Huckabee Ad - Very Funny

In the YouTube debate I wrote about yesterday I was disappointed by some of the ads. Fred Thompsons actually elicited a "What's up with that?" from Anderson Cooper, live in front of the country?

This on the other hand was what I was looking for.
Very nice.

GOP Debates

I need to register to vote, now that we're living in Oklahoma again.

For whatever reason, I've caught parts of two (I think) Presidential debates for the Democrats. I've enjoyed watching those. There are folks I'm really pulling against and a couple I'm pretty open too. I really don't want to see Hillary become president. Barack is very interesting to me. He consistantly says things I'm feeling, but I am a bit wary that he is too good to be true. Joe Biden is someone I think would make a great president, but I doubt he'll get that far. Not enough flair. Probably too much quality actually. Sad to say.

Last night I was working, the TV was on, and the GOP debate came on. I must confess that I have heard some of various names on stage, but couldn't pick most of them out of a crowd. I hear that the front runners are Mit Romney and Rudi G.

I was captivated. Being a person who voted for Bush (dang that was hard to type) and someone who generally votes republican I have been thinking that the Dem debates are more important for me to watch, while the GOP candidates will likely voice opinions closer to my own.

Wow. I was wrong. I'll just say, that I have started hoping that Mit Romney will not become president. Rudi G. either. I found my jaw on the floor at most of Mit's answers. I couldn't believe someone could saw what he was saying. He looks a bit like a snake-oil salesmen to me, but I'm not just talking about looks. I'm talking about the quality of his answers and the values that support them.

Frankly I'm completely surprised by Rudi G's being in the running still. I don't think he's qualified and while he's more himself in front us, I'm not sure I want him being my president. Nope. He can't be the guy.

I found myself really liking Huckabee. I'm not sure about the Fair Tax, I need to research it more, but I love his responses. His plans in the past for schooling illegal immigrants kids was excellent and said that he didn't want to penalize children for the crimes their kids commit.
Mit didn't want to provide education for these kids. Huckabee's comment to Mit "We're a better country than that" was powerful.

Also. McCain did a great job yesterday. I voted for McCain years ago when he ran, but lost because he took shots at Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell. (which I thought were appropriate actually) He really turned me off with his going to Falwell at the beginning of his campaign. It left me feeling icky. And I lost confidence in McCain. But yesterday, I liked what I heard.

His response about immigration was especially good I thought. He said something to the effect of "these are people who need love too".

The guy on the end of the stage looked lost. Like a character out of a SNL skit.

I don't talk politics very often here, thanks for bearing with me.
I have no idea what this means, but these are just some of my thoughts

Born Standing Up

I was never really a Steve Martin fan, at least back when he did stand up, or of his SNL days. Frankly I was too young to watch it live, or to naive to appreciate what what happening at the time. Though, I suppose I really like "The Jerk". At least the parts I was saw. I don't think my parents wanted me to see that movie at the time. That being said, Steve Martin the writer is another story.

LA Story (1991) was brilliant.

I'm now listening to "Born Standing Up: A comic's life" by Martin. I don't typically buy books on itunes, but did this time because I wanted to hear Steve read it.

This book is great. Really great.

Saying Steve Martin can write is an understatement.
Pick it up or listen to it. I love this book.

Blog Bummed

Ok.
So somehow I've deleted my comment from my template.
I think this happened when I got rid of the "click comments" I was using for a while.
Now I'd like to move to a new template, but one of the standard blogspot templates feels like it would be a step back.

Any advice?

A Subversive Blogger

Matt Cleaver nominated me as a subversive blogger.
Thanks Matt.

I'll suggest 5 bloggers you should be reading, but probably aren't.

1. Letters from Kamp Krusty - He's on a blogging Hiatus, but look around. Then add him to your RSS feed.

2. Wade Hodges - Wade is a good friend, a great thinker, an average Guitar Hero player, and very good teacher. When he speaks I'm listening. But then again, he like Qdoba more than Chipotle. How smart can a guy really be?

