ericebbinghaus.com

While I’m working up my Part 3 post for Good Pastor… Bad Leader (see part 1 & part 2 HERE and HERE) I figured I’d drop in a movie review for you to chew on. It’s not my own, It was published by my pseudo-friend/acquaintance Scott Firestone IV (not that he’s a bad friend or pretends to be, I just don’t know that I know him well enough to express a committed friendship as we’ve only spoken off and on briefly and met face to face one time) over at youthministry.com but I figured it was worth posting. I loved the first Transformers movie two summers ago. I was surprised by it and enjoyed the plot, the “regular guy” hero portrayal, and the action and computer graphics.

Which brings us to the newest installment. Tranformers: Revenge of the Fallen. I enjoyed sitting through it, but didn’t enjoy the movie. Is that possible? I enjoyed the first one enough to buy tickets online early and go at 12am on Tuesday night to see the second. It was crude, vulgar, and mindless. That’s why I think you’ll appreciate Scott’s review below, which expresses my sentiments perfectly. Of course, Scott’s a far better writer than I am, and his knowledge of movies and literature is more tasteful and surpasses my own, LOL, which is why I’ve chosen his review to post instead of writing one of my own.

Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen

You can thank me later. Brandi found this site the other night and we’ve recently been spending way too much time on it. I’m not kidding. Anyway, for laughter’s sake I thought I would share it with you, my friends, my readers. The link below is a copy of a funny family email. There are funny family conversations, and best of all, the awkward “family” photos. I put family in quotes as their definition is pretty loose and many different things will qualify as an awkward “family.”

So, without further ado, please, enjoy this site. Use it to its fullest, and be grateful it’s pretty clean. You’re welcome.

Awkward Family Email « AwkwardFamilyPhotos.com.

Could it be I had become my worst nightmare, an ineffective hack refusing to change? That was a tough pill to swallow. I had become like the kid in sports growing up who had ALL the natural talent in the world, but refused to practice or hone his skill. By the time he was in high school, everyone else’s skill level had caught up and he was no longer exceptional….he was just average, the norm. That’s me. Ouch. It hurts to look at is as I write. Do you know what it feels like to become something you hate? Or have you heard the expression where someone says they forgot what their own reflection looked like?

Yes that’s me. No idea. Looks like an EPIC FAIL to me.

I guess part of it was intentional and part was inadvertent. For the longest time I’ve been so sick of the “leadership movement” in the church. It’s disgusted me, as if every pastor anywhere thinks its some status symbol to name drop the leadership BIG DOGS like it would impress me or others. ACHHHHHH BLAHHHGGGHHHH, makes me angry and sick at the same time to think about it. I got tired of it because it felt like we went WAY to the extreme and made the leadership books and authors take the place of the Bible and our ONE TRUE GOD. So I bucked it. Entirely. I walked away from any type of leadership training, development, practice, honing my skills, you get the idea. I went prodigal on it.

So that’s the beginning. That’s the realization process I started to find myself in last fall. The problem was I didn’t really take any action steps to fix it. I just started to recognize why I was so frustrated and starting to feel extremely unfulfilled. I feel it is important again to express that this is not the result of sabotage or intentional backbiting from those I have spent the past 3 years working with and around. I’ve received nothing but love and support from you guys. Even when it’s been challenge or frustration, the love has been there, and I know it has.

Probably the most fortunate part of this whole debacle for me is that I have friends who are willing to be honest and shoot straight with me and do it for the long run. A lot of times when I was approached with concerns or frustrations my first response was defensive and nonchalant. Sometimes the hardest part of tackling an issue head on is to admit that it’s a problem. Sort of like an AA 12 steps program even. I used the example last week at the Jr. High camp I spoke at of writing a paper in high school or college. We dread all semester a project we know is coming and we try to avoid it and put it off, only to realize after we’ve started it that we have just accomplished the most difficult part of the project itself: STARTING IT.

