7 Billion People–A Problem? Or Opportunity?

According to the United Nations and many news reports, today is the day that we will officially have 7 billion people on the planet. I thought I remembered when the world population hit 4 billion, and with a little research, it appears I was right. According to the 2011 World Population Data Sheet, we reached…

• 1 billion in around 1800 (it took all of human history to achieve it)
• 2 billion in 1930 (130 years later)
• 3 billion in 1960 (30 years later)
• 4 billion in 1974 (14 years later…I was 7 years old)
• 5 billion in 1987 (13 years later)
• 6 billion in 1999 (12 years later)
• 7 billion in 2011 (12 years later)

Leave Room for People in Your Schedule

A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to contribute two short video talks to Leadership Network for The NINES. You’ve already seen my talk called “Do Whatever It Takes” in regards to keep the family a priority. This talk is on Time Management. It is less than 5 minutes long. I hope you enjoy it.

No time to watch it? That’s okay, here are the main points I shared for managing your time…

1. Everything goes on my calendar.
2. Priority stuff goes on my calendar first.
3. Stack my meetings on one or two days each week.
4. Calendar my rest — if I don’t plan for rest and renewal, it won’t happen.
5. Leave room for people and leave room for God.
6. Take T.I.M.E for people (touch, inspire, motivate, encourage)

What I’ve Learned from Mark Beeson

The Beeson's & Stevens' together in 2002.

In this week of celebrating Mark & Sheila’s 25 years at Granger, I wanted to take a minute to talk about what I’ve learned from Mark in the 17 years we have worked together.

• Family is first. Mark has modeled that more than anyone I’ve ever known. He has always shown me that his relationship with his wife and kids is more important than work and ministry . When I first began working with Mark, we had a 17-month old and a 1-month old, and Mark & Sheila’s kids were 14, 12 and 10. So I watched him interact with his kids through their middle school and high school years and into their adult years. As you would expect, his parenting was not typical. He would respond to behavior differently than I’d ever seen before. And every day I learned more from him about how to raise kids who love Jesus.
• Mark has always believed in me. He hired me as a 27-year old without a college degree and never once brought up education as an issue. He called me a pastor when I said I wasn’t old enough or smart enough. He asked me to lead the church through the first building project when I’d never even built a dog house. He asked me to be his executive pastor when I’d be leading people much older and more tenured than me.
• Mark listens. Every week he asks me for input on his weekend message. Can you imagine? That’s like the quarterback of a football team asking for advice from the water boy. At least that’s how I felt in the early days. And he genuinely listens. To me. To his wife. To his team. To anyone he knows believes in him and has his back.
• Mark empowers the people around him. So many key churches are known by their senior leader. You hear the name of the church, and you immediately can name the senior pastor. But you likely don’t know one other name on staff. At Granger, Mark has strategically built-in to the leaders around him for years, and given them a platform to succeed. He’s not intimidated nor insecure when one of his staff members publishes a book, or gets a great speaking gig, or is recognized on the national scene in same way. He loves it. He celebrates it!
• He models genuine care for people. I have never felt like my tasks are more important than my walk with Christ or my relationship with my family. Mark & Sheila have both shown unbelievable care for me, my family, my hurts and my joys.
• I have become a better encourager because of being around Mark. If he’s a 100 on the cheerleader scale, I’m just a 15. But I used to be a big fat ZERO. So I have a long way to go, but I’ve learned so much.
• Mark gave me eyes for people outside the church. He busted me out of the church bubble in my thinking, and helped me see that traditional church isn’t going to do the trick to reach those far from God.

How Do 5,000 People Keep a Secret?

We began planning the surprise 25th Anniversary Celebration for Mark & Sheila Beeson early in 2011. The biggest question: How do we get thousands of people to come to the event without telling him? Every man, woman and child in the church would know–could they keep it quiet? Here are some behind-the-scenes notes about planning the surprise party…