3. Rob Merola - An Episcopal priest, an avid fisherman, a true missionary to Northern Virginia and DC area. Rob's a better writer than he knows. When he reflects on life, fatherhood, work and... well anything else... pay attention... because it's touching and often humorous. He could kick my butt in halo too.

4. Paul Littleton - A friend and pastor in the Tulsa area. Paul is an OU season ticket holder, deep thinker, great writer and he and his wife are foster parents for at risk kids as well as parents of their own kiddos! Also, you may have heard about the Emerging thinkers in the Southern Baptist Church who are ruffling more than a few feathers in the SBC. There isn't a better guy, with amazing integrity to do the ruffling.

5. Jim Hancock - I can't say enough good things about Jim. Writer, Filmmaker, owner of "The Tiny Little Company Called Me"

That's my list of folks you probably aren't ready, but should.

Slow Days

The holiday's have been slow. Which is very good. We didn't leave the house on Friday. I can't do that very often, but after a busy fall travel schedule, slow is good. Next week I don't travel at all and hope to crank out a few more sections on the "Proper care and feeding of your Youth Pastor" book. I'm pleased with it so far, and the feedback I've sought so far has been very positive. I still have some big chunks to right for it. Next week I hope to get most of the big chunks down.

Jaden is playing "Cliffs of Dover" by Eric Johnson - on Guitar hero 3. He's rocking hard! Zach is sitting next to me. He just said. "Now tell them that you have to go, so you can play with your kids." Sheesh. (he laughed when I wrote sheesh.)

So now I'm off to play with the kids!

Tuesday and a trip to OKC

After arriving around 7pm from Atlanta on Friday night, I left for OKC early Tuesday morning.

I scheduled two phone calls during my 90 minute drive and return a few others.
Once in OKC I stopped into Panera and checked my mail, then responded to a few emails.
At 11:30 I met my long time friend John Gilstrap from Church of the Servant in north Oklahoma City. He's the Student Pastor there, and is currently beginning a search for a Junior High Pastor. Church of the Servant is rediscovering itself and it's refreshing to sit across the table from a youth pastor committed to a particular people, regardless of how fast, or slow change happens.

At 1:15 I met with Mark McAdow, Senior Pastor of First United Methodist Church of Oklahoma City. FUMC is looking for a youth pastor also, or they will be in the future. Mark is a true pastor. He's committed to loving people. It's always good for me to be around him. In a precious life I was on staff with Mark at Asbury in Tulsa. I think the Riddle Group could really support the dreams and heart of Mark and First Church... we'll see.

From 2:30pm to 5:15 I added some tasks to my list so I could get them out of my head, sent some email and blogged a bit, but mostly I prepped for my meeting with the Student Leadership Team of Westmoore Community Church in south OKC. By the way WCC's sermon series always make me chuckle (in a good way). Their LCD sign out front says, "Victorious Secret" nice.

6:00pm - I met with the Student Leadership team (a totally volunteer team) who have been leading and expanding the youth ministry for about a year and a half.

We broke early and I headed for home at 9:30.
On the drive home I spent 60 minutes on the phone with David Welch from YS.

Home.
No more travel for about a week!

6:00pm

Zach likes English

This morning Zach is play Guitar Hero III on the Wii. Jaden is watching. Here's their exchange.

Zach: "I've been trying to get this song since I was one [year old]!"

Jaden: "You didn't have guitar hero when you were one!"

Zach: (not missing a beat in the song0 "Figure of speech Jaden. Figure of speech."

This of course cracked me up.

Especially since there is a running joke in our family about hyperbole.
Zach learned about hyperbole in school and when I discovered this, I started using it more. Which comes a bit naturally to me.

I use hyperbole in every sentence.

So now anytime someone says an exaggeration one of my boys says, "Hyperbole!"
Good times.

NYWC - Atlanta

Had a great time in Atlanta this weekend. It was busy.
Thursday night I arrived really really late at the Westin on Peachtree.
Friday I woke up and wrote and went to lunch with David Welch of YS.
I met some new folks and then went go give my seminar (with marko) on expectations. It went great.
Grabbed some dinner and changed my shoes, because my feet were killing me.

