Just Jump

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skydiving“Are my straps on tight enough?”

“Yes, they’re fine,” Robby answers calmly, not seeming to really check.  “The important thing to remember is just relax.”

“And what do I do with my hands?  Do I leave them out or fold them across my chest?”

“Either way is fine.  The important thing to remember is just relax.”

Easy for him to say.  For my bored skydiving instructor this is just another day at the office.  For me this is my first time to jump out of an airplane at 10,000 feet.  I’m looking through the oval window of this small rumbling plane, and the ground looks very, very, very far away.   And these straps don’t feel tight enough.  Is it possible to slip out of this harness and plunge to my death?

I didn’t get much from Robby in the form of proper skydiving technique, although I did sign plenty of waivers before my tandem dive.  The one thing he kept telling me besides relax is to not grab on to the side of the door when it’s time to jump.  Just jump.

This is a fun day splurge for my son and I for his 18th birthday.  We were joking about the experience down on the ground but now up here my feeling is one more of abject terror.

Seasoned instructors are strapped to their inexperienced divers, straddling two long benches inside the plane.  We get the signal that we are at 10,000 feet.  Their advertising promised between 8,000 and 14,000 feet and 20 seconds of straight free fall before the instructors pull the cord.  By now I am thinking I would have gladly paid for lower altitude and less drop.

Robby and I awkwardly scoot forward together.  He’s going to be riding piggy back all the way down and doing all the important stuff like pulling the cord of the parachute and making sure we land right side up.  I’ll do my part to pray we don’t die.

My son goes first.  Out the door with his instructor in a nanosecond.  Poof, he’s gone.  I can’t even catch a glimpse of him on his free fall down.

One more diver then it’s my turn.  “Just relax,” Robby says one last time. 

This is it.  This is the moment.  We are right at the door now, looking down at terra firma so far below.

Wait a minute.  This is not the moment.  This is a horrible mistake.  Airplanes were not made to jump out of.  I instinctively grab the sides of the door.

“Let go,” Robbie screams in my hear. “Let go.”

No turning back now.  I unclasp my hands from the sides of the door and we drop like two rocks tied together.

The plunge.  20 seconds of sheer…what is this…I thought this would be awful but it’s kind of invigorating.  Fun even.  Flying through the air like superman.

He pulls the chute and we slow down, gliding to the landing spot together.  I’m immensely enjoying the beautiful scenery.  I can’t wait to get back to the ground and share the experience with Caleb.  Exhilarating.  That was a blast.

The once-in-a-lifetime experience for me had spiritual analogy written all over it.            

Jesus called Peter to step out of the boat and walk on the water toward Him.  The story is so important it is recorded three times in the Gospels:  Matthew 14, Mark 6 and John 6.  The Lord didn’t give Peter much in the way of instructions or waivers to sign.  

“Come,” He said. 

We give Peter a hard time for losing concentration and sinking so fast.  But hey, at least he tried.  For those brief nanoseconds a human being actually walked on water.

When Jesus saw what happened He said, “You of little faith.  Why did you doubt?”

I don’t imagine Jesus saying that with disdain in his voice, like Peter, you’re such a loser.  But more like, Peter, you have a little faith.  Not bad.  Now keep your eye on Me and you won’t sink next time.

Keep listening to your Instructor say relax.  Or in olden language, peace be unto you.  And don’t grab on to the sides of the door.

Just jump and enjoy.

 

— Mike O’Quin, author of Java Wake and Growing Desperate

Growing Older Courageously

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Air SupplyAll out of love? What does the legendary 70’s band Air Supply have to do with growing older courageously?  In this week’s audio podcast, Paul and Mike talk about cruising into your 40’s, 50’s and beyond with a big silly grin on your face. Live in the new glory days.

Click below to listen or search for “Faith Activators” on the iTunes Store to subscribe

Growing Older Courageously

Related Post: Turning 40

P.S.  You're not allowed to listen to this podcast if you are under age 30.

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Pac-Man Leadership

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pac man leadershipIn this short discussion, Paul Richardson and Mike O’Quin unpack three essential elements of spiritually healthy organizations, using the acronym P.A.C.  What are those three ingredients?  You’ll have to listen to find out…

Click below to hear the conversation or search for “Faith Activators” in the iTunes store to subscribe to this podcast.

