Loyal to Who?

 

Loyal to Who?

A Narrative Criticism of Ramon Shelbourne and Michael C. Wright’s article Inside the tension between Kawhi Leonard and the Spurs

 

INTRODUCTION

The National Basketball Association has long been argued as the world’s greatest basketball league, largely due to the monopoly of talent in an industry driven by TV ratings, fan interaction, and most certainly money. In the ever-expanding dimension of talent, the league is scrutinized by journalists and broadcasters, dissected by on-air talent and bloggers, and mocked and cheered by casual and die-hard fans alike. Anyone can join the conversation about this league and provide rhetoric on a player’s performance or professional development, with little-to-no knowledge of the actual logic behind a player’s mindset. All players are subject to criticism, but in recent memory, no player has generated more dialogue without providing any themselves than Kawhi Leonard.

Kawhi Leonard requested a trade from the San Antonio Spurs in summer of 2018 and set the NBA in motion for a dynamic change in player empowerment. The Spurs had drafted Leonard back in 2011 and since then, he had been the cornerstone of the organization. Leonard’s request would not only change the landscape of the Spurs future, but also the future of the NBA. What transpired was a 24-month process that severely changed three NBA franchises, impacted several more and ultimately ended with Kawhi Leonard leaving the team that drafted him for the beaches of southern California to play for the Los Angeles Clippers.

The dam broke with a May 2018 ESPN article written by Michael C. Wright and Ramona Shelbourne and less than a month later, Leonard requested his trade. After the dust settled and the debris cleared, what was left was a messy divorce and a long list of questions. Why did Kawhi Leonard want out of San Antonio? Why did he want to leave a winning organization, notorious for a culture of family, winning and humility? Did San Antonio do something wrong? Did Kawhi? But most importantly, who should a player’s loyalty belong to?

The question of loyalty is the pretext for this essay. Gone are the days of NBA players belonging to a single franchise for their entire career. NBA Legends like John Stockton, Kobe Bryant and even the Spurs own Tim Duncan stayed with their original team their whole career would be but distant memories in the annals of history. This new NBA is made up of players are loyal to their career and their brand. But not Kawhi Leonard. Kawhi Leonard is loyal to himself. Kawhi Leonard is loyal to his family. And Kawhi Leonard is loyal to his hometown.

I will describe this artifact in depth, hoping to provide insight into this question of loyalty. I’ll also explain how the narrative criticism is applicable and how the wide range of narratives influenced public opinion about Kawhi Leonard, not that he ever cared to begin with. These findings will support the notion of players being loyal to themselves, as they possess the skills and talents to benefit a team. Finally, this essay will show how we can use narratives to explain an NBA player and how they can impact perceptions about their loyalty.

 THE ARTIFACT

 On May 1, 2018, ESPN’s Ramona Shelbourne and Michael C. Wright released an article that shook the NBA – and specifically, the San Antonio Spurs organization and fan base – to its core, announcing publicly that there was drama in South Texas. Kawhi Leonard was not a happy camper, as evidenced from the detailed account of his medical history, his teammates and coaches’ comments, commentary from Leonard’s “group,” and yes, even Kawhi Leonard himself. For the first time, it looked like Kawhi Leonard wanted out of San Antonio.

Leonard, a quiet superstar, is known by many across the NBA as the best basketball player league, and if not, at least one of the top players in the league. He was a perfect fit for the San Antonio Spurs, who were also known to be quiet and focused on winning. It seemed like a match made in Heaven. All until the 2017-2018 NBA season. Leonard, having only played in nine total games that year, would begin the process of leaving San Antonio.

The artifact is littered with many characters trying to persuade us of different things. It involves mainly Kawhi Leonard and his “camp” who want to persuade people that Kawhi Leonard just wanted to play near his hometown, that he was really injured, and also, that he is a “fun guy” who just wants to win basketball games. Recently, Leonard provided commentary that he was happy to be in Los Angeles now because all along, this saga was just about going back to his hometown. That remains Kawhi’s “narrative,” all though other narratives still exist. While some fans remain, many do not feel persuaded that he left for good reasons and instead make accusations of integrity, character relationships and disloyalty.

The three major events in this story have overlapping kernels (major events) and satellites (minor events) and are a bit sporadic. Each kernel Shelbourne and Wright describe ties back to a satellite with relevant supporting information. As the author’s begin the narrative, questions of loyalty creep in very early into the artifact.

The first kernel involves a team photo on March 21, 2018, which was supposed to be a day where the San Antonio Spurs looked happy and like a team. Unfortunately, tensions within the Spurs had already risen, despite everyone attempting to put on a brave face. The team would play a game that night against the Washington Wizards and after the game, Leonard was briefly interviewed by Shelbourne before a Spurs staffer broke up the conversation. Shelbourne noted how this was an oddity and as it turns out, this would be Leonard’s last appearance in front of the home crowd in San Antonio.

The first kernel of the artifact is tied to the second kernel, which took place a few days earlier on March 17^th, 2018, when teammates Manu Ginobili and Tony Parker confronted Leonard in a team meeting. The satellite event of Tony Parker’s injury from the previous season is mentioned, when Parker had a leg injury and returned in November 2017. Parker would add another satellite to the narrative when he announced on March 23, 2018, that his injury was “100 times worse” than Leonard’s. Leonard and his team maintain they are in fact two different injuries. The narrative was Parker is loyal to the Spurs, while Leonard was loyal to himself.

As a satellite, Leonard injured his quad for the first time in March 2016 and at the end of the 2015-2016, it was determined to be a fairly serious injury. Many thought he was faking the injury in order to not play for the Spurs; however, Leonard maintains he was truly injured. Shelbourne and Wright introduce the third kernel, when after a game in New York in January 2018 that Leonard was supposed to play in, he felt soreness in his injured leg. Leonard would seek an outside opinion with the help of his agent, Mitch Frankel and his uncle Dennis Robertson. The Spurs were not happy about this, but ultimately surrendered full medical control to Leonard, rather than the Spurs, at least publicly. Allegedly, Leonard had full control of his injury since August, although Shelbourne and Wright state it was in January.