Then it was off to the omni to hang out with Chris Folmsbee, Mike King, Ginny Olson, and Jim Hancock. This was our third get together (one in each city). I other cities Kara Powell, Steve, Argue, and Damien O'Farrell all came together to talk about what the future of youth ministry in North America. Pretty great conversation in each city. more to come on this.

Then off to Marko's where I got to talk briefly with Scott Rubin. then to bed.

Saturday
Woke up around 8:00am.
Started consulting at 9:30am and continued until 12:30. Met some great folks.
12:30 I had lunch with Rick Heltne of People Management.
2:00pm I stopped by Chris Folmsbee's Sacred Stories seminar and listened to him for a bit.
Hung out a bit with Brock Morgan who is doing some great stuff in Salem Oregon.
3:00pm - Did more consulting.
Dinner- Went to Fire of Brazil with Folsmbee, Len Evans, Doug Jones and a few other friends. Man dinner was good.

Then we popped up to Scott Kail's suite (and were joined by Rick Heltne again) in the Westin and watch the first half of OU getting crushed by Texas Tech. This is the part of the evening when everyone enjoyed giving me a hard time about being from Oklahoma and my football team.

Then we all walked over the Marko's again and met some great people.

Sunday
8:00 - I woke up and walked a the long road to convention HQ.
9:30 started consulting
12:30 Met Andy Jack for lunch. This was my first time to meet Andy, who I've heard a lot about and was excited to meet. I look forward to future conversations with him.
2:00 - I was consulting again.
4:00 - I had a break. I found a corner to sit in and not talk for a while.
5:00pm I went to dinner with Charley, Bryan, Mark Matlock and several other great folks from IBC and other Irving Texas churches. They were great and are dreaming big, God sized dreams. They bought Folmsbee and I dinner (we both had the Cashew crusted Tilapia with the Jamaican butter sauce!!! wow!)

then Mark Matlock and I went to the 4th Floor of the the Omni that overlooks the park and talked for about 3 hours.

Monday
7: 30 - Woke up
9:30 - Consulting
11:00 - Met up with Matlock, caught a cab and went to the airport.
While we ate, I saw my buddy John Gilstrap having lunch at the On the Border.
Then met up with Charley from IBC, and the Skit guys for a bit.
Then Matlock and I (who were sitting next to each other in the exit row) had an exciting conversation about the future of the world, creative innovation, and halloween.

Got home around 7:00 and grabbed some pizza with the kids.
Put the kids to bed and then I crashed.

It was an amazing weekend. I met some great people that I can't mention, or failed to mention here. It's amazing how each conversation teaches me something. I"m greatful for being a part of what God is doing through his church at NYWC.


See ya next year!

Atlanta

I'm heading off to Atlanta this afternoon. My weekend is packed.

I'll be leading a a seminar on Friday at 4pm with Marko. Come by and say hi! Or join us!
then I'll be doing consulting/ coaching each of the days in 50 minutes time slots.

thanks to everyone who's already emailed me about connecting.
I'm looking forward to see you all there.

I'm still figuring all this out.

I'm consultant. A church consultant to be exact. A job that is occasionally the butt of joking among friends. In the church, I find most folks I work meet on the street aren't sure that that means. There aren't a lot of church consultants. And some of the folks who call themselves consultants give the rest of us a bad name. I suppose the same is true for lawyers and pastors. There's a lot of people with a lot of experience who people pay for advice.

Advice is helpful if you've had the same experience, the same context and the same exact situations as the person giving it.

Baz Lurman says advice is " "

Consultants who give advice aren't really consultants... at least from what I gather. Maybe we should call them advice givers. or maybe experts. or something more fancy. I suppose the term consultant is the junk drawer for people who want to tell other people how great their thoughts are.

It is my hope I'm not that, an advice giver or an expert. An expert, or advice giver is someone who lives each day in the shadow of past successes (or failures twisted to sound like successes) and then passes these experiences on to a client to live vicariously through them.