• In September, the Beeson’s were on vacation with their kids and families. That would be the perfect time to tell the church about the celebration. But, we knew it was quite possible he might watch the service online either live or later in the week. So we ended each service with a closing, turned off the recorders, and the immediately said “Wait a minute! Don’t leave yet!” Then made the announcement about the party.
• Beyond those weekend announcements, we did all the promotion through email and texts. We knew it would be too risky to put anything out on Twitter or Facebook, and we didn’t want any print pieces laying around…so it was a stealthy effort through word-of-mouth and limited technology.
• We gave a lot of thought to making sure Mark would be in town, and at the church at exactly the right time. We knew it was possible that we could put a bunch of effort into throwing a party, and then Mark could decide to go hunting, or accept a speaking engagement, at the last minute. And then we’d have a problem. So many months ago, I called his brother Matt Beeson in Kentucky. I asked him if he would be willing to help us pull off the great deceptive plan. He was all in. So he and his wife made plans to visit Mark & Sheila, arriving a couple hours before the party. We knew that Mark values family so much, he would never change plans if he knew his brother was coming into town. Matt & Linda arrived around 4:30pm and took Mark & Sheila out to an early dinner. Then Matt told a little lie, and said that I had invited him to stop by the church to look at our blueprints for the new addition. And they arrived, right on time, as fireworks went off over the building.
• I must confess–Matt wasn’t the only one who had to tell a lie. In fact, we all told quite a few lies over the past few weeks. But my personal theology leaves room for lying at such a time as this.
• Probably the biggest challenge was Mark himself. Celebrating key milestones are very important to him–and beginning in September Mark began to get very restless that we weren’t working on a 25th Anniversary celebration. By early October, he was pretty agitated about it. He couldn’t figure out why no one valued it as much as he did. It was beginning to occupy just about every conversation. Little did he know that it was so important to us, we had been working on the celebration for months–but we just couldn’t tell him about it! I encouraged our team to be kind and caring, but do everything you can to punt the conversation with Mark past October 13th.

Celebrating Mark & Sheila’s 25th Anniversary

Last Thursday night we pulled off the biggest surprise in the history of the planet. I can’t prove that, but it sure did feel like it. We rallied a church of 5,000 to keep a secret from our pastor and his wife so we could surprise them with a huge party. And what a celebration it was. You can watch the entire party here.

I’m devoting my blog this week to focus entirely on the 25th anniversary of Mark & Sheila, and the unbelievable contribution they have made to our community.

Here are some highlight pictures from the night…

Mark's brother, Matt, sneakily got Mark & Sheila to the church.

They walked down a 300' line of people cheering & congratulating them.

The "Grumpy Old Man" Made a Surprise Visit

Amber "Beeson" Cox spoke on behalf of the kids about the legacy they received.

Bill Hybels began on video from behind screen, then walked out "live" on stage.

The celebration ended with Bill Hybels praying over Mark & Sheila.

Pool-Side Retirement Thoughts

I’m sitting here by the pool on my last day in Mexico, and have been listening to three men talk for about an hour. You can learn a great deal about people by listening. These men made a lot of money and were quite successful. They are all now retired, and spend their time going from resort to cruise ship to tourist destination to vacation home. They have all the money they need to support this relaxed lifestyle. They swapped stories about the best places they’ve been and the tourist traps to avoid.

It’s quite the life. And many people spend their entire working lives building towards such a dream. I would be lying if I didn’t say that a little bit of that lifestyle sounds delightful.

Having gone through a LifePlan process this past summer–I’ve been thinking a lot about my future. I suppose if I played every card just right, such a life would be reachable for me. But I can’t imagine living a life where my biggest dream is the next place I want to visit.

Here’s how I think about the so-called retirement years…

• I want to continue to make the world a better place.
• I want to continue to add value to people every day.
• I realize there will come a time when my energy will be less than it was, and my focus will be not as sharp. I want to step out of my official roles while I am still strong–before any one else thinks I waited too long.
• I want to continue to be an impact player in a local church. I dream of being the type of volunteer who can give 10 or 20 hours a week to the staff to be utilized however they see fit.
• I want to continue to write.
• I want to continue to be engaged and available to my wife and family.
• I want to be embedded and “doing life” with a group of friends for the long-haul. I want deep roots…where I can know and be known, love and be loved, celebrate and be celebrated.

Vacationing on the Cheap

A couple days ago when I was challenging you to make it a priority to vacation with your spouse, Nicki commented and said, “That’s a great idea, but what if you truly don’t have any money.” I thought it would be fun to throw out some of my own ideas about how to vacation with little or no money–and then see what you would add to the list.

