Eight Years in Colorado

Today marks the 8th anniversary of my arrival in Colorado. Justin and I took the 22 hour road trip from PDX to COS and arrived late Halloween evening just in team to meet up with friend's at the Halloween 5k at Jack Quin's.

For the uninitiated: Coloradan's celebrate everything with a 5k run.

I've been reflecting on the last eight years and, in no particular order, here are a few of my takeaways:

• Everyone person should spend at least 12 months away from hone.
• Moving sucks. But it's worth it.
• The tighter you squeeze, the less control you have.

• Ministries, organizations, campaigns, initiatives, projects, bosses, colleagues, clients, and customers all come and go. A “career” is just swinging to the next gig.
• The subject of "leadership" is an infinite expanse.

• Every single temperament and personality has an essential place and function in the world, but precious few of them are where they ought to be.
• To stay on a team, your contribution must outweigh your idiosyncrasies.
• Snow is like a bad romance: you dream about it, you hope for it, you anticipate it, when it arrives it’s magical, then after a few months, you just sit grumpily on your couch wishing it'd go away.

• Hebrew is inversely difficult to Greek.
• Masculinity and femininity are worldviews.
• Only Evangelicals write “worldview” as a compound word and it's one of the surest ways to spot one.
• Television is a fabulous, glorious, praiseworthy time suck.

• "Culture" is epiphenomenal. To change it, you have to change what's causing it.
• Organizations will take a young, budding talent and cultivate them, mature them, give them experience, then cap their advancement. This sends the now-mature talent off to another organization for a 20% pay raise. I'm not convinced this is a bad thing, but I've seen it so many times, I am convinced it's a law of some kind.

• Slowing down doesn't mean I get less done; it means I get the same amount done with more chill. Conversely, sprinting doesn't mean I get more done, it means I get the same amount done but just crash harder.
• The cure for loneliness is deep hospitality.

• "Advice" is a tool to be used appropriately, not a law to be obeyed mindlessly. And that lesson would have been learned faster and more deeply from experience.
• The "voices" of others that say things to me are just my own fears I’ve conscripted like an evil puppeteer.
• The academy is well and truly broken.
• Half of the people working in Christian publishing are sincere, good-faith people trying to make a difference in a fallen world. The other half are marketers.

• All habits are choices.
• The rarest and most beautiful person in the world is the true believer.
• Stressing over a thing takes up all the energy you need to actually do the thing.

• What we say we want and what we will do to get our wants are not just different, they’re often opposed.
• There is no greater waste of time, talent, energy, skill, and good will than the job application process.
• Take any skill set or craft (leadership, film-making, preaching, interior design etc.) and the people most critical of it are the people least capable of doing it. It doesn't mean they're wrong, but it does mean they're annoying.

• Uber and Lyft drivers are the most diverse people group with whom I’ve personally interacted. It’s not even close.
• I appreciate the tragedy of a small business closing, but for the life of me I can’t figure out how most of them stay open at all.
• Control freaks don't need to solve our control issues; we need to solve our fear issues.

• For change to occur, the pain of the change must seem less than the pain of the status quo.
• Theory and practice must be in symbiosis in order for both to thrive. Also, theorists and practitioners have no respect for each other.
• The most beautiful, important, and heart-wrenching ministry that's done by pastors is unseen by all but the few lucky enough to witness it.

• Most of the time, when people say, "we've diagnosed the problem", they mean, "we've identified a symptom".
• The 20/80 rule is a law of the universe and your church needs you to serve.

• Just because you knew a thing doesn’t mean you know a thing.
• My rarely let my understanding of "God" be defined by God.
• Family really is forever.