think some of the writing was probably just a transcription of speeches he has given. It sounds good to the ears, but sometimes hard to read for the eyes and brain. People talk about being conversational in your writing style; this book may be a bit too conversational.

The book contains some swearing, which was a big reason I did not like Duel in the Sun and considered taking it back to the store. But the amount of foul language in this book was minimal. And, unlike Duel in the Sun, it was limited to direct quotes.

I highly recommend this book. My opinion of the book may be skewed because I have met the author and had a good experience with him, but that is part of the “Dick Beardsley Package.” How could I have a bad opinion of the man who indulged me enough to sign my New Balance running shoes?

Staying The Course by Dick Beardsley. 2002. University of Minnesota Press. 203 pages.

Here is what it had me do. Enter this command in a terminal window:

sudo fuser -v /dev/dsp* /dev/snd/* /dev/seq*

Anything other than “pulseaudio” appearing in the right column is the problem. Use the killall command to kill those other items. I ended up issuing a:

killall kmix

After that my sound started working as expected. I will now have to figure out how to keep kmix from starting at boot each time, but I at least know how to solve the problem quickly when it does come up.

If you are an Ubuntu (or variants) user it appears that PulseAudio is here to stay. I have read why it is supposed to be better, but don’t understand it or really care. I will let smarter people than me argue the finer points of sound servers. I just want the thing to work.

Through email earlier this week we worked out the details for me to call him and record the interview. We were both very surprised when I went to pick up my son from youth meeting on Wednesday and saw Andy standing at the front of the church. Neither one of us had a clue that the other was in town. We enjoyed catching up and sharing some of our conversation with the listeners.

The next episode I put out I hope will be one of the new Missionary Chats formatted show. I will try to alternate these as much as I can, but there may be more Talks than Chats at times, or vice versa.

There are a few podcasts that I listen to listed there, but there are several other good podcasts that should be there. I should compile a list and contact my podcasting friends to get their shows listed there and help grow the community. The site is fairly new and needs help getting some momentum pushing them the right way.

Mary:

• Focused on the most important–worshiping God (Christ). Luke 10:38-42
• Faithful in trials. John 11:21-40
• Forsook her greatest possession. Mark 14:3

Judas:

• Criticized intimate worship. Mark 14:4
• Complained about God’s work. Mark 14:4. 5
• Confided with wicked people. Mark 14:10, 11

What struck me is that while many look at missionaries and think that we are willing to give up many things to go live on a foreign field, most of us don’t see that as a hardship. However, we struggle with giving up some things. Maybe your struggle is the thought of giving up regular electricity, or moving away from family. We do give up those things, but personally my struggles are in giving up things of even lesser value.

I don’t think I fall into the category of a Judas, but I am not sure I am a Mary either. Sure, I am willing to give up some comforts to be a missionary, but am I willing to forsake what I see as materialistically important? I am not sure I am there yet.

The reason for doing a video version is that many of our friends are Deaf. This would allow them to get content in their language while still making it accessible for the hearing. Meaning that I would both sign and speak each one of the updates.

I don’t plan on this being a traditional podcast in that I will provide content that the general public might want to consume. Rather it will be simple, short updates about what is going on with us.

What do you think? I know that those who pray for us would like more regular content so that they know how better to pray. Is this the best way to deliver that content? I have intentionally avoided using my prayer letter mailing list as an “update” medium. I would rather those who are more connected with us go to the website and get that additional information. Do you agree?

**What is meant by “podcast”? This is a format for providing content that the “subscriber” can receive automatically via software that grabs the new information when it is available. All the content will be available at the website to view on-line, but by making it a podcast that simply means that the user could go to one piece of software to consume all the content, i.e., iTunes.

During the skit he gets up and makes the bed and folds it into the wall. She gets ready for bed and pulls it down and crawls in. I always thought it would be cool to have a wall bed that could serve as a spare bed in the house.

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Like last year, this race was fraught with rain and wind. But unlike last year, we went into this weekend having a week of record low temperatures for the area. Last year the puddles were seen as a neat opportunity to goof around in the rain. This year people were scared to get out in the cold water because we might all get sick and die. Last year the starting temperature was 68 degrees and this year 57. It really was not that cold, but it was cold enough to keep the crowd small.

Because I turned 40 recently I got to move up in age division for this race. Now, instead of being the old man in the 30-39, or 35-39 age group, I was the young whipper snapper in the 40-44 age group. ¡Viva la Grandeza! (Long live old age!)

As we started the race I was not aware of anyone in my age group even competing. There was hope that I would be the only one. In total there probably were not more than 70 people in the whole race. I knew I had a chance to place even if I did not win my division.

This was a three lap race. After the crowd thinned out, but only about 1Km into the race I was passed by a girl half my age. She pulled in front of me, but never too far out of reach. She became the only person I was determined to beat. When I went by the water stops I asked the workers to trip her on the next lap around, but they did not comply. Towards the end of the second lap she and I caught up with another young lady who was apparently her friend. She pushed the friend along and they both stayed just out of my reach until half way through that last lap. They faded slightly and allowed me to catch up. I slowly pulled away from them as the lap came to a close.