Pac-Man Leadership

— Mike O’Quin, author of Java Wake and Growing Desperate

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Driven By More Than Adventure

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africaWhy in the world would someone drive the length of Africa, from the northern tip of Morocco down to the southern point of Capetown in South Africa?  Listen to this audio interview with cinematographer Bowen Parrish who did exactly that, over the span of seven months through 17 countries. Two 4×4 vehicles. Over 12,000 miles (more than 20,000 kilometers). Ten tire changes. Three cases of malaria. Eight people on the team, including a 2-year-old!

This guy must really be out of his mind or else he is driven by something deeper, God's immense love for Africa.

Here is a short video he filmed of his amazing adventure:

Africa: North to South from Bowen Parrish on Vimeo.

To listen to the audio interview, click below or you can subscribe to this podcast by searching for “Faith Activators” in the iTunes store.

Interview with Bowen Parrish

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EQ for Spiritual Leaders: Social Skill

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Team Building SkillsHow are your team building skills?  Are you helping the people on your team find their unique places and empowering them toward collective goals?  In this audio podcast, the last one in a series on Emotional Intelligence (EQ), Paul Richardson, author of A Certain Risk, and Mike O’Quin, author of Growing Desperate, unpack the EQ category of “Social Skill.”  Do you want to change the world?  You can’t do it alone….

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EQ for Spiritual Leaders (Part Six)

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EQ For Spiritual Leaders: Are You Really Listening?

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empathyIMAGINE HOW RICH our relationships could be if we learned to see the world through another person’s eyes, feel the weight of their burdens, understand their fears, and rejoice when their hearts leap with joy. Listen in on the conversation as Paul Richardson, author of A Certain Risk, and Mike O’Quin, author of Growing Desperate,  talk honestly about their own struggles to try to listen in on the hearts around them.

Click below to listen to this audio podcast or search for “Faith Activators” on the iTunes store to subscribe.

 

EQ for Spiritual Leaders (Part Five)

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EQ for Spiritual Leaders: Motivation

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motivationWhat gets you out of bed on Monday morning?  Researchers have consistently found that intrinsic motivation in leaders’ lives beat extrinsic motivation hands down.  A person with a desire to make a difference in the world is going to be more passionate and find more joy in their work over the long-term than someone only seeking a bigger salary.  “A passion to work for reasons that go beyond money or status,” [i] is the way Daniel Goleman defines motivation, one of his five categories of Emotional Intelligence (EQ).  How can you find more joy and meaning in your work or ministry?  How can you find that thing that you were created to do?  In this audio podcast, part four in a six-part series on Emotional Intelligence, Paul Richardson, author of A Certain Risk, and Mike O’Quin, author of Growing Desperate, discuss how to find the secret sauce of intrinsic motivation in your life.  Rev up your perpetual motion engine!

Click below to listen or search for “Faith Activators” on the iTunes store to subscribe.

EQ for Spiritual Leaders (Part Four)

[i] What Makes a Leader? Goleman, Daniel. 1998, Harvard Business Review, pp. 1-13.

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EQ for Spiritual Leaders: Self-Regulation

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The Apostle Paul described it 2,000 years ago, identifying this amazing super-power quality as being so remarkable and rare that it is evidence of the Spirit of the Creator within a person. Now researchers are finding that the ability to regulate oneself is an instrumental quality in all aspects of effectiveness. Listen in as Paul Richardson, author of A Certain Risk, and Mike O’Quin, author of Growing Desperate, discuss how to deal with our primal impulses and where they come from, how trust is the currency of leadership, and the answer to one of philosophy’s most enduring questions, “Why did the chicken cross the road?” Enjoy.

EQ for Spiritual Leaders (Part Three)

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Who is This King that Demands my Life?

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  Leonidas at Thermopylae  

 
By Paul Richardson
 
DO YOU SEE THIS PAINTING? I SPENT COUNTLESS HOURS staring at it when I was a little boy. My dad kept a book about ancient Greece and Rome. From the time I was four or five years old, I would often pull it off the shelf, take it to my mom and ask her to read it to me. As she read, I would lose myself inside the images. This painting of Leonidas at Thermopylae was always my favorite. As I closed my eyes to fall asleep for my afternoon nap, I was the man with the red cape wielding a sword and shield.
 
In 480 B.C. Xerxes of Persia invaded Greece with a million warriors. All the Greek kings quickly surrendered to Xerxes without a fight. Except one. The Spartan warrior king Leonidas waited for the Persian army at the narrow pass of Thermopylae with his royal guard of 300 men. Xerxes, enthroned on the hills above the looming battle, prepared to enjoy the massacre from a safe distance. Herodotus wrote that Xerxes sneered when he heard reports the Spartan warriors were bathing in the ocean. A Greek slave explained to Xerxes that the Spartans were not simply bathing. They were performing an ancient ritual known as “baptisma” in preparation for their own deaths.  “O king!” the slave said to Xerxes, “Now you are face to face with the most valiant men in Hellas.”
 