THE METHOD

For this criticism, I am using the narrative method of criticism. Alasdair MacIntyre described human beings as essentially a story-telling animal (Foss, 2009). There is plenty of storytelling here from Shelbourne and Wright and their persuasion seems to set the stage for loyalty to be determined by the reader.

I have chosen to use the narrative criticism method as my course of action and hope to explain how loyalty is the underlying theme of this essay. As many different narratives exist in this story, as well as many different narrators. The narrative criticism paradigm was most influenced by the work of Walter R. Fisher and expanded by Arthur Bochner and Carolyn Ellis for their work on interpersonal relationships. They likened this by claiming that to have a relationship is to have a story. As it goes, relationships are a component of narrative.

There is also a performance perspective, where humans and cultures are constituting themselves through performances of various kinds, including stories (Foss, 2009). This approach was represented by Victor Turner, Clifford Geertz, Richard Bauman and Dwight Conquergood. A final relevant contributor to this form of criticism is the traditional use of folklore, which originally was built as a collection of “narratives, songs and quaint beliefs of other cultures.”  As generations fade away, the stories told are a direct relation to the narratives arising from inception of the tale.

As such, Narratives can be distinguished by their four characteristics: (1) at least two events, (2) organized by time order, (3) casual or contributing relationships, and (4) a unified subject. The two events can be active, or stative. The time order is at least a sequence of events. The contributing relationships must also coincide with the two events and all these characteristics must tie back to the subject.

Events can also be detailed by the use Kernels and Satellites. Kernels are primary events, and satellites are secondary events. This artifact, and the entirety of the Kawhi Leonard situation is centered around a few specific kernels, such as his initial injury, the “players only” team meeting, and the official trade request. However, with some many different characters involved around the unified subject, it is not surprise how so many satellites find their way into the story. Interestingly enough, several satellites act as initial kernels for some of the narratives that surface from this story.

Applying this to topic to the artifact, the three main events in discussion are (A) Kawhi Leonard (unified subject) gets injured in March 2016, (B) a players only meeting, and (C) a team photo combined with his final appearance in front of the San Antonio Spurs home crowd. I have taken these events and tried to organize them in time order.

Additionally, there are several relationships, but we will largely focus on three: the relationship between Kawhi and his Uncle Dennis, who Shelbourne and Wright describe as “devoted” to Leonard since his father was murdered in 2008. Next, the relationship between Kawhi and Spurs Head Coach Gregg Popovich, who has coached the Spurs since 1996. Shelbourne and Wright explain how Popovich had a deep respect and affection for Leonard and the relationship was reciprocated. Even after all the hardships of the season and after Leonard had officially separated from the team for rehab purposes, when Popovich’s wife Erin passed away in April 2018, Leonard wanted to be there for his coach. The two had a deep respect for each other and that would not change.

And finally, the relationship between Kawhi and fans, which would eventually lead into his personal brand. Leonard’s own loyalty would be called into question in the court of public opinion. Shelbourne and Wright even document how Leonard was aware of this by including a quote from Leonard, “People are just looking for spin,” Leonard continued. “I haven’t been here long. I’ve been here six years. The Spurs have been here way longer than that. People are gonna go with that take first.” I believe this final relationship is important, as Foss describe that “the narrated world is a shared world because it is a joint achievement by the storyteller and the audience (Foss, 2009).”

 THE FINDINGS OF THE ANALYSIS

As we progress into the artifact, we begin by looking at the quadriceps injury sustained by Kawhi Leonard, who is the unified subject of the artifact. It happened during a game against the Miami Heat in March 2016. Leonard was injured and immediately missed the three following games. However, he returned and played exceptionally well to end the season. Leonard and the Spurs played well enough to make it to the Western Conference Finals that year and played against the Golden State Warriors. During that series, Leonard sustained a new injury when attempted a jump shot and landed on the foot of the defender, Zaza Pachulia, and rolled his ankle. The ankle injury would keep him out for the remainder of the playoffs and the Spurs would go on to lose the series to the Warriors.

That summer, Leonard rehabbed the ankle, but when he reported back to the Spurs, the quad injury had appeared to have returned. There was a difference of opinion between Leonard and the Spurs, as both sides argued over whether it was a tendon issue, or a muscle issue. It was an important delineator, as they require two different rehab processes. Shelbourne and Wright claim in the artifact the Spurs surrendered control in January 2018. However, Wright would later say on July 5^th episode of the Back to Back Podcast that the Spurs had surrendered control of the injury in August 2017 (Haberstroh, Thorpe, & Wright, 2018).

As the Spurs medical staff believed the injury to be a degenerative effect and had cleared him to play, Kawhi’s new doctors and primarily his Uncle Dennis, maintained the injury was not healed and thus, kept him out of most games that season. These crucial satellite events of the August 2017 surrendering of medical care by the Spurs to Leonard would play into the narrative that ran throughout the season: where did Leonard’s loyalty lie?

Shelbourne and Wright make heavy mention of Popovich’s admiration for Leonard, but also noted how Popovich remained perplexed with reporters. Popovich had surrendered medical control of the rehabilitation process and as such, did not have status updates on his own player. The authors are clear to explain how the frustration throughout the season had come to a head, with Popovich repeatedly directing questions back to Leonard’s “group.” This group is actually Leonard’s uncle, Dennis Robertson, and Mitch Frankel, Leonard’s agent.

Robertson mostly determined what Leonard would and wouldn’t do and Shelbourne and White do well to point out why Leonard trusted him so much. Robertson, or “Uncle Dennis” as he is affectionately known, was the primary male figure in Leonard’s life. Uncle Dennis had been very close to Leonard since the death of his father, Mark, in 2008. However, the authors pointed out the lack of experience by Uncle Dennis and how it played into the frustration of the Spurs.