I must confess this is a real temptation. It would be easier to listen and then give advice. It would be easier to take my square experience and apply it to your round situation.

More confession. I do this sometimes.

But I'm learning. I'm learning that consulting isn't about giving people answers. Consulting is more about learning than it is about disseminating information. I'm learning that if I want to be a great consultant, then I need to humbly put my advice and experiences on the shelf and learn from who is speaking to me. While I'm confessing, our team does this really well sometimes and it's beautiful to see.

If you are looking for a consultant (or if you aren't) let me give you this advice.
Look for a consultant who is hoping to learn from you.
It will be in the moments when they learn from you, that you learn from them.

I know it sounds counter intuitive. But if you will benefit the greatest from a consultant who is quick to learn, and slow to dispense advice.

I could be wrong. But this is what I'm learning...

how I measure up to emerging stereotypes

Tony Jones writes

"Every Monday, the right page of the USA Today OpEd page is on religion, and I’ve been wondering when they would publishing something about the emergent movement. Well, yesterday, they finally did. (HT Steve Knight on the EV Blog) It’s a good, hopeful article with lots of quotes from Rick McKinley, the pastor of Imago Dei in Portland (whom I admire).

But what really caught my eye was this paragraph:

Writer Scot McKnight, a supporter of the movement, says emergents are seen as “a latte-drinking, backpack-lugging, Birkenstock-wearing group of 21st-century, left-wing, hippie wannabes. Put directly, they are Democrats.”"

So I thought I'd see how I measure up.

Mark Riddle's Emerging Stereotype ScoreCard:

Latte Drinking - I don't drink lattes. I'm drinking more and more tea though.

Backpack lugging - Guilty. I carry a 5 year old backpack, but only because I can't afford another means to get my laptop around. I'd love a Timbuck2 messenger bag, but they are $150.

Birkenstock - Never owned a par of Birks.

Left Wing - uh.. no.

hippie wanna-be - uh no. I live in the suburbs for goodness sake.

Democrat - I've always been registered republican and have only voted democrat three times in my adult life.

Conclusion: I must not be an emergent according to this stereotype.

Atlanta

I'm going to be in Atlanta this weekend for the National Youth Worker's Convention.
Email me if you want to connect while we are there.

Mark@theRiddleGroup.com

Zach's Family Party

Wednesday is Zach's birthday. Today is the day family comes over. I can't believe my oldest son is turning 10 this week. Life is full. Life is good. Below is the pic I took last month. All three kids, stretching the limits and climbing the walls with curiosity.

Dear Student Life

Dear Student Life,

I hope you understand that I'd rather have tacos. I should back up. In the past two weeks I've received more than 6 pieces of mail from you. All in their full color glory telling me about the wonders of you. A magazine. Several letters. A few flyers and poster that, and I'm not kidding here, could substitute as a comforter on my toddler's bed. I'm not sure how you got my address, but I have my hunches. I used my amazing math skills to add up the total for the postage of the pieces you've sent. I'm not sure how much your materials cost, but it seems the postage alone adds up to around $8.45 that you spent on me. I'd rather have tacos. It seems you like the word experience a lot which is great as long as you don't want the kids you are reaching to actually ever be able to experience a rainforest. Ok. that was dramatic. But you get my point.

Your stuff is very pretty, but I don't really need it. Sure I'll use my new event poster as an emergency blanket (that wasn't my idea actually.. it was a friend of mine at the convention making fun of how big it was) and perhaps I might be able to provide a small village somewhere with toilet paper for a day.

So, please, if you are planning on sending me stuff at this rate as the year draws on, don't. Hold the press. Save up the money you would spend on postage that you will be sending to my house and put it into an account called. "Riddle's Taco Run". And this time next year when you've got the $240 that you would have spent, buy someone an airline ticket for $230.00 to Tulsa, then come and buy me a tacos. They run about $8.50. Please leave the extra $1.50 as a tip.

Thanks for listening,

Mark Riddle

Today I am older

Today is my birthday.
I'm 36.
the family gave me Guitar Hero 3 for the Wii a day early and we've been playing it quite a bit.
Our family knows how to rock!