That brings us up to about 3 months ago or so. Everything I read, everything I did was pitching in to teach me what I needed to learn. The difference in the past few months and the past few years was this time I was finally prepared to hear what was being taught. I wasn’t too stubborn to argue with insights. I wasn’t too good for criticism. I humbled myself long enough to take a look inside and despise what I saw. It reminds me of this humorous ministry moment:

One evening during youth I was leading worship and we had just finished singing a couple rowdy “get your energy out” type songs. I was sweating and it was at that point in the spring where we needed the AC on but hadn’t done it yet so the Underground was VERY balmy. I stopped to make a comment about sweaty/smelly teens when my co-worship leader, Becka, leaned over to me very kindly and said “Um, Eric, the smell is coming from you!” OUCH! I did a quick pit check and realized she was 100% right. I smelled like a wet dog! No offense to the wet dogs of our world, of course.

Do you see the application here? It was as if I was placing my discontent on situations or others around me, rather than squarely on my own shoulders. It dawned on me that I was the one who was stinky after all that time of feeling crummy and empty. I needed to change out of my robe into my recreational clothes (full credit to Nacho Libre for that anaology). And this brings us to the present. I am standing on the brink of regaining my fire, my spark, my challenge in life. The difficult thing, is that this time, instead of standing at sea level, I have to begin at the bottom of a pit I’ve dug for myself. It’s a pit of complacency and comfortability. If any of you feel like walking to the edge and lowering a rope, feel free.

“Where is your robe, Ignacio?” “It was stinky, these are my recreational clothes.”

All of the above and the last post may seem depressing and negative. Please don’t take it that way! I am frequently harder on me than others are. Especially when I sense failure. I wrote these words as a free man, released from the burden of a plateau. I feel like I’m standing at the edge of a mountain that is begging to be climbed! So I’m restarting as a leader, a learner, and my own personal coach. I said on twitter yesterday, “Transparency is a key asset to accountability.” This is me being transparent. I have no secrets, I have no pride. I have been reduced to a heap of humility and shame. I hope you’ll join me in reaching the summit of what our Creator intended us to be.

Many of you may or may not know that we are transitioning out of the church here in Warrenton. If that comes to you as a surprise, I’m so sorry I couldn’t tell you face to face, but at this point it’s getting dicey to try and find out who I’ve told and who not. There are a multitude of reasons why we’ve made this decision. None of those reasons are a result of duress, anger, poor relationships or any ill feelings toward our staff, or church family here. Things really are tip top. About 6 weeks ago now Pastor Ryan let me know that he was going to be stepping down from his position of lead pastor here. It came as a surprise, but Brandi and I did some serious praying and talking about what we felt the right decision was and both of us wholeheartedly agreed that it was the right time for us to move on as well. Our decision came with heavy hearts and feelings of sadness and frustration, but we hold fast to the truth that we want to be walking directly in the path of the Creator.

With all that said, the past several months have been extremely difficult for me in that I’ve been going through a pruning process. It’s becoming more and more evident to me how the diffierent stages of my life are meant to teach and draw truth from, all the while building on the lessons of the other and laying out the path before me. The hardest part of the past 10 or so months is they’ve required me to take a deep and often painful look inside at who I am, who I’ve become, and who I SHOULD become. Back in October, after having an amazing and revealing week spent with some of the Central team at lifechurch.tv I wrote these words down:

“Good Pastor, Bad Leader”

Those words defined who I felt I had become. I was still and always have continued to care for people, but I had become frustrated at where I was because of a simple explanation. I haven’t been meeting my potential. Talking about a painful look at who you are and what you’re becoming. Through my own feelings and the affirmations of others over the next several months I continued to learn things about myself that hurt. I had become a disappointment to me and especially those who know and believe in what I am capable of. While I had still been serving and loving people as I always had, my leadership skills and development had grinded to a screeching halt. I was not pushing myself to invest in others, I was not studying, I was not allowing myself to be criticized (constructively of course) or mentored by anyone. I was happy, content and worst of all, growing more steadily ineffective most leadership related areas.

So what happens to the person who stops challenging and pushing himself to grow? They stop. And if they stop long enough, they start to regress. Stay tuned for Part 2.

This month I wrote a quick “but sweet” post for our local opinion shaper column in the Warrenton News Journal. I posted on twitter that I had just finished writing it and started getting hounded to post it to the blog here. It’s under 500 words, which is odd for me as I’m generally wordy. The problem therein lies in that it was late, and I was in a hurry. Also, I used a lot of someone else’s words as the content for this article. I felt compelled to write a quick note of encouragement and challenge to the dads in our community.

