A Moral Imperative: Part II (Deaf Ears)

A Moral Imperative is a principle originating inside a person’s mind that compels that person to act.  Last time i talked about the FEAR of failing and the FEAR of being uncomfortable, keeping us from ACTING on our imperatives.  

Another lid keeping us from rising to the occasion is “my ideas are great, but no one listens to me”.  There’s a perfect explanation for this.  You haven’t done your best with what you’ve got.  You must prove that you can lead in the minors before you have enough influence to lead in the majors.  This is where you develop character, integrity, and discipline. And those are not qualities of a great leader, they are the DNA of one.  Doing the small things with excellence TODAY is preparing you to do the things that you dream of TOMORROW.

So, today lick those stamps, make those calls, punch that keyboard, flip those burgers, and love your spouse like your life depends on it….because it does.

A Moral Imperative: Part 1 (Fear)

A Moral Imperative is a principle originating inside a person’s mind that compels that person to act.

When you know what should be, could be, and then must be, you have a Moral Imperative. A lot of us have these. We want to see success in our organization, our family, our church, our job, etc. We KNOW that if things were different we would see results. And WE KNOW what they are!!! This is awesome! Now, all we have to do is ACT.

Here’s the problem. We do not ACT. We sit on our tails and spend hours in the office talking about what it’s gonna take to change, complain about the current system, and even discuss the exact details of implementing new ideas. But we do not ACT on what we KNOW we should DO. The Bible says if you know what you should do and you dont, your are like a man that looks in the mirror, walks away, and forgets what he looks like (James 1:23).  I struggle with this everyday.   But, the success that i have had is attributed to ACTING on what i know i should do.

Here’s how i try to do better.

I think there are 2 main reason why we don’t ACT.

FEAR. This is most people’s problem.

We are afraid to fail. You’ve read that 1,000 times, and you’re probably tired of hearing it. Well, there’s a reason you’ve read it so much. Because its true. Bottom line…you will not succeed without failing. If you can’t grasp this, pray that God will give you the willingness to fail.  Sounds crazy, but you’ll be better when you learn from your failures.

We are afraid to be uncomfortable. “Why would i want to shake things up?  It feels good here.  I’m in cruise control.”  WRONG! You’re in a rut.  You’re burying yourself.  And if you’re a Pastor or leader in a church, (here it comes) there are people dying and going to Hell because you like your old comfy couch just the way it is.  As a leader, we all should make it a point, to always be in a New-Uncomfortable-Situation, that will allow us to either FAIL (and learn from it) or come out a winner and increase our level of influence.  If you are not uncomfortable you are not growing.

How uncomfortable are you willing to be this week?

Picture of Jeny and Dakota

Here He Is!

Fields Family Update #1

            Wednesday morning (March 18^th) at 7am we drove to Baptist West Hospital for our 6^th battle since December 5^th with severe stomach pains.  Labor and Delivery immediately admitted us because she was 31 weeks pregnant and began treatment for constipation, which was the previous diagnosis.  After no relief Dr. Barocas  (G.I specialist) saw us for the third time in six weeks.  He felt he had no choice but to x-ray the lower abdomen and prepare for a colonoscopy and endoscopic exam (upper and lower scope).  The x-ray was determined to be negative by the radiologist.  The scopes were scheduled for the Thursday morning the 19^th.  Jeny was given prep fluid for the scope, but could not keep it down due to the pain.  She didn’t sleep all night due to the pain.

            The next morning (Thursday) she was taken to the surgery prep area at 10:00.  At this point the pain seemed to be increases.  Throughout the previous months she had not been in as much pain as she was at this point.  An hour passed before the anesthetist briefed her about the exam.  At 11:45am Dr. Barocas took her in for the scope.  The exam was only supposed to take 30 to 45 minutes.  My mother and I waited anxiously in the surgery waiting room.  30 minutes passed, then 45, then 60, then 90.  At around 1:45pm Dr. Barocas came into the lobby after 2 hours of waiting. He motioned for my mother and I to enter the consultation room.

            He explained that the scope showed nothing to explain the pain she had been dealing with for all this time.  This is where it speeds up….

            As soon as the scope exam was done Jeny was short of breath.  The immediately put her on a fetal heart monitor and checked all of her vitals.  They were not at a safe level.  They decided that they needed to do another x-ray of the upper chest cavity, because this is where she was experiencing most of the pain.  The x-rays showed a Traumatic Diaphragmatic Hernia.  Dr. Barocas asked me if she had ever been in a bad car accident…the answer was yes.  Three years ago, March 17^th 2006 she was hit head on and suffered multiple injuries to her chest, shoulder, and back.  His eyes light up and confirmed what he suspected. 

