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Oscar Notes

Saturday, March 6th, 2010

People that know me might expect I would want Avatar to win best picture and Cameron as best director. Both Avatar and The Hurt Locker (directed by Cameron’s former wife, Kathryn Bigelow) could win as best picture and their respective directors win as best director.

Surprise! My favorite picture this year was neither of these. My favorite picture this last year is an animated comedy, Up, that is also in the top ten movies nominated for best picture. I don’t expect Up to win as top picture; but it could win as the top animated film and might even win other awards. Perhaps the reason Up moved me so much is that the story is so much that of my own life. The death of the woman he loved dearly, the pain of the adventure they never could take together, and his anger as he looks at the loss of his own sense of purpose and vision. The script is straight out of a John Eldredge book. The lead character even shares my own name: Carl. And then you watch the resolution of this as he gains purpose, adventure, and healing. You really don’t want this movie to stop. And in real life it doesn’t, does it? As long as we see the reality and not the illusion.

After that I would pick Avatar. Cameron is a straight-out genius in doing this movie. He really doesn’t need the Oscar to prove this. We already knew it. Someone asked him about the best director prize going to his former wife if she wins. His reply? He’s in a win-win situation with that. He wants her recognized for her work. Unfortunately, I understand her movie, The Hurt Locker, has used some unethical and underhanded ways to promote their film for the Oscar. They violated Academy rules on this. There is enough unethical stuff going on around Hollywood and we don’t need that. Give it to Cameron. If The Hurt Locker gets it, it would be the Academy saying to me that all of Hollywood is rotten. I haven’t seen that movie. If they want to give it the Kathryn Bigelow (the director), I am ok with that. If they give it to the picture, however, you are sending the wrong message to the world as well as to me.

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Beyond Illusion - Leading from Reality (event)

Friday, February 26th, 2010

Next speaking engagement in Portland:

March 2, 2010, Tuesday
Portland Metro Chapter of the Full Gospel Business Men’s Fellowship, The Old Spaghetti Factory, 12725 SE 93rd Ave., Clackamas, OR, 12 Noon

Carl will be speaking on leadership issues and share some of his testimony working with leaders in Portland and internationally toward a spiritual awakening in today’s world. He will have copies of his latest book for sale, Beyond Illusion: Leading from Reality. No reservation necessary, lunch is $13.

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The Silent Sermon

Wednesday, February 24th, 2010

A member of a certain church, who previously had been attending services regularly, stopped going. After a few weeks, the pastor decided to visit him.

It was a chilly evening. The pastor found the man at home alone, sitting before a blazing fire. Guessing the reason for his pastor’s visit, the man welcomed him, led him to a comfortable chair near the fireplace and waited.

The pastor made himself at home but said nothing. In the grave silence, he contemplated the dance of the flames around the burning logs. After some minutes, the pastor took the fire tongs, carefully picked up a brightly burning ember and placed it to one side of the hearth all alone then he sat back in his chair, still silent.

The host watched all this in quiet contemplation. As the one lone ember’s flame flickered and diminished, there was a momentary glow and then its fire was no more. Soon it was cold and dead.

Not a word had been spoken since the initial greeting. The pastor glanced at his watch and realized it was time to leave. He slowly stood up, picked up the cold, dead ember and placed it back in the middle of the fire. Immediately it began to glow, once more with the light and warmth of the burning coals around it.

As the pastor reached the door to leave, his host said with a tear running down his cheek, ‘Thank you so much for your visit and especially for the firey sermon. I will be back in church next Sunday’.

We live in a world today, which tries to say too much with too little. Consequently, few listen. Sometimes the best sermons are the ones left unspoken.

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Leadership and the New Order

Sunday, February 21st, 2010

In this historic moment, we live caught in a worldview that no longer works and a new one that seems too bizarre to contemplate.

Margaret J. Wheatley, Leadership and the New Science: Discovering Order in a Chaotic World

Nothing changes until you upset what is, until you show people that where they are, the status quo, isn’t working. People build a comfort zone, an illusion, so they don’t have to change. They distort facts, lie, and ignore the facts—anything but change from where they are. The leader must upset the equilibrium; that is, create (and what appears to be) chaos. The new leader speaks and acts into the existing order, upsetting what is and creating chaos. This forces the “system” to reorder to a higher ordered system. This doesn’t make sense from our older leadership models; yet there is a new and higher order that emerges from the disorder. The leader is not doing this just for the sake of creating chaos. Rather, the leader is drawing the followers to a new Place.

When the Good News of the Gospel is alive in any person, whatever their kind of work may be, they become an inventive, searching, daring, self-expressive creature. He or she becomes interesting to other people. They disturb, upset, enlighten, and open ways for better understanding.

In the new paradigm, once the vision is put down (and continues to be put down), the leader then focuses energy not so much in planning, putting down programs, building structures, and evaluating; but rather the leader focuses on building relationships (networks, linkages, dynamic connectedness), and then the leader releases. There is no control. The result appears to the leader (and even the followers) as non-deterministic; but it really does have a pattern. Trying to control will distort the pattern.