To begin, let me say that when Faith and I first got married, we had very little money. We were far from homeless–but we were the typical newlywed couple with few possessions and a lot of love. We pooled our money to buy a bed (that seemed important), but that was all we owned. Then people began to give us their hand-me-down furniture, and we began to collect enough to occupy a small apartment. Cash was limited, and it was a real treat to be able to buy a can of Dr. Pepper once or twice a week.

Sometimes there was little money and creativity was all we had. Here are some ideas for vacationing on the cheap…

1. Pray. It sounds trite, but I believe God is more committed to you having alone time with your spouse than you are. He wants your marriage to succeed! When you pray, don’t ask him to send you to that exotic resort–just ask Him for quality alone time with your spouse. See what He does to surprise you. James 4:2 — “You do not have because you do not ask God…” We have seen God bless this prayer over and over, in ways we would never expect.
2. Partner. Find another couple you can partner with who has the same commitment–then help each other. Perhaps they take your kids for the weekend. Or maybe you trade houses (it’s good to get away from your own home so you don’t spend your ‘quality time’ fixing the leaky toilet or working on the yard). You might say, “We don’t have any friends to partner with.” To that, I would again encourage you to pray. I believe if you are involved in a local church, and praying for God to bring another couple into your lives who has the same commitment to their marriage–God will honor that prayer!
3. Google. It’s amazing what you can find people are willing to trade for online. They may have a cabin sitting empty. You may have something they want. Look for ways to barter.
4. Cut. Recently a friend was encouraging me to work with a trainer to do regular exercise. I told him I couldn’t afford it. He said, “You just told me you are paying extra on your mortgage every month.” He was right. When I said “I can’t afford it” — I meant that it wasn’t a priority. I realize that is not everyone’s situation. There have been times in my life when I truly had no money for anything beyond the necessities. But many times, it’s been a matter of priorities. For some of you–you need to decide that making time alone with your spouse every year is a priority above other things in your life. So cutting might mean living in a smaller house, reducing junk food from your grocery bill, or taking a sack lunch. Look at your whole budget and see if you can make time away a priority.

Your turn. What have you creatively done to make vacation time with your spouse a priority–with limited or NO money?

Family: Do Whatever It Takes

Since this is a week completely devoted to family, I thought it would be a good time to share some of my thoughts about family. This is a 5-minute talk I did for The Nines 2011 last month. In it, I share some heart-felt thoughts about the priority of family. After you watch it, I’d love to hear your comments.

Time for My Annual Soapbox

Some of you read the title, and you know exactly what I’m going to talk about. Because just about every year, I take time to encourage married couples to take time away (annually) without the kids. If you’ve been reading LeadingSmart.com for long—you may be tired of me talking about it. But I keep repeating myself because I see so few couples actually doing it.

So, why haven’t you scheduled your time away with your spouse yet?

Don’t blame it on money – there are cheap ways to vacation. In our first few years of marriage (when our income put us right at the official poverty level), we committed to time away and left it in God’s hands. More than once, someone came along and said, “Hey, we have a timeshare you can use if you want…” and we had a great vacation for the cost of getting there.

Don’t blame it on time – you’ll never have enough for it to make sense. Just decide what is important to you (answer: your marriage) and get it on the schedule.

Don’t blame it on the kids – the greatest way to show your kids how valuable they are to you is to take time for each other. Work with another couple who is also committed to time away, and watch each others’ kids.

Don’t blame it on your job – are you still waiting until the work slows down? Or until you finish the big project? Or until you get the promotion and have more vacation days available? Wait long enough, and you might have a great job and no marriage. If you sincerely can’t get time off work–then plan a couple extended weekends.

Someone reading this has been thinking about planning time away with your spouse…you just haven’t pulled the trigger. Wait no longer—schedule it now. Then drop me a note, I’d love to hear about it.

And if you wonder why I’m writing about this today, it’s because I’m currently on plane with my wife heading to a land far away. It’s just the two of us–and we get a whole week with nothing but each other. This is my favorite week of the year–the only week when I shut off the outside world and do nothing but life with my wife. See you next week!

P.S. Someone is going to scold me this week because I’m still blogging. Save it–I’ve written these ahead of time and scheduled them to post in my absence.