            The car accident had ripped a very small hole in her diaphragm.  As the baby grew, her intestines were slowly pushing up inside the hole.  This explained the intermittent pain from the previous 5 visits to the hospital.  Sometime between the morning and when the scope exam was finished, the hole ruptured and became much larger.  Most of her large and small intestines as well as most of her colon had moved into the left side of her chest cavity, and had pushed her heart to the right side of her chest.

Next, Dr. Nair, the on-duty OB doctor came in and said Jeny need to have an emergency operation right now and asked for my consent to transport and to perform the operation.  She assured me that baby would NOT be needed to deliver, and he would be fine.  There was an ambulance already waiting to transport her to Fort Sanders Hospital.  We needed to be moved there because Children’s Hospital is connected to Fort Sanders, and would be close in case we needed to deliver the baby prematurely.  I was escorted to the surgery area where I saw Jeny being moved onto an ambulance bed by EMT.  Dr. Nair now told me they were going to deliver the baby as soon as she got to Fort Sanders.  Jeny’s vitals were getting worse by the second.  She wasn’t breathing on her own, her BP was not stable, and her oxygen level was dropping.  This is why the baby had to be delivered. 

            We were in the ambulance by 2:15pm.  We arrived at Fort Sanders at 2:30.  We were taken to Labor and Delivery first.  The anesthetist was the first one in the room.  He started taking her vitals. They were even worse. Her Oxygen was dropping below 50% and her arms were blue from the elbow down.  Her cap-refill was 7 seconds and her blood pressure was dropping fast.  The baby and Jeny were dying.  Her Oxygen had dropped to 40% for her and the baby.  Next a team of 4 surgeons (cardiothoracic, high-risk pregnancy, general, and general) and many nurses came into the room yelling and screaming MOVE, GO, MOVE IT, NOW, GO GO GO!!!! I was signing dozens of papers as she was taken to the OR for c-section. I made eye contact and told her I loved her.

            At 3:10 we got word that the baby was crying.  We were now the parents of a 31-week baby boy.  At 3:15 the elevator doors opened and I met my son for the first time.  4lbs 4oz and 17inches.  He was born at 3:00pm.  He was taken to the NICU at Children’s Hospital.  Dr. Rousiss, the high-risk doctor, reached up into the abdomen to try and pull out what was stuck in her chest.  He couldn’t get it back down. 

            The team of surgeons met with me and told me what had to be done.  They said it was not a good scenario and that she could die in surgery. 

            At this point you would think that all that all the emotions involved with this would be too much for a person to take.  It was actually the opposite.  I was numb.  Almost no emotion.  Maybe this is God’s way of allowing someone to survive through a traumatic experience. 

            We waited and waited and waited. And then the reports began to come in.  Good report after good report. After almost 5 hours of surgery and delivering a baby, the team was able to complete the operations with success.  Thank GOD.  The surgeons met with me and told me everything appeared to be okay, and to prepare for a long recovery process and many nights in ICU.  She would be on a ventilator that would breath for her for a while.  I would be able to see her at 9:00pm.

            This gave me a chance to celebrate a successful operation and to see the baby.  He was HUGE for 9 weeks early.  All of his vitals were stable and he was on a respitory machine, because his lungs were not fully developed yet.  I sat with him for about 30 minutes then went back to the ICU waiting area.  My mother and I got to see Jeny at around 9:00 for an hour.  She was unconscious.  It was not a pretty site.  Her whole body was swollen.  She was cut for the c-section vertically.  The incision was then extended to the bottom of her sternum.  She also has an incision on her left side beside her lung. 

            The ICU doctors told us she would be on a breathing machine for a couple days and asleep for at least a day.  5 minutes later she woke up! This was the first of positives that would follow.  She shook her head to tell mom and I she could hear use and squeezed our hands.  This was more than they thought she would do the first night. The next morning (Friday March 20) I went back into ICU to find her awake with her eyes open, and most of the swelling had gone down.  She looked great! She motioned for a pen and wrote questions about what had happened, asked about the baby, and then asked if I fed Bear. J  Visiting was over for a few hours.  The general surgeon met with us at around 10:00am and told us she should be off the breathing machine in 24-36hrs. This was good news. 