How could the Spurs fault Leonard, whose father was murdered, for taking the counsel of his Uncle, whom he trusted? But also, how could he listen to his uncle when he did not have professional experience? The Spurs did what they could and surrendered control of his medical rehabilitation process back to whatever doctors Leonard felt comfortable with. It would prove to be the beginning of the end for the relationship between the Spurs and Leonard.

Moving toward the next kernel of the story, Shelbourne and Wright reference the players only meeting, which was spear-headed by future Hall of Famers Manu Ginobili and Tony Parker. Both Ginobili and Parker, older than Leonard and seasoned veterans of the Spurs organization maintained they just wanted to know the status of their teammate. As the season had progressed, there was less and less contact with Leonard and the rumor mill was humming. They wanted to know for themselves. Some described the meeting as tense. Others described it as a simple discussion.

This moves us to the final event and kernel, which is where the artifact actually began – a team photo combined with his final appearance in front of the San Antonio Spurs home crowd. Ginobili would comment again that it was good to see Leonard around the team. However, the combination of Popovich’s frustration about not knowing updates on Leonard’s status, as well as Ginobili’s comments, gives credence to the narrative that the Spurs were truly left in the dark. It certainly did not appear that Leonard was loyal to the Spurs.

A few days later, a satellite event occurred when Parker’s comments made headlines after calling his own personal injury “100 times worse” than Leonard’s. Parker had been injured the previous season and returned in November 2017 to play for the Spurs again. Parker who had originally labeled the confrontational team meeting with Leonard as “family business” had now stirred the hornet’s nest by implying that Leonard’s injury was not as serious as his own. It did not matter if Parker’s comments were true or not. The only thing that mattered was this played into the narrative: Leonard was not loyal to the Spurs, but Parker was.

It also played into the narrative for Leonard that the Spurs were against him. Shelbourne and Wright point this out after a close confidant to Leonard commented in the article, saying “”They’re making him look bad. You have this seamless transition from the (Tim) Duncan era to the new era, this homegrown superstar. Like, why would you alienate him?”

The authors reporting in this case changed, or perhaps even confirmed, the perception of Kawhi Leonard, for better or worse. The narrative exists that he has bad representation and his Uncle is hurting his career. The narrative also exists that Kawhi’s family is far more important to him than playing basketball. There is also a narrative that exists that Kawhi does not care about any of this, does not care what his perception is and does not have any interest in explaining himself. All of these are relevant to the events, order of the events, the contributing relationships and to Kawhi himself.

But the biggest take away from the artifact is the authors persuading the readers that Leonard was most of all loyal to himself, rather than the Spurs. All of his actions said as much, with little to no effort by Leonard to extend an olive branch to the Spurs. This led the Spurs and their front office to operate in darkness, wondering how such a wonderful partnership deteriorated, just like quadriceps tendinopathy. Shelbourne and Wright noted how Spurs General Manager at the time, R.C Buford carried the burden of wondering where Leonard’s loyalty would lead him, citing “One source close to Buford said the longtime executive admitted to him that he’s constantly losing sleep over how and why the relationship with Leonard has disintegrated.”

THE CONTRIBUTION

On the surface, once could ask why such a story about a professional basketball player applies to rhetorical theory and the narrative criticism method. In a vacuum, perhaps it might not seem of significance. However, Leonard’s loyalty, regardless of who it was to, had an impact on the entirety of the league.

The Spurs would eventually trade Leonard to the Toronto Raptors in Summer 2018, but their title aspirations were no longer the same. They would enter into a rebuilding mode, which is something no one expected from a team who had been in the Western Conference finals only 12 months prior. The franchise would now have to shuffle and rebuild on the fly, hoping to stay in playoff contention.

Leonard spent one year with the Raptors and as fate would have it, won the NBA Championship in June 2019. A short weeks later, Leonard announced his intentions to sign with the Los Angeles Clippers. Los Angeles. Where he wanted to be all along. His home. Where he was loyal to. Unfortunately, his decision to be loyal to himself, his family and his hometown meant others had to be impacted for it.

As Kawhi Leonard demanded a trade, the Spurs found a trade partner in the Toronto Raptors, who sent DeMar DeRozan – a local fan favorite who had been with the Raptors for nine years, taking pay cuts to build the team along way – to the Spurs in exchange for Leonard. After the Raptors won a championship, Leonard would set his sights on the Los Angeles Clippers. In doing so, he would contact Paul George of the Oklahoma City Thunder.

The Thunder had traded for George to pair him with home grown superstar Russell Westbrook. When Leonard contacted George – a southern California native as well – and told him to demand a trade to the Clippers so the pair could team up, it meant that Westbrook now had lost a running mate. Westbrook would then be traded in a bit of a Thunder “short sale” trade to the Houston Rockets for Chris Paul. Paul, who had originally no ties to Leonard, was now caught in the wake of the Leonard drama. All because Leonard was loyal to home.

The artifact allows us to circle key events, or kernels, in Leonard’s life and his career with the Spurs that would determine his future. Leonard was loyal to his family, and who could fault him for that? Unfortunately, he left a wake of damage to the organization that helped develop him into the superstar that he was.

This essay contributes to rhetorical theory by identifying concepts and relationships that upon first glance, are appearing to establish intent. However, we cannot determine intent from a unified subject, unless it is explicitly declared, which in this case it was not. This essay is proof of that.

Instead of trying to determine intent, this narrative criticism seeks to answer your research question. My questions changed repeatedly throughout the process, but it always came back to loyalty. “Who was Kawhi Leonard loyal?” One cannot determine intent with this artifact. But by applying the practice of Narrative Criticism, one can find supporting evidences of who Leonard was loyal to. The kernels and satellites of this story across the plethora of relationships, appropriately time ordered, always comes back to loyalty.

Kawhi Leonard is loyal to himself. Kawhi Leonard is loyal to his family. And Kawhi Leonard is loyal to his hometown. And that loyalty is what got him home.