The 3-phrase tips area of the article are from a message I heard Pastor Mike at Morning Star Church in O’Fallon, MO preach this past Saturday evening. It’s fun visiting other churches to see what they’ve got going on, how they’re doing, what’s creative there, etc. I was very impressed with the message, and if you’re interested in listening, it can be found HERE.He had some interesting thoughts on Father’s Day, taken from the Biblical account of the Transfiguration of Christ and how they could be applied to Dads.

Here’s the article, hope you like it! And, equally, I hope you had an outstanding Father’s Day!

I love Father’s Day. I should be entirely honest and say I’ve especially loved the past 3, since I’ve been able to celebrate FD as a dad. Actually being a dad and showing appreciation to your dad turn out to be entirely different things. In fact, the experience of being a father has become quite enlightening to the stresses and responsibilities that my own father held when I was growing up.

As a new(ish) father, I’m amazed at the pressure. Not just expected pressure from my wife and daughter, but even the pressure that I put on myself! I so desperately want my daughter to grow up happy, healthy, prepared for life, and able to make good decisions that I often make fatherhood a more difficult endeavor than it needs to be. I think so much about the future I forget about the present, not realizing that the investment I make now will determine her future outcome.

I heard a very wise man give some simple tips on fatherhood just this past weekend that I felt compelled to share. He gave an example of three basic phrases that if practiced consistently could play a vital role in shaping the thoughts and behavior of our children.

The first phrase is simply, “I love you.” Many of us probably come from the school of parenting that says a child should be able to tell that we love them by our actions. They have clothes, food on the table, a safe place to live, etc. We assume that because all of our actions apparently scream, “I love you,” that our child should be able to deduce as much. It doesn’t always seem this way though. Our kids need affirmation and encouragement on a regular basis, and the security of knowing their parents love and cherish them no matter what.

The second phrase is “I’m proud of you.” I remember what it did for my confidence and ego when my dad would tell me this. I can even remember wishing he would tell me even more often so I could feel the satisfaction of doing something my dad would approve of. It sounds a little ridiculous and even kind of mushy, but I would wager that a child who has the approval of his parents would often be more successful than the one who has none.

The third and last phrase is “You’re good at…” Like being proud of them, our kids need encouragement in their areas of interest.  What better way to offer it than to let them know that we’re their biggest fans, rooting for them to succeed!

If you missed the opportunity to do so on Sunday, be sure to let your Dad know how much you appreciate them. The previous three phrases go just as well to affirm parents as they do children. I hope your Father’s day was a great one!

Easily one of my favorite responsibilities in the world of church camp and youth camps is the job of camp speaker. It’s awesome because you get to say your peace, hang with kids when and where you want to, and take time to chill, pray, gather your thoughts, etc. Generally, expected responsibilities are limited to speaking in the evenings, and sometimes morning and evenings. While some camps will occasionally ask the speaker to be a counselor and/or take on other responsibilities, I’d say it’s a pretty rare scenario that expectations go beyond giving the message at the main sessions.

What I like about it is that you get a chance to invest with the teens outside of the main sessions, while still getting a chance to recharge your batteries and even participate in some of the fun activities. Plus, most of the time, your messages set the spiritual tone for the week of camp. It’s a very heavy responsibility to bear, but one that I welcome freely. It challenges me to keep my focus and forces me to approach every message with the utmost of prayer and contemplation.

The camp I’m speaking at this week is near Syracuse, Indiana and is the first youth camp of the summer for the Indiana and Western Yearly Meetings of the Friends Church. This particular camp is strictly Jr. High, which is absolutely one of my favorite groups to speak to. The energy is off the charts, and most of them have a pretty teachable attitude. The theme is “Made” with the theme verse being Isaiah 64:8:

⁸ And yet, O Lord, you are our Father.
We are the clay, and you are the potter.
We all are formed by your hand.

The whole week is driven on the principle that we are God’s ongoing creations, continuously being molded into who he has intended us to be. On my end, it’s sort of an eye-opening “how-to” means of communicating this truth to the teens. The Play-Doh pirate you see in the picture above was done by the worship team bassist Aaron White. Aaron as you can see is an extremely talented guy with his hands. The teens were given play-doh to mold different things out of to remind them of how God is continually making them into a new creation. I guess Aaron feels God is molding him into a pirate.