I finished the race in 29:30. Not a great time for a 5K, but I am not in my best running shape either. I was pleased with the effort. This was my longest run of the year.

According to the man calling out the splits I ran the first lap/mile in 9:20, the second in 9:25 and the third in just under 10:00 (if I remember right). Then the rest of the time was made up in the .1 miles at the end.

At the end of the race we were given a card and shown the clock. We had to write down our own time and drop it in the box of our age division. I was thrilled when I found the 40-44 year old box and there were no cards in it. But then equally disappointed when I was told that was the ladies’ box. I searched for the men’s box and had mixed emotions about seeing a card already in there. That meant I did not win my age group, but there was only one man in front of me. I took second place. There was at least one other 40-44 year old since they handed out a third place ribbon.

While winning second out of three with a less-than-stellar time may not seem like something to brag about, I feel pretty good about it. I did not go fast, but I went a lot faster than all the other men in my age group from the church and community who did not even make the effort to get out and run with us today. Just showing up guaranteed me a better chance of winning than those who were still drinking coffee at 8:00 on a lazy, rainy, cold Saturday morning.

There has to  be a sermon illustration in there somewhere.

The interview with Mark Coleman is an interview with a friend. I have known Mark for several years. I was pleased to spend time with him in his church recently and find out a bit more about how he got involved with Deaf ministry. Mark and I started learning sign language about the same time; 20 years ago. I think you will enjoy hearing him talk about how the Lord led him into working with the Deaf.

Getting interviews has been a bit more difficult than I expected while we have been home. It seems that it is easier to do a phone interview than a face to face one. Until recently, I have not had the ability to do phone interviews because my equipment was not set up in our transitional housing. However, I found a new solution for doing an interview via phone. This should allow me to get more interviews up in the next few weeks as we prepare to move to Argentina. Though the move will complicate any kind of schedule I have for a while.

I have another interview recorded that I am working on editing. Some are easy to edit, and others are not. The one with Mark was easy, and therefore was put up within a few days of recording. The other one I have had for 3 weeks and have worked on it a bit at a time, but I still have several more hours of editing to go on that one.

A new idea has been rolling around in my head for Missionary Talks too. I may change up the format a bit. I will still keep the missionary interviews as they currently are, but may add another type of conversation/interview into the mix that will have me talking regularly with some of the missionaries I have already interviewed once. I will keep you posted on what I decide to do.

Because classes are offered through the Internet, they are typically more flexible with your current work or school schedule. They are often less expensive since they can have more students taking classes, but not have the overhead of having the students at the campus.

The website ClassesAndCareers.com consolidates hunting for schools that have online programs along with particular courses offered. You can find out which schools have campuses in or near your town if you have a desire to mix online classes with the resources offered by being near a campus.

While I have never taken online courses, I have friends who have. Some courses require that you “attend” class like any other student by checking in with the teacher each day, while still allowing you to study at your own pace. Some require that you spend time in chat rooms with fellow students collaborating on projects.

Some of the schools listed at the site have very specific study programs such as Motorcycle Technology specializing in Ducati Motorcycles. You can also study for a specialty field related to your current position which may allow you to advance in your career. Most people won’t be able to take 4 years out of their life to go to school, but if you can take classes while still working your current job you can make significant career moves over time.

I have taken a writing course through correspondence before. Online courses are the correspondence schools of the present and future. Take some time to check out the Online Colleges and Universities to see what they have to offer you.

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The Bean was really neat. As stupid as it is to me that someone would spend time to make a stainless steel bean and that people would actually come to look at it, it was still very cool. The math and thought that went into creating a structure that reflects the skyline like the Shiny Bean does is pretty neat.

If you don’t know where Cloud Gate is, you can just type in Shiny Bean into the search field at Google Maps and it will show you where it is.

The one that I came across starts at $12.95 a page and goes up to as much as $26.95 depending on how quickly you need the paper done. For the paper I recently finished it would have only cost me $207 (for the standard service) plus a minor thing as my reputation.

As a student they don’t expect anything else from you. You simply give them the details and they write the paper for you. Then you submit the paper to your teacher as if it were your own work. Where I went to college that was called plagiarism and would get you an automatic ‘F’ in a course. This is a scenario that is completely not worth it.

If you did not do the work to write the paper then why do you think you should get credit for it? The purpose of a student writing the paper is so that he will learn something about the subject in the process. Without a doubt this is the worst form of cheating I can imagine.

I guess there are a couple of things you learn by using this method; you learn how to be a liar and a cheat. These might be highly sought after qualities in some industries, but certainly not in someone I am looking to hire.

Outside of the moral issues raised with doing this, take a moment to look at their site and see if you want these guys writing a paper for you. I am not a professional writer, but Grammar Girl has taught me enough to know that they have no idea how to use an apostrophe nor when it is appropriate to capitalize a word or not.

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