 

 

 

 

REFERENCES

Foss, S. K. (2009). Rhetorical criticism: exploration and practice (4th ed.). Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press.

Haberstroh, T., Thorpe, D., & Wright, M. (2018, July 5). Nerder she wrote: Kawhi drama with Michael C. Wright [Audio blog post]. Retrieved from https://backtobackpod.libsyn.com/nerder-she-wrote-kawhi-drama-with-michael-c-wright

Shelburne, R., & Wright, M. C. (2018, May 01). Inside the tension between Kawhi Leonard and the spurs. Retrieved from https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/23366667/inside-tension-kawhi-leonard-spurs

Seven Ways to be a Better Husband in 2018

I don’t know about you, but 2017 was wild for me. I saw a lot of heartache, a lot of chaos and a lot of relationships broken and battered. Professionally, personally and emotionally, 2017 kicked my teeth in. I don’t mean to imply good things didn’t happen, but it was an exceptionally hard year.

Some of the things that happened in 2017 were anomalies. I mean, who could have predicted a massive hurricane would ravage my hometown? Or that my grandmother would get cancer and go to Heaven in less than nine months? Sometimes, it all just adds up to a crappy period of your life.

Other things were results of pure selfishness or hatefulness by people I thought were close to me. Some mentors, a few friends and even a family member or two really let me down this year. Aside from the pain and sadness I experienced throughout the year, it was an ugly year for relationships.

But while there’s no way to plan for hurricanes or cancer, and even though relationships can be broken on a whim, there are still a lot of things that I can control.

Around the end of October/early November, I was looking down a road of a potential deep, dark depression.  I was at arguably the lowest point of my entire life and that’s saying a lot. I’ve dropped out of college twice, been to jail, been addicted to pain pills, endured three deployments and been to marriage counseling. But as I began to put on my “fake it til you make it” mask, I realized that if I didn’t do something drastic, I was going to spiral.

The last two months have been very reflective for me. I realize that bad things do happen to good people. But also, sometimes good people do bad things. 2017 sucked, but I also sucked in 2017. So here are seven improvements I am going to make as a husband in 2018.

1: Put my kids before me…in everything.

My life’s greatest accomplishment is being a father to two amazing kids. I love these little humans, but I’ve put them through the ringer this year.

I can’t tell you how often I’ve boasted about my success as a father, but in reality, I’ve selfishly put my aspirations above that of my kids. I’ve used them as a prop at times, almost exploiting them, for my own personal gain.

I’ve enjoyed their cuteness on my Instagram account as a personal gratification for my own insecurities: if more people like this photo, then they will think I am a good dad.           I’ve argued loudly at late hours of the night, interrupting their sleep patterns. I’ve lost my temper and yelled for no reason. I’ve been anything but patient.

These are horribly embarrassing gut punches for me to realize. Their behavioral patterns have been tested and they’ve responded admirably, but that’s a testament to them, more than me. Admitting these things to yourself is not a fun thing to do as a Dad. I’m unworthy of them, but as a Christian father, I am responsible for them. I’ve failed them.

In 2018, I vow to put them before my need for Instagram likes, before my need to have the last word and before my need to release my anger. I vow to be a welcoming voice in my kids’ life. I vow to be a hero to them, rather than emotional heroine. I vow to be the father I am called to be, rather than the father I used to be.

2: Kick my addiction to affirmation.

Affirmation is a horrible thing. I crave it. I need it. I’d inject it into my veins if I could. It’s like a drug. As soon as you get it, your endorphins kick in and you start to float.  Men call it affirmation, but let’s be honest: it’s just an ego boost. Quite simply, it’s addiction. And it’s an addiction that I absolutely need to break.

As a Christian father and husband, I am called by God to be the spiritual head and authority of my family. I am responsible for the rise and fall of my marriage and my children’s parental support system. Not my wife. I am.

When a man succumbs to his addiction for affirmation, he is in direct violation of his spiritual responsibility. God Himself has called us to be the head of our home. By that metric, the only affirmation we need is from Him. The minute we require affirmation from our spouse (which we will get to) or our friends, or our family, we begin to tune out the voice of the Good Shepherd and listen to the voice of the stranger.

God calls us a chosen generation and a royal priesthood. The head, rather than the tail, and above only, but never beneath. He says we have the mind of Christ. He says we can do all things with His strength. The only affirmation we should need is from God. I may not like to accept that because it violates my selfish desire to hear people say good things about me, but it’s true.

In 2018, I vow to break my addiction to affirmation. I vow to reject what others say about me and instead, accept what God says about me. I vow to stop fishing for compliments. I vow to stop humbly bragging. I vow to listen to the Voice of the Good Shepherd.

3: Work in my own home.

I’m not here to get into gender equality and women’s rights. But if you have a two-income house, then you should have a two-person workforce inside the home. I can’t tell you how many guys I talked to in 2017 that voice their frustrations with their working wives, centered on common household chores.

Men have this odd idea that there are certain things a woman does in the home. So they come home from work and just want to put on sweats, watch an episode of SportsCenter and wait for dinner. Meanwhile, the wife has also worked a full eight hours, done two loads of laundry, wiped and powder six baby butts throughout the course of the day and is now trying to cook dinner without ruining her $40 nail job that is supposed to last her through the month.

This is my pitfall. My wife works hard, professionally. But she also works hard in our home. She’s every bit as tired as I am. And I should help. The broom has no gender preference. The crockpot doesn’t care if you are male or female. The vacuum is not a bigot.

In 2018, I vow to work at my home. I vow to partner with my wife and contribute to our home. I vow to let her rest after a full workday. I vow to cook dinner, dust the blinds, Swiffer the floor, do a load of laundry or two and run the dishwasher.

4. Stop Blaming Others.

I have a very distorted view of justice. I was in trouble a lot growing up as a kid. I was always doing something stupid, and it was rarely surprising if I needed discipline. So I had a very simplistic view of right and wrong: If you are wrong, you get punished. Naturally, I spent a lot of time trying to justify my actions or deflecting the blame to someone else.