Remember that Bill Cosby show, Kids Say the Darndest Things? Well, this next youtube sound bite is of an adult, who apparently is a little misguided with her opinion on what law enforcement should be used for. I am 100% amazed at how self serving so many of us are. We have such a mentality of “How dare they treat ME like that.” Puts how ridiculous we are sometimes into perspective, doesn’t it?

My favorite line, bar none, “Ma’am, we’re not going to come down there to enforce your western bacon cheeseburger.”

Seriously, take 2 1/2 minutes of your time and invest in this gem. You won’t be disappointed. All credit goes to my broseph Mark Adams for this find! Click on his name to visit his blog.

I had a very open and honest conversation with someone who is very quickly becoming a life mentor to me. We first met approximately 9 years ago, and even with limited communication every month, or a few, or a little each year, it seems like he completely sees through all obstacles and fronts that I put up and hide behind to see who I really am better than anyone else I know. He sees results. He sees around my wordy excuses (did you know I’m wordy?) and right to the heart of the problem.

Anyway, yesterday during our conversation after some honest soul-searching on my part, he began to challenge me on some leadership issues. I use the word issue because it’s becoming more evident to me and has over the past year that I am not developing and meeting my full leadership potential. It’s a difficult pill to swallow, but I’m becoming increasingly more willing to take an honest look at myself, where I’m lacking, where I’m growing, and what action steps need to be taken in order to achieve those things… NO MATTER how difficult the change is or how long it takes to get there.

In our conversation, Jeff asked me how much reading and studying I had been doing to work on my own leadership development. My answer was extremely embarrassing. Since my lull in the master’s program I am enrolled in started, my own initiative toward reading for personal development and training has grinded to a screaching halt. Other than a few books here and there (very sporadic) for spiritual growth, and staff challenges, my fire has dwindled almost entirely. Like I said, it was embarrassing. Read the rest of this entry »

My brain works in a funny way. Well, I suppose everyone’s brain works in a funny way to them, but mine just seems especially funny. That’s right, I said it, my brain is more special than yours. You can insert whatever “special” comments and/or jokes you need to right there, it doesn’t bother me. If I’m lucky in a day or a week, my brain will churn out a variety of complete thoughts that resemble productivity and creativity. If I’m unlucky (which also frequently happens), my brain will happily skip from one incomplete thought to the next often fueled by distraction, coffee and billboards. So hey, I’m awake, and I have energy, but I may have nothing to show for it.

I think that’s why Twitter has been so great for me over the past 10 months. Whenever I have a random thought or idea, I can post it via my phone or desktop app within seconds. Plus, I’ve only got 140 characters to get across what I want so it’s brief too. It could be a bad thing, the fact that it feeds my randomness, but I enjoy it and if you’re not following me, you can do so HERE.

That’s where my love/hate relationship with blogging comes in. I follow some pretty sweet blogs/bloggers. Honestly, there are several that I read weekly and even daily that rock my mind and even feed my distracted and sporatic thinking mind. I can move from one to the other and read a few paragraphs of a thought provoking post, then move to another that’s similar or maybe drastically contrasting to the previous. I won’t follow a blog that is redundant or just says the same thing over and over in different ways, but ones that I feel generally have something to contribute to my brain. It’s good for me as a reader and a learner, but not so much as a writer/blogger. Somehow these UBER-bloggers map out their blog posts, and turn them out with amazing frequency and quantity with no tarnishing of the quality whatsoever.

I actually enjoy writing in many different forms. Expressing my thoughts into the perfect word picture gives me great satisfaction and enjoyment. The same with speaking. The most frustrating thing for me is the organization of it, or even just the execution. It’s not an uncommon thing to hear teachers or professors talk about how the hardest part of doing an assignment is starting it. The same goes for blogs. I’m generally happy with what I’ve written when I’m done, and I generally write more than I intended and even in more detail, but for some reason it can be so hard to jump in and just get one started.

There are actually a lot of things floating through my mind right now. Some rather serious items, some funny, and some life-changing. My problem is my indecisive attitude in trying to decide which to do first, how many, and how long. I feel like I have good things to say that are worth reading, and at the same time, I value everyone’s time and hate to make someone feel like they’re obligated to sit down and read an ocean of print strewn across their screen. Regardless, more blogs are on the way, though I can’t promise when, or how many, or the subject. You’ll know when I know.

PS. I intend to try and enforce a 500 word limit on all of my wordy blogs. Even splitting them up in parts if I have to.