(c) 2009 Carl Townsend, Beyond Illusion: Leading from Reality

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The measure of a leader

Saturday, February 13th, 2010

The measure of a leader is not the number of people who serve the leader, but the number of people served by the leader.

John Maxell (adapted)

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What the senators got from the health industry

Thursday, February 4th, 2010

On the social medicine senate vote, here are the stats showing you how much each senator has gotten from the health industry. My own Portland senator, Wyden, got over 1.5 million dollars. I really don’t think someone paid that much by the health industry can represent my health concerns for any type of social medicine program. Same thing is true if you look at their cozy relations with Wall Street. Next fall is a wonderful opportunity to send all of these blokes (Republican and Democratic) home.

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Leadership and the Church

Thursday, February 4th, 2010

Carl’s current speaking schedule

March 2, 2010, Tuesday
Portland Metro Chapter of the Full Gospel Business Men’s Fellowship, The Old Spaghetti Factory, 12725 SE 93rd Ave., Clackamas, OR, 12 Noon
Carl will be speaking on leadership issues and share some of his testimony working with leaders in Portland and internationally toward a spiritual awakening in today’s world. He will have copies of his latest book for sale, Beyond Illusion: Leading from Reality. No reservation necessary, lunch is $13.

April 11, 2010. Sunday
Rolling Hills Community Church, 3550 Southwest Borland Road, Tualatin, OR 97062,
Forties and Up Singles Group, 10:45 A.M. (You don’t have to be single to attend, but message will be targeted to singles. )
Carl will be speaking on leadership issues. There is no doubt that we have a massive failure of leadership today, even in the churches. What is necessary for a leader today? What is the secret of leadership in today’s world? Carl will have copies of his latest book for sale, Beyond Illusion: Leading from Reality. Free session.

“Carl is a man who hears what the Spirit is saying and places the poetry of that message for the reader to hear for himself.”
Bettie P. Mitchell, International Executive Director, Good Samaritan Ministries

“I have a special place in my heart for Carl Townsend….Carl has taken some of the toughest trials life can dish out, and hangs in there with grace and love. He will never know how positively his life has impacted mine. ”
Bob Waymire, international researcher for the church and co-author with Carl of Discovering Your City

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The Future of the Church

Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010

The institutional church, as we know it, is dying. If you talk with almost any church growth leader, they will tell you this.

Today’s Church is incapable of responding to the present moral crisis. It must reinvent itself or face virtual oblivion my mid-21st century.
George Barna, The Second Coming of the Church

In the face of these waves of change, the institutional church in America has two options. Either it will go about its business as usual—and be swallowed up by obsolescence and die by default. Or the church will choose to die—and thus find life. Mike Regele (co-founder and president of Percept Group, Inc.), and Mark Schulz, Death of the Church

The current church culture in North America is on life support. It is living off the work, money, and energy of previous generations from a previous world order.Reggie McNeal, The Present Future: Six Tough Questions for the Church.

This doesn’t mean the church is dead, it is just that the “institutional” church, as we know it, is essentially non-functional. When Reggie McNeal came through Portland a few years ago, he shared with us that only 10% of the Millennials are in church (institutional church) on a Sunday. It’s not that the Millennials don’t have a faith, it is just that the institutional church has failed them and their spiritual needs are met outside of this instituion. A Millennial doesn’t join an organization, he or she joins a vision, a passion, a dream. And the institution they see has none.

What does this mean for the future of the Church. How can the Church recover its mission?

The mission of the Church was given by Christ to his followers in Matthew just before He left us:

And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Amen. Matt 28:18-20 NKJV

Jesus also left the Holy Spirit to give us the power to claim authority in the name of Jesus. Unfortunately, most of us have lost something that is very important. We have lost much of the vision of what God is doing here, and with it the passion to carry that forward. We aren’t desprite enough.

Fortunately, God is still at work. Massive spiritual awakenings are already occurring at cities and even regions all over the world. Christian leaders such as George Otis, Jr.. Peter Wagner, and others are trying to document these, now in hundreds of cities (and even regions) around the word.

See Beyond Illusion: Leading from Reality - just out - for more.

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Pope to Priests: Thou Shalt Blog

Friday, January 29th, 2010

Pope to Priests: Thou Shalt Blog
January 28, 2010

Pope Benedict XVI has apparently taken this to heart. In anticipation of the church’s 44th World Communications Day on May 16th, he has issued a statement, The Priest and Pastoral Ministry in a Digital World: New Media at the Service of the Word. In it, he urges priests to use social media for outreach in conjunction with their traditional means of communication. The Pope feels that it’s urgent and necessary to be online, where so many people spend their time — especially young people, a key target demographic for the Church.