This bled into my marriage very early on and my wife and I have worked tirelessly to nip it in the bud. When I would be wrong, I expected her to rake me over the coals. It made me uncomfortable to receive grace from her. And when she was wrong? Oh boy, I was ready to hand out punishment.

That was 2017. When people hurt me, I wanted to make sure they were punished. I wanted justice. And if I did something wrong, I spent a lot of time trying to blame others for their short comings. I thought I could justify my actions because of what they did to me. I spent so much time trying to find out “who hurt who first,” that I just dug the hole deeper.

Listen, I am only responsible for my choices. The career moves I make, the church I attend, the car I drive, the house I live in, the relationships I choose to keep: my choices. So if those things fail, or if I hurt people along the way, those are because of MY choices. I have to stop looking to kick the can down the road for someone else to pick up.

In 2018, I vow to take responsibility for my own actions. I vow to accept my mistakes and admit they were my own doing. I vow to have a long look at myself and finally be honest with myself about my own shortcomings. I vow to put down the microscope and pick up the mirror.

5: Drop the Unfair Mantles.

I compare myself to other men all the time. It can be physical, financial, personal, professional – doesn’t matter. I find myself often “counting another dude’s money.” A six-pack. A truck. Shoes. Facial hair. A portfolio. A job. A house. A Bar-B-Que pit.

I have a sermon I intend to preach one day called “Unfair Mantles.” Essentially, the concept is about these “mantles” that have been placed on us as men and now, we feel a desire to pursue them at all cost. We see this a lot as young adolescents. A preacher says to us in an altar call, “Son, you’re going to preach to thousands. Lift your hands and receive.” Then for the next 25 years, we subconsciously carry around that burden trying to figure out a way to honor that mantle on us. God might have had nothing to do with that “prophetic word,” but yet we take it to heart because, well, the source.

We have to stop comparing ourselves to these other men and essentially, remove these “unfair mantles” off our life. Whether it’s a financial mantle to have a five-bedroom house and a Range Rover, or a spiritual mantle to somehow be the next Judah Smith and release a worship album, these things are just a breeding ground for depression and anxiety.

I’ve seen men, myself included, who put their wife and kids through absolute hell on earth to chase a mantle that has been unfairly placed on them. They demand sacrifice from the whole family in the name of submission and pursuit of “the Call,” only to get that house, get that job, get those six-pack abs, get that church plant start-up money, only to find out they are still immensely empty inside. It’s an Unfair Mantle.

In 2018, I vow to be me – a father and husband. I vow to reject unfair mantles. I vow to be the very first me, the very best me and the very last me. I vow to lay down the comparisons of other men and pick up the mantle of being the head of my home.

6: Finish what I start.

Because of these Unfair Mantles that have been put on us, men spend a lot of time spinning out tires in life. We join gyms and then cancel memberships. We change careers. We move to a big house for more space, then downsize to save money. We promise to finish our Master’s degree. We binge spend on our wife because she deserves it, then suggest no Christmas gifts because money is tight.

As a kid, I’d commit to stay at a friend’s house on Friday night. Then another friend would ask me if I wanted to go to the movies with him. It was an opportunity for more fun, but I had committed to the first friend. My parents always made me honor the commitment to my first friend, teaching me that you don’t break your word if something better came along. Just because something is no longer convenient, or we don’t like something anymore, or it’s no longer comfortable for us does not excuse us from honoring our commitments.

The Good Book specifically speaks to letting your “Yes” be “Yes” and your “No” be “No.” My kids and my wife need to believe me when I speak. They need to trust that when Dad says something, it’s going to happen. There are too many “get rich schemes” out there in the world and my family needs to trust that I will finish what I begin.

In 2018, I vow to see things through until the end. I vow to honor my commitments. I vow to finish what I start and earn the trust of my family. I vow to let my “Yes” mean “Yes” and my “No” mean “No.”

7: Stop Draining my Wife.

This will be the hardest part to change in 2018, but easily the most important. I believe I had an epiphany this past year. Several men, including myself, have been guilty of misquoting this whole “wives submit to your husbands” thing. Frankly, it’s become a trump card to play against our wives when we are losing our ground in an argument. That “card” should never be played by a man. And if it is, I doubt he has even read Ephesians 5.

I’ve become so needy to my wife. I need her to clean by undershorts, bring in a pay check, corral the kids, tell me how hot I am, take care of me when I am sick, let me vent to her, let me criticize her friends, take her away from comfortable environments for her to be in comfortable environments for me, post pictures of me on the internet bragging about how awesome I am, laugh at my jokes, cheer for my sports team, and “feed” me when I am “hungry” (married people got that, right?).

Wives are meant to support their husbands, of course. But they are to support their husbands in ways that show your support for Christ. The husband provides leadership to the wife, the way that Christ provides leadership to the church (MSG Bible). So if the husband is not providing leadership to the wife – you know, like how Christ does to his people? – Then…well, I think you know.

So many times I have gotten upset with my wife for not “submitting to me.” In reality, she shouldn’t have been. When I am depressed, angry, bitter, selfish, stubborn and basically all these other characteristics that are opposite of Christ, she should not be submitting to me. And submission is not “getting your way.” Husbands manipulate their wife to get their way on major life decisions claiming the whole “submission” thing. That’s disgusting and God hates it.

Men have an even greater responsibility submission: leadership. Men should be loving their wives like it’s their last day on earth. A pursuing love. A giving love. An assertive love. A bold love. Women, if your husband is not actively loving you and sacrificing of himself for you and your family, DAILY, then don’t you dare submit to him. A man who is always depressed, always comparing himself to other men, always needing affirmation, and refuses to work in your home (me in 2017), is definitely not loving you as Christ loves the church. Please don’t feel like you’re doing him any favors by submitting to his selfish ambitions.