            The next visiting hour was at 1:00pm. I was shocked when I walked in, and she was OFF the breathing machine!  Only took 4hrs!  She was all on her own, and awake!  She was little weak but talked for a while.  Then I found out that the babies test results were great and he may come off his breathing machine also!  One day old at 31 weeks, and he’s doing GREAT.  By 4:00 he had his tube removed! They let me hold him!  She said they almost never do, but he was doing so well that it was not a problem.  They still have yet to give him any medicine for reason! THANK GOD! 

            I just returned from the last ICU visiting session in shock again.  I walked in and Jeny was setting in a chair beside the bed!!!!!!!  She is moving to a regular room tomorrow!!!! I am so amazed at how far God has brought us in 24hrs.  That’s all for now. It’s been a long 3 days.  Thanks you everyone for all your support and prayers, I have never experienced anything like this.  Not from God, or friends and family.  Please forgive me if I haven’t returned calls, texts, emails, etc.  I promise I have read all of them….all 300 so far!

            Ill try and give another update tomorrow, and let you know how amazing the staff, our friends, and family are.  Please forward this!  Oh, yeah the babies name is….i promised Jeny she would see him before we announced the name or released pictures. Sorry

We love all of you.

Lee, Jeny, and baby “” Fields

 

“The Church Bailout Package”

Over $300 Billion spent on internet ads world wide every year. That equates to $300.00 per internet user.(this month we reached 1 billion users on the net).160 Million users in US. $60 Billion spent on internet ads for US sites. Thats about $38 per user. $100 Billion in product/services was sold online last year in the US. ROI (return on investment) = %40. This does not account for offline purchases made in brick and mortars that also have a presence on the web. (Its in the Trillions) Most venture capitalist and large finance firms (Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs, etc.) only shoot for an ROI of 15% !!!!!

Look at these numbers with a “Great Commission” mind, and change the return dollars to people and changed lives. Lets call it Return On Objective. We must use technology as a vehicle and medium to leverage the message in an effective way. Most conferences/crusades (Luis Palau, Franklin Graham, Harvest) would do anything to have a salavation “return on investment/objective” of 40%. Example – for every $6 spent, 10 people would make a commitment. I hope they start using the web.

Last year the Franklin Graham Festival brought 45,000 people to Knoxville over 3 days. (Let me preface this with, the BGEA is on of the most respected evangelical organizations in the world, and this is in no way meant to discredit or disrespect what they and God did in Knoxville.) Of the 45,000 people there 1,207 people made a commitment. The total budget for the event was over $3,000,000.

THATS $2,485.50 PER SALVATION. Thats about %.00004 return on investment/objective. Im not trying to put a dollar amount on a life, because sure, it would have been worth all the work and money if only one. BUT, imagine if the church could even GRASP what the world is doing to leverage the internet and media, it sure would create a greater return on our OBJECTIVE. And there is nothing wrong with that.

Bottom line, we must use technology, marketing, and the internet to leverage The Message. ROI’s of less than %15 in the business world is why “Bailout” now has 2nd definition in Websters. Let’s not make the 3rd about the Church. What tools of the web and technology do you think God wants us to use?How will we use them in a new way?  

For more insight on technology and the church visit Dr.McGinnis’ Blog

The Church of Apple

Steve Jobs

Church leaders should think this way. Your thoughts?

What are your thoughts when applying Jobs’ methods to the church?

“My job is to not be easy on people. My job is to make them better. My job is to pull things together from different parts of the company and clear the ways and get the resources for the key projects. And to take these great people we have and to push them and make them even better, coming up with more aggressive visions of how it could be.” Steve Jobs.

“We don’t get a chance to do that many things, and every one should be really excellent. Because this is our life. Life is brief, and then you die, you know? So this is what we’ve chosen to do with our life. We could be sitting in a monastery somewhere in Japan. We could be out sailing. Some of the [executive team] could be playing golf. They could be running other companies. And we’ve all chosen to do this with our lives. So it better be d*mn good. It better be worth it. And we think it is.” Steve Jobs

“Apple is a $30 billion company, yet we’ve got less than 30 major products. I don’t know if that’s ever been done before. Certainly the great consumer electronics companies of the past had thousands of products. We tend to focus much more. People think focus means saying yes to the thing you’ve got to focus on. But that’s not what it means at all. It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there are. You have to pick carefully. I’m actually as proud of many of the things we haven’t done as the things we have done.” Steve Jobs

-From a comment thread at http://swerve.lifechurch.tv =