36 doesn't feel all that old.

There is a weird thought that keeps coming into my head recently. I remember being 20 and working in youth ministry. I remember the "old men and women" who I'd get advice from who were so great for me. And did I mention they seemed way older. I was thinking that they were probably my age right now. In the neighborhood of 36. weird.

I've lived an amazing life so far. I have an amazing wife who is patient and an encourager to me and an amazingly intuitive mother who always seems to know what the kids need when before they need it. My kids are a gift. All three unique and gifted kids who love great stories, and new experiences all the time. and they have the undeniable talent of knowing what toys are being given away in Happy Meals at any fast food establishment. I have truly great friends who God uses to change me in good ways. Thanks!

I share a birthday with some great people.
My friend Mark McAdow the pastor at FUMC OKC is older than me.
My friend Tim Keel the pastor of Jacob's Well in KC is older than me, but not by much.
Billy Graham is way older than me.

Happy Birthday Billy, Tim and Mark M!
I'm praying for you guys today!

Andy has caught on

My friend Wade went to Catalyst this past October and sent me the following notes from Andy Stanley's talk to pastors in the room. It's nice to hear people like Andy catch on to systems thinking, or at least to finally be talking publically about it. This was Andy's final address to the people of Catalyst.

Here are the notes:

Liberating Your Organization – Creating a Leadership-Friendly Culture.

The bottom line … it’s all about developing, implementing, and improving systems to affect change in your organization. Here’s much of the content from Andy’s discussion:

Introduction

1. There are organizational systems that are conducive to ministry and organizational systems that impede ministry.

2. There are organizational systems that free leaders to lead and organizational systems that obstruct leaders.

3. Defined: Systems are your organization’s approach to getting things done.

I. Systems create behaviors.

A. Examples: Family vs. Student Ministry, Marriage vs. Marriage Series, Western vs. Middle Eastern

B. The systems you inherit, adopt, or create will eventually impact what staff and volunteers do.

C. Examples: Anytime you hear, “Well, our people just won’t …” you are listening to someone who doesn’t understand the influence and importance of systems.

D. Components of a system: 1) Expectations/Rules, 2) Rewards (or lack of), 3) Consequences (or lack of), 4) Communication (content and style), 5) Behavior or Behavior Patterns (of those in charge)

E. Systems have a greater impact on organizational culture than do mission statements. This principle explains why it is so difficult to transition an organization. If a new leader casts a new vision and never addresses old systems, nothing changes.

II. The NT does not present us with a comprehensive system or model.

A. In the NT we discover what the early church did. The NT does not lay out a comprehensive plan instructing church leaders what to do.

B. Always differentiate between what is pre-scripture and what is de-scriptive.

C. The NT and OT do offer some principles that should be integrated into our systems. 1)Delegation: Acts 6/Exodus 18, 2) Accountability: Acts 15, 3) Authority: Romans 13, 4) Interdependence: Paul’s discussion of spiritual gifts, 5) Point Leadership: Modeled in OT and NT, 6) Seeking council: Proverbs, Acts 15

III. Systems Imperatives

A. Your system should allow you to involve and hire the best person for the job.

B. Your system should provide you with the flexibility to get the right people to the table to make a decision.

C. Your system should allow you to make complex decisions within the context of a small group of empowered individuals.

D. Your system should ensure that only one person answers to “they.”

Andy concluded with a recommendation to:
1. List the 3 behaviors you want from your staff.
2. List what you're doing to encourage these behaviors.
3. List what you're doing to encourage the opposite of these behaviors.

Systems thinking … it’s the key to improving the effectiveness of your ministry.

NYWC - St. Louis

I arrived in St. Louis this morning on an uneventful flight from Tulsa.

It's 1:50pm and so far I've run into Tony Jones and his daughter Lilly, Andy Mullins , Tony Campolo, Walt Mueller, I had lunch with David Welch, and spent some time looking over the new and improved seminar with Marko.

If you attend the seminar make sure you say hi to me before you leave, or later in the convention!