I’ve drained my wife and demanded she submit and I am horribly ashamed of it. At times, she made herself miserable to keep me happy. How selfish am I? How controlling was I? How unhealthy was this relationship, this marriage that God Himself supposedly ordained? Thankfully, she was smart enough to seek counsel, pray for me and stand her ground, because she realizes it’s more about submitting to the creator rather than the creation (side note: when I am in the will of God, loving her as Christ loves the church, and she is submitting to me as the church submits to Christ, we are an efficient relationship juggernaut).

In 2018, I vow to put my wife’s needs first. I vow to demand less of her, and more of me. I vow to seek out her comfort over mine. I vow to love her like Christ loves the church. I vow to not use Ephesians 5 out of context. I vow to strengthen my wife instead of draining her.

I hope 2018 yields better results than 2017. But if it doesn’t, I choose to believe I’ll be better prepared for it – because it starts with me.

Cheers

SH

Six Ways For Leaders to Earn the Trust of their Followers”

“6 Ways for Leaders to Earn the Trust of their Followers.”

by Stephen Hale

@thehalestone

Alright so you’re a leader. A person in place of authority, or responsibility, if you prefer. Maybe you’re an office manager, a project coordinator, a youth pastor, a coach or a squadron leader. Basically, you’re in charge. When you say “jump,” they jump.
But you can tell when they do, they roll their eyes.
And it bothers you.
Like, a lot.
You want to complete your task as a leader, but you also want your followers to come along willingly.
There’s nothing more frustrating than a player who is at your university because they didn’t get any other offers. Or a teenager who is in your youth group because their parents make them go. Or an employee who can’t afford to quit working for your company and find a new job.
So they are there, begrudgingly, and now they are you’re problem.
So how do you fix it?
Here are six ways for you to earn the trust of your followers, and hopefully get them to follow your lead.
1- Leave Them Alone
What? Doesn’t that break every rule in leadership? Yep. Pretty much.
But followers can smell a fake from a mile away. Most followers, especially those who don’t want to follow, don’t trust you. The ones who do, don’t want to disappoint you. Probing them for information on “what’s wrong” and “how’s everything at home” is going to put them under the microscope.
Observe from a safe distance and don’t intervene unless it’s absolutely necessary. Don’t try and befriend them. If they want to be friends, that is up to them. It is your job to manage that friendship and not let the relationship become too familiar. But most importantly, realize that your followers might not want to be friends with you.
Don’t worry. It’s not an indictment on you as a person, but rather, on your position. But if you give them the space they need, they will come around to you. Offer encouragement, let them know you are there if you need them, and then leave them be. It will shock them at first, but if you execute it right, they will learn to depend on you.
2-Allow Mistakes
We could write a novel on all the different thoughts that go through a person’s head when they make a mistake. Most of the time, when mistakes are made, the offender knows it and is already working on a way to remedy the mistake. But they spend more time panicking on what the leader is going to say about it. Panicked followers make panicked leaders. When you focus on not making a mistake, you are way more likely to actually make a mistake. The pressure increases.
The quickest way to lose the trust of your followers is to compound their mistake by blowing it up. It’s worse if you identify the mistake in a public email chain or at the end-of-the-week recap meeting. Be swift in your correction. Let them know they made a mistake, but also provide positive reinforcement. “Hey, you wrote the invoice for $7,000 instead of $700. I know it was a mistake, but you are better than that and I need you at your best. Let’s correct it and move forward. I still believe in you.” And be done.
A follower who knows their leader won’t berate them over a mistake even though he can, will take a lot more ownership in their work and pride in their assignment. They will come to do the job right because it is important to them and they don’t want to let you down, instead of doing it right so they don’t get scolded. People make mistakes. It happens. But those people are also emotional beings and they need to know that an honest mistake doesn’t change your view of them as a person.
3-Have Less Answers
There is a really wild idea out there leaders should have all the answers. But this eliminates transparency from the equation. It makes you unrealistic. Leaders often forget that they aren’t in leadership positions because they know everything, but rather because they know how to lead people.
Leaders don’t have to know all the answers. They just have to know how to get the answers. A leader who uses the phrase, “I am not sure, but I will find out” will have significantly more trust from his followers than the leader who makes a false statement. If you don’t know, tell them you don’t know. Then find out and report back to your followers that you found an answer to their dilemma.
And if you are wrong, be wrong. Admit it and move on. Humility shows your followers that you don’t tolerate arrogance, even in your own performance. It shows them that you care about the task at hand so much, that you are willing to admit your mistake so that the goal is achieved.

4- Be a Machine
I have a boss that I don’t particular like. But she is an absolute machine. She is always there early, always stays late and does more in her shift than five people combined.
Your followers need to see you putting in the extra effort. They need to see you working hard, eating at your desk, covering multiple positions and doing things that make them question their efforts. They need to believe that you are committed to your commitments.
Once your followers realize what’s important to you, they will understand the severity of the assignment. They may never match your commitment level and that’s fine. They aren’t the leader. But they will at least see the value of what you bring to the table when you are committed.
You have to be the one person who is committed to getting the job done at all cost. You must be able to step back and manage if you need to, but also step in and do the work yourself if you must. You have to be able to make a strategic plan, but also know how to execute it. You can’t tell someone to move 100 pallets of water into the back of a truck in under an hour if you can’t do that task yourself. If you really need those water pallets moved, then be prepared to jump in yourself and lead from the front.
Side note- “I don’t have time” isn’t a good enough excuse. If you have time to give the instruction, you have time to make sure it gets done.

5- Reward Them
Just because you shouldn’t rake your followers over the coals for a mistake doesn’t mean you shouldn’t reward them either. Make sure they know that when they do a good thing, you are proud of them. Remind them you knew they could do it and they didn’t disappoint.
Make a huge deal of their success. When they meet a goal, congratulate them. When they complete their work early, send them home. When they make you look good, give them a day off. Buy their lunch when they finish before deadline. Brag about them to your other leaders and let them hear it.
A follower who knows they are appreciated when they work hard will work even harder for that leader. Validation is hard to come by. You can never give your people enough validation. They will always receive it. The best way to get those people to follow you again is to reward them for the last time they followed you. The next time, they will be lining up to follow.

6- People Over Tasks
People first. Then people. And after that, people. There is nothing without people. You will never reach your external audience if you fail to reach your internal audience. The people that follow you are far more important than the task at hand. People have to be your first priority, no matter what. An unsteady following of unsteady people will result in an unsteady conclusion or product.
Every task we do in life ultimately comes back to people. If it is something we are building, something we are selling, somewhere we are going, etc, it ultimately comes back to people. So we can never lose sight of the fact that people create for people. If you want good results, value people. Value those people who follow you. If placing value on your internal audience of people is your priority, it will become natural. Then the value of your external audience will just come naturally, because you already value people.
Never lose sight of what matters to people, because it matters to your followers, who are also people. Go to bat for them. Fight for them. Argue for them. Stand up for them. When your bosses are taking advantage of your people, make it known that your voice is heard against them for your followers, especially volunteers. People who know their immediate leader fought for them and lost will be committed to the leader more so than to a leader who just rolled over and didn’t care.

So remember these six steps and make sure to never lose the trust of your followers again.

You’re welcome.

Why Daddy Hates Selfies: An Open Letter to my Daughter

My Sweetest Pea,

As I write this, It’s about three months before you are scheduled to arrive. Your mother and I are debating which room of the house to put you in and when to start getting your brother off the bottle. Your Granddaddy and I are going to paint your nursery in the next few days. The dogs are peeing everywhere because they see mommies belly getting bigger and since they are stupid, it freaks ‘em out. It’s a lot of chaos, but it’s good chaos.

Sweet Pea, Daddy considers himself to be a fairly level-headed guy. I’m emotional, like a woman, yet strong like a man. Your mother says I am the best of both worlds. So part of this is coming from an emotional place: daddy is scared to have a little girl. Not because he doesn’t want you, but because he doesn’t want to mess up with you. The other part is from a strong place: daddy wants to make sure that he teaches you right from wrong, protects you and guards your heart.

With that in mind, I want to warn you about something. Something that can seem so innocent, but can do so much damage. Something that started off simple, but turned out to be so important in the world around us. Daddy wants to warn you about selfies.

Selfies are easy to understand, but hard to comprehend. Selfies are photos that people take of themselves. I have no idea what kind of technology you will have growing up, but right now, most people have cell phones. Most of those cell phones are linked to social media accounts. There are a ton of Social Media websites, but to name a few big ones, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat. Selfies can often be found in timelines of these social media sites. Most seem harmless, but the truth is, selfies are very complex.

My Sweet Pea, it’s important for you to know (and your mother and I will try to teach you at an early age), that the world you are entering is a self-centered world.  As Christians (we will talk about that in a few years), part of what your mother and I believe is that all humans have a tendency to gravitate toward themselves. “Looking out for number one ” is common behavior (you will hear this phrase often in life). It’s ok. It’s natural.

But it’s also important for you to know that not everyone believes like this. Many people don’t believe they are self-centered at all. Or maybe even worse, they admit that they are self-centered and don’t see anything wrong with it. Regardless, it’s natural. You will start off your life being self-centered and you’ll have to work at changing that behavior. Good grief, your old man is almost 29 and still has to work at it.

So you can understand initially that selfies, while seemingly innocent, can create an odd hiccup in mommy and daddy’s belief system that we have decided to raise you and your brother in.

Now Sweet Pea, of course, selfies are not evil, nor are the people who post them. Selfies were intended as a fun way to share who you are with others. You currently have four aunts. All of them post selfies from time to time. Your two uncles post selfies. Your mom has posted selfies. And yes, on occasion, your father has posted selfies.

But not all selfies are created equal. There are cute selfies and ugly selfies. Funny ones and sad ones. Some are harmless, and some are harmful.

Sweet Pea, selfies impact two sets of people. The problem with selfies, and what most people don’t realize, is you don’t know what effect is has on a person. The viewer doesn’t know the motive of the person posting the selfie, and the poster of the selfie doesn’t know the motive of the viewer.

The first set of people are those being viewed.  There is always a motive for the selfie: check out my hair, look at this shirt, look at my coffee mug, whatever. They are freely offering this information to anyone who will take it, but why? Why do they need people to know so much about them? Your dad still hasn’t figured this one out. One casual selfie may seem innocent, but before long, they add up and you develop of persona that says you need attention.

This is EXACTLY what Daddy doesn’t want for you.

My precious Sweet Pea: don’t ever let someone’s opinion of you alter your opinion of yourself. No matter what happens in life, please remember that your worth is not determined by how many likes you get on an Instagram, or how many views you have on your SnapChat story.

Recently, daddy has been flabbergasted at the amount of selfies on his Instagram account and FaceBook timeline. They are becoming overwhelming. Not necessarily the group selfies that friends and families take together, but individual selfies. Group selfies aren’t half bad actually. It kind of shows you care about more people than yourself (check out your Aunt Trins social media accounts one day and see what I mean).

But the individuals…good grief, Sweet Pea. You wouldn’t believe it. They are everywhere. Single girls, single guys, married girls, married guys. I’ve even seen random inspirational quotes as captions, but a picture of a selfie? Why? If you’re trying to inspire me, do you really need to ensure that I see you? I mean, couldn’t they just post the inspiration on Twitter, or in a status? For goodness sake, they could even steal the quote and make it their own!

But the Christians are the ones I really don’t understand. Happens 5 times a day at least:

A selfie of some girl smiling seductively with her Starbucks (that’s overpriced coffee, in case you don’t know) and the caption reads:

“Jesus loves you and will never let you go. #blessed”

or…

Some guy in a bathroom, snapping a photo before church making sure you know he’s at church on Sunday:

“Bout to get my praise on! #JesusismyHomeboy”

See what I mean? Don’t be like that, Sweet Pea. It’s not a good look. The sad part is, people who do have a grip on their lives really struggle with how to handle the avid selfie taker. Even if you aren’t a selfie taker, you will have a friend who is. The avid selfie taker appears starved for attention. As if they need the approval of someone. I’m just waiting for someone to caption a photo with, “WILL EVERYONE WHO LOVES ME PLEASE LIKE MY PHOTO?!?! K THANKS!!!”

Listen Sweet Pea, you don’t need that. Mommy and Daddy approve of you and we always will. Most importantly, God approves of you. Don’t ever seek the approval of a another human being.  The truth is, don’t even seek the approval of your mother and I. We are humans. We’ll make mistakes and let you down. Only seek the approval of God. Your worth is in Him.

My best recommendation is to look to your mom on this one as an example. Here is something I wrote about her while she was pregnant with you:

“She doesn’t post selfies, because she’s secure in who she is and doesn’t need an ‘Instagram like’ to determine her worth. She doesn’t seek attention, because she’s too busy being attentive to her family. And she doesn’t need the approval of others, because she already approves of herself. She’s confident, yet humble. Strong, yet vulnerable. She’s all the things most women wish they could be one day…she hides from the spotlight, and that’s how she keeps her heart right.”

The second group of people it impacts is the viewer. Here’s some inside information for you, Sweet Pea: most people like having their selfies seen. They don’t always like seeing other peoples selfies. It’s true…because we are self-centered beings, Sweet Pea!

If ever in your life you are about to post a selfie, please do something for daddy and ask yourself: what it might do to the viewer? Will it present your viewers with an opportunity to criticise you, er…hate on you? Will it cause them to envy you? Or most importantly, for your male viewers, will it cause them to lust after you?

Sweet Pea, here is another secret for you: your dad isn’t perfect (I know, kiddo. Your mom was just as shocked when she found out). Your daddy spent far too many years objectifying women. I viewed them as attractive bodies, rather than beautiful and intricate beings. It was very wrong of me. It kept your mom and I apart for a long time, even when we were together.

It wasn’t until I had a genuine heart change that I realized that objectifying women didn’t make me a man, but respecting them did. I don’t tell you this to scare you, or hurt you. I tell you this to warn you. Boys are physical and visual beings. Also, they’re stupid. We think what we see is what we get. If we see a pretty, innocent girl smile at us, we think she likes us. If we see a girl post a selfie online, we think it’s intended for us.

Your photo may seem harmless, and you may only intend to show your girlfriends that you were actually brave enough to put that red streak in your hair. But the wrong angle, with even the slightest touch of cleavage can cause a boy to have impure thoughts of you. Tread lightly, Sweet Pea.

Single men are fishers. They use bait and they try to catch fish. Depending on what kind of fish they want to catch, the bait changes. If they don’t catch a big enough fish or even a fish that they like, they throw it back. Maybe they catch a nice fish, show it off to their closest buddies in the same boat as them, and then toss it back.

Sorry to sound so animalistic, but they won’t see my Sweet Pea as I see do. You’re the Catch of the Day, kiddo. You’re the kind of fish you mount on the wall and show everyone. You don’t throw my Sweet Pea back in the lake because she wasn’t good enough. Don’t ever let anyone tell you otherwise.

These fishers will look at every photo you post a bit longer than your girlfriends will. They will linger on it and adjust the brightness settings on their phones for a better view. They will screen shot it and save it to their camera roll. They will change their “bait” to try and lure you in. Don’t take it. Even the respectful ones, with the purest of intentions, will ultimately have a choice to love you, or to lust for you.

On your wedding day (when you are 84 years old) make sure you know what kind of fish he is after. I’ll do my best to guide you through it, but ultimately, it will be your responsibility as to how you present yourself to the men of the world. My best recommendation for you here is to look at your Aunt Morgan and Aunt Courtney. Both are pretty girls. Both have a ton of followers on social media. Both post selfies. Both could have a boyfriend at the snap of a hat. But both have identities that aren’t found in their social media pages.

Liking a girls “selfie” can cause me to appear as if my eyes are wandering. Ignoring it can cause me to appear rude.

It’s a conundrum that has hurt my head for far too long. But being that I’d rather not deal with it anymore, I think I’ve reached a point where I’m ready to hide, unfriend or unfollow people who post selfies and don’t realize the difficult situation they have put me in. Because it’s a self-centered world, certainly people will say, “That’s your own problem, creep.” But that’s because they are selfish. Maybe you think that’s rude or harsh.

But Sweet Pea, I learned something from your Pop and from your Granddaddy, and you have to understand it too, even if you don’t like it. As a principle of our faith, I have a responsibility to protect our home, from both physical and emotional danger. I have a responsibility to you and your mom to not allow that stuff into my life. I have a responsibility to your brother to teach him how to keep his eyes from wandering. One day, he’ll go fishing and I have to ensure that he brings home the catch of the day.

Here’s my message for him:

So you post mad selfies, huh? Try again, pal.  Challenge yourself to be seen in ways that don’t say, “Hey you. Look at me.” You should be the one to pursue, rather that hope to be pursued. We all like affirmation, but men are above that. Deny yourself those selfish urges. Show real strength and be above it.”

Sweet Pea, here is my promise to you: From this day moving forward, I promise to never take an individual selfie again, as long as I live. Not because I think I am on to something. Not because I hate selfies and everything they represent. And not because I think people who post selfies lack self-confidence. I mean, I do think those things. But I won’t ever post a selfie again because I want you to know, my precious Sweet Pea, that the world is not about me. The world is not about you. It is not about self. It is about others. That’s why I hate selfies.

I really hope that one day, you get to meet your Great-Grandmother Janice. She is kind of my hero. Almost to a fault, she puts everyone before her. She’s in her late 70s and she could be tired and exhausted from the day, but still find time to talk to someone and encourage them. Our entire family could show up at her house tomorrow and she would cook three meals a day for them and never say a word. She’s a great woman.

Sweet Pea, I