Spur | Mac's Blog

Momentum matters. Winning trumps losing. But God bless those who stay. Those who stick around and stick to it long enough to see momentum ebb and flow and keep coming back for more.

A few years ago, I was at a small gathering of pastors. And the topic du jour was the recent resignation of a big name pastor and author to follow God into the unknown of what would be next. The prevailing sentiment was that he was acting on deep, abiding faith in this leap into the unknown. But the host of this gathering said introducing that day’s guest speaker: “I know that our friend’s resignation is a true leap of faith. But I don’t want us to forget the faith that it takes to stay. To fight the good fight through years and decades.”

In an age of disposable marriages, church-shopping/hopping/bopping, fractured friendships, we’re missing out on the blessing of staying. Building. Persevering. Resolving. Reconciling. Healing. Growing. Knowing. Reflecting the heart of Christ. Who stayed. And stays.

One of the bedrock principles of Crossfit is high intensity training over a short duration. Toward the end of one of my early workouts, I was doing pushups with a weighted vest on after flipping a tractor tire multiple times (Don’t ask—these people do some weird stuff). As I was nearing the last push of the session, I was hating life and Web, grinding through some pushups when he got on the floor and asked very directly but quietly,

C’mon, Mac…How many can you do when you’re tired?

Within the same week, I saw an ESPN special, All Access: Alabama that spotlighted Alabama Head Football Coach, Nick Saban. One day toward the end of practice, Saban was, um…encouraging his players to stay focused even though they were exhausted. And he told them that the first half of practice was just to get them to this point so they could learn to focus, execute, and perform when they were tired.

How many can you do when you’re tired? That’s really what separates average from excellent, good from great, and getting by to taking flight. It became such a mantra for me in Crossfit that it began seeping into other areas of my life:

• When Julie needed help with something around the house, but I was “off the clock”
• When I felt like I had done “enough” message prep
•  When my son wanted to play 1-on-1 in the driveway 
• When I needed to return phone calls/emails
• When I wanted to sleep in instead of get up and get quality time with God
• When my daughter wanted to download her day at 10:30 at night and I was falling asleep

So many areas of my life grew and improved because of that one question: How many can you do when you’re tired? So much of the good stuff lies just outside of my comfort zone. When I get tired, when I feel like “that’s enough,” is exactly the time to push through and keep going to see what God has just on the other side.

Because of Web Smith (@CrossfitChron) and what he taught me training, pushing, mocking (in love, I think!), mentoring, and teaching, I’ve got a deeper, clearer understanding of how God grows us. One day at a time. One step at a time.

###

Once I started getting comfortable with being uncomfortable, I noticed something else was going on:

Incremental choices created monumental changes.

Certainly not in and of themselves. But, just the simple decision to train—no matter what—on days when I didn’t feel like it, when I was stressed or distracted, when it was too cold, or any other host of excuses led to noticeable and sustained changes. Some days, I’d come home and my bride Julie would ask, “How was your workout?” and all I could say was, “It wasn’t pretty, but it happened.”

The workouts themselves were so intense that I had to think about what I was eating the day of and the day before if I had any hope of finishing the session. And those incremental choices about what to eat, when to eat, and what not to eat led to monumental changes in how I viewed food—as fuel and setup for the workout to come (and how much I enjoyed my cheat day when it rolled around each week), as well as how I performed in the workouts.

Yet again, as in Crossfit, so in life: Incremental choices about setting aside time to pray, hacking a night out of our crazy schedule to date Julie, talking to my kids about their basketball games, spending another hour in message prep…all of these “little decisions” add up to the sum total of who I am and what I do with the life I’ve been given.

There is no such thing as a little choice.

###

2011 will forever be remembered as the year I met Crossfit. Under the able coaching and frequent harangue of Web Smith (@CrossfitChron), who also redesigned my blog, I discovered a whole new world of training that I’d never known before. In discovering Crossfit, I also discovered some immutable laws of life that transcend working out and strengthen performance as a husband, a dad, a pastor, and life in general.

The first Crossfit Law I learned laid the foundation for all the others. After one of my first workouts, as I was huffing and puffing, thinking I had really worked hard, Web grinned his big gap-toothed grin and said,

I gotta get you comfortable with being uncomfortable.