Priests stand at the threshold of a new era: As new technologies create deeper forms of relationship across greater distances, they are called to respond pastorally by putting the media ever more effectively at the service of the Word. The spread of multimedia communications and its rich ‘menu of options’ might make us think it sufficient simply to be present on the Web, or to see it only as a space to be filled. Yet priests can rightly be expected to be present in the world of digital communications as faithful witnesses to the Gospel, exercising their proper role as leaders of communities which increasingly express themselves with the different “voices” provided by the digital marketplace. Priests are thus challenged to proclaim the Gospel by employing the latest generation of audiovisual resources (images, videos, animated features, blogs, websites) which, alongside traditional means, can open up broad new vistas for dialogue, evangelization and catechesis.

The Pope obviously knows his social media.

His comments dovetail with the Vatican’s effort in recent years to establish a larger online presence. The Holy See created a YouTube channel last year, offering video and audio clips of Pope Benedict’s addresses, along with news about the pontiff. The recently launched Pope2you portal offers an iPhone app, a Facebook app, Papal videos, and a link to the YouTube channel. The Vatican was on the bleeding edge when it created its own Web site 14 years ago, with access to the Vatican Museums and Vatican Secret Archives; there’s even a section in Latin for classical language buffs. The Catholic News Service, which is affiliated with the Vatican, is no technical slouch either — it has its own Facebook page, featuring news stories, notes, and blogs, with over 3,000 fans.

As CEO of the Catholic Church, the Pope knows the importance of guidelines. He’s clear to his followers about how he wants them to use social media and the message he wants them to communicate:

The increased availability of the new technologies demands greater responsibility… Using new communication technologies, priests can introduce people to the life of the Church and help our contemporaries to discover the face of Christ. They will best achieve this aim if they learn, from the time of their formation, how to use these technologies in a competent and appropriate way, shaped by sound theological insights and reflecting a strong priestly spirituality grounded in constant dialogue with the Lord… In this way the Word can traverse the many crossroads created by the intersection of all the different “highways” that form “cyberspace”.

Regardless of your religious convictions, it’s hard to deny how impressive it is that the 82-year-old leader ‘gets’ social media. It will interesting to see how many priests follow his lead.

Pope Benedict’s call to action is valuable advice for businesses, too. If he thinks that Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, and blogging are good ways to spread his message, maybe these tools can help your company. If your firm’s leaders don’t see the value in developing a social media strategy, you can point to His Holiness’s commitment to the social Web as a branding and communication tool.

(Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/pio1976/ / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

(check out Pam’s blog on social media and marketing at http://www.pamorama.net/

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Changes in Washington, D.C.

Tuesday, January 26th, 2010

Get ready for massive changes in Washington, D.C. next fall.

Start getting ready for the November, 2010 elections. Remember the motto (unless you like being abused): If they’re “IN;” they’re “OUT.”

Remember this on the 2010 Election Day. . .

1. Your U.S. House & Senate have voted themselves $4,700 and $5,300 raises.

2. They voted to NOT give you a Social Security cost of living raise in 2010 and 2011.

3. Your Medicare premiums will go up $285.60 for the 2-years and you will not get the 3% COLA or $660/yr. Your total 2-year loss and cost is $1,600 or $3,200 for husband and wife. Plain enough?

4. Every member of Congress will get an added $10,000 which is putting them very close to $200,000 per year. They’ve exempted themselves from the healthcare changes they wish to enact on us. Sounds like an elite class to me. They should be on the same health and pension plan we are: Social security and Medicare – or they go home.

5. Do you feel taken advantaged of? They vote themselves a raise and better benefits. They only care about WE THE PEOPLE on election day, right? You never did anything about it in the past. The time for action is near!!!!

6. Do you really think that Nancy, Barbara, Patty, Harry, Chris, Charlie, Barney, John Murtha, et al, care about you? SEND THE MESSAGE — You’re FIRED.

7. Our present elected representatives are loyal to their party. They are bribable, do what is in their OWN best interest. They have completely ignored the massive debt this country is in and are increasing it without regard to the taxpayers who will have to pay for it all.

8. President Obama isn’t leading any more. Bernanke (with the help of Congress) shoved billions to Wall Street and corrupt corporations under the motto “they are too big to fail”. That statement is immoral and unethical. Once core values are sacrificed, there is no leadership or vision. As a result, Bernanke should be out of there. Meanwhile, a stimulus plan that was supposed to create jobs didn’t. Most of the money was wasted.

9. Both political parties have tried to build a social medicine plan when both of them are owned by the health industry. One of my senators has received over 1.5 million dollars from the health industry. I can’t trust him to put together a social medicine program for me.

*** THIS IS NOT ABOUT POLITICAL PARTIES!
IN 2010 YOU WILL HAVE A CHANCE TO GET RID OF Up to 1/3 OF THE SENATE AND 100% OF THE HOUSE.
The election in 2010 will be a sea-change to the mindset of any member of Congress who may survive..

The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else. It is time for you to lead. Send ‘em home. Pass this post on to your friends. As them to stand up. Write to those representing them in Washington.

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