Herodotus wrote that the Spartans fought “with their swords, if they had them, but if not, with their hands and teeth.” On the morning of the third day, Leonidas is said to have told his embattled warriors, “Have a good breakfast, men. We shall dine in Hell!” Hours later, Leonidas was struck down by a Persian arrow. His faithful warriors rallied around his body, enshrouding it with their own until the last Spartan fell defending his king. 
 
A century and a half later, another Greek king advanced across Asia to avenge Leonidas. With 30,000 warriors, Alexander blazed a trail of victorious battles from Asia Minor to North Africa and beyond the Khyber Pass onto the plains of India. 
 
Before he died at 32, Alexander the Great had expanded his realm of influence to an unprecedented breadth. Remnants of his culture and language remain even to this day. Yet, Alexander’s actual “kingdom” disintegrated more quickly than it took him to establish it. Alexander was the ancient equivalent of an entrepreneur who builds a business empire that disintegrates in the months following his retirement. He was like a gifted preacher whose church scatters to the wind soon after he leaves for another assignment. 
 
The secret to Alexander’s rapid advancement and disintegration are one and the same. Like Xerxes, he simply asked for tokens of submission, but left his conquered subjects alone to cling to their own idols and keep their little kingdoms intact. He demanded almost no taxes from his conquered subjects, once even saying, “I hate the gardener who cuts to the root the vegetables of which he ought to cull the leaves.” As Julius Caesar would later say in 47 B.C. “Veni, Vidi, Vici.” (I came. I saw. I conquered.”), none of these men were actual kingdom builders. They were merely sword wielding tourist kings.
 
Another king was born about three centuries after Alexander’s megastar legacy was enshrined across Greek speaking Asia. As a little boy, Jesus probably lived in Alexandria, the great Mediterranean coastal city Alexander had marked out and ordered built on the North coast of Egypt. By the time Joseph and Mary fled to Egypt, Alexandria was the second largest city on earth, and home to the greatest population of Jews outside of Palestine. Jesus lived his entire 33 years in the ashes of Alexander’s windblown conquests. As a boy studying history, did Jesus ponder his own kingdom? He too, would lead valiant men over deserts, mountain passes and onto distant shores. But Jesus had no intention of forming another paper thin Alexandrian token kingdom that would blow across the earth only to shrivel up and evaporate, leaving a somewhat hollow shroud of rituals, weekly sing-a-longs, religious verbiage and Tuesday night bingo tournaments. 
 
Jesus established a radical kingdom. The word radical is defined as “arising from, or going to the root, or source.” Like Leonidas’ Spartan warriors, his own mighty men would undergo the ritual of “baptisma,” signifying that they were preparing to sacrifice their own lives on behalf of their king.
 
Jesus is no tourist king. He pursues your heart, sets free your mind, conquers your flesh, and breathes new life into your spirit. His kingdom “cuts to the roots,” setting humanity free, and ruling over all of the cosmos. Jesus alluded to Alexander’s statement about the zealous gardener when he said, “I am the true vine and my Father is the Gardener. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away; and every branch that bears fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit … He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing.” Jesus declared that anyone who does not abide in Him would wither up and be hurled into a fire.
 
Do you still cling to your own little kingdom? Do you have to have it your way? Must you remain in control? The Kingdom doesn’t work that way. Like Leonidas, Jesus leads his royal guard against impossible odds, commanding us to be baptized in preparation for our own deaths. He said, “Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and anyone who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me.”
 
 
We are slaves, purchased and set free. Owned by the Author of Life.  Our King.

 

EQ for Spiritual Leaders: Self-Awareness

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self awarenessDaniel Goleman defines self-awareness as “knowing one’s strengths, weaknesses, drives, values, and impact on others.”[i]  In his research and writings on Emotional Intelligence (EQ), leaders high in this emotional competency are more effective and successful than those who are less aware of their impact on others. In this podcast series, Paul Richardson, author of A Certain Risk, and Mike O’Quin, author of Growing Desperate, unpack all five of Goleman’s EQ categories, and this first one is a foundation stone. “How do people experience me?” is a challenging and profound question…

Click below to listen or subscribe to the FaithActivators podcast on the iTunes store.

EQ for Spiritual Leaders (Part Two)

[i] What Makes a Leader? Goleman, Daniel. 1998, Harvard Business Review, pp. 1-13.

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