Reasons for Missed Opportunities

In this post, Perry Noble points out 5 reasons we miss opportunities.

Want to Go Up the Ladder? Connect.

Tony Morgan quotes Harvard Professor, Rosabeth Moss Kanter, on how the best way to lead up  and out is by connecting. Read More.

5 Common Traits World-Changing Leaders Have in Common

Steve Jobs has recently been labeled the CEO of the Decade by Fortune Magazine. In this post, 5 common traits of World Changers are briefly described. Read More.

He starts the book off about a cute story of a monkey and a fish, hence the title. Here are some highlights from this read:

The Monkey and the Fish

by Dave Gibbons

A proper perspective is worth 50 IQ points (12)

Current One: Liquid

Third Culture: The mindset and will to live, learn, and serve in any culture, even in the midst of pain and discomfort. (38)

Current Two: Wardrobe

Don’t put on clothes that fit someone else. David didn’t wear Sauls armour, he fought in his own way and with his own weapons.

Questions should lead us. Not answers. (70)

Current Three: Neighbor

Jesus asks a man what is the greatest commandment and follows the question with the story of he good Samaratin. A story where the neighbor wasn’t a person like himself, but the neighbor was someone who was unloveable according to the culture.

Current Four: Liquid Bruce Lee

It’s critical for us to grasp the need for change and act on it. It isn’t just about whether we can maintain our numbers. It’s about maintaining our identity and our ability to influence the world in this new era.

You put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle, it becomes the bottle. You put it into a teapot, it becomes a teapot. The water can flow. The water can crash. Be water, my friend. – Bruce Lee

Our conflicks shouldn’t be about forms.

Shifts that mark Third-Culture Churches

1. From consumerism to cause-ism.
2. From Pastor/Teacher to Pastor/Social Entrepenuer
3. From Linear Pathway to Third Culture Rhythms

Current Five: Three Questions that Become the Answers

The answer finds residence in the question. Questions guide us to the answers of all kinds of situations. (113)

Questions to point you to make a difference:
1. Where is Nazareth? Who are the marginalized, weakest, and outsiders near you? 1 Cor 1:26-29 (116)
2. What is my pain? 1 Cor 1:19 (118)
3. What is in my hand? Exodus 4:1-5 (120)

Current Six: cWoWs- Everyone Plays

Artists are the prophets innovators, and conversationalists that are leading us. (141)

Businesspersons are the fuel for our movement. They often have the mix of creativity, sustainable management skills, and systems knowledge that keep any organization and mission. (142)

Community-Development Secialists are the machinery, the builders, implemented, and directors of the ideas and enterprises dreamed up by the artists and entrepenuers.

Current Seven: Ripples

If you look at history, it’s undeniable that diversity, especially cultural and ethnic diversity, is a huge asset when it comes to innovation, creatiity, and problem-solving. It brings forth fresh viewpoints, approaches, perspectives, learnings, ideas, insights, and sensibilities, and these in turn lead to breakthroughs, whether it’s an opportunity we’re trying to take advantage of or a proble. Or crisis we’re trying to address. (151)

The greatest single cause of Atheism in the world today are Christians who acknowledge Jesus with their lips and walk out the door and deny him by their lifestyles. – Brennan Manning (151)