It wasn’t that I wasn’t working. It was this: I wasn’t working hard enough at the right things. And, if it hadn’t been for his accountability, I never would’ve made the gains that I did.

Comfort crushes growth. Every time. Everywhere. In my faith, marriage, work, training, parenting—Comfort crushes growth and feeds mediocrity. When I broke through the comfort ceiling in working out, I started noticing little pockets of comfort I had allowed to sprout in other areas of my life. And I started rooting them out because mediocrity scares me more than failure. With failure, at least something is attempted.

In the beginning, God created…

   Gen. 1:1a

This is how God opens his love letter to humanity in the book of Genesis. But, what if we used it as a template to open our love letter to him in 2012? What if everyone who claims the label Christian began this year praying with everything we have to ask God how to create a year that reflects, proclaims, and honors him?

To be sure, we’ll encounter events, challenges, losses, and opportunities that are beyond our control. But, if we accept responsibility for the things we can control and influence—the gifts & talents, relationships & resources that have been entrusted to us—we can radically alter the trajectory of this year and our lives. 

All creativity is born in the heart and character and personality of God. And as another expression of his love for us, he lets us participate in that creativity to honor him and make a difference in our homes, neighborhoods, schools, the marketplace, politics…you get the point.

As you clarify and refine the vision for your team/staff/church/business/school/family, you also have to clarify and refine the VOICE. The voice of a team is the shared sense of mission, joy, urgency, passion, work ethic, philosophy, and responsibility that defines the culture of that team. I CANNOT overstate how mission-critical the voice of your team is. It is sink-or-swim, do-or-die, life-and-death critical.

Some people that you recruit/hire/bring on will just “get it,” almost from before day one. Some people don’t get it yet, but they will as you teach and share it. And, some won’t. For those who won’t or can’t, it means that you hired the wrong person. Not necessarily a bad person, but the wrong person for this team. 

And, some people are just so wounded that they can’t get out of their own way emotionally and relationally and it doesn’t matter what you do—it will never be enough. We have to love these people, invite them to join us in the larger mission/vision of the team, and help them where we can (or help them find help where we can’t help them). But because of our responsibility to the larger team and mission or vision, we can’t allow an individual or small group of people to be a drag and drain on our overall culture, performance, and team.

Hopefully, we’re engaged in something so audacious, so monumental, and significant, that to allow that would be catastrophic to our cause. As the leader, we don’t have the luxury of settling for the catastrophe of mediocrity. We are responsible and accountable for the vision and the voice that are the vehicles for our vocation, our calling. Regardless of our leadership context or style, our personality, the benefits and rewards, or challenges and obstacles—responsibility is the defining characteristic of leadership. Accepting and embracing responsibility reveals a true leader.

###

Way back in Feb. I wrote Clarifying Dreams & Visions as a calm, almost academic reflection on Dr. Sam Chand’s observation: Leadership is like changing the fan belt on your car. While driving down the highway.

At the time, I didn’t intend it to be a multi-part posting. But, in the interim six months, God has changed not only the fan belts of our church and my life, but the oil, radiator fluid, all four tires, the transmission, and the very engine itself. All, while driving down the highway. And, sure enough, he has used this process to clarify and refine the vision that he has called us to realize.

The vehicle has changed. Significantly. But the destination, the object of our prayers, work, dreams, hopes, time, resources, pain, and joy remains the same as it ever was: TO GROW THE COMMUNITY OF CHRIST ONE LIFE AT A TIME.

Over the next few days, I’m going to share some of what we’ve learned and experienced and decided as a result of this crazy ride. Here’s the first thing: THE COMMITMENT TO TRAVEL TRUMPS THE MODE OF TRAVEL. If your car breaks down, don’t abandon the journey. Repair it or replace it, but whatever you do, keep moving!

If your team’s communication, passion, unity, joy, or effectiveness breaks down, the leader is responsible/accountable to repair/replace whatever or whomever needs to be repaired/replaced. The journey (mission, vision, purpose) is too important and the stakes are too high to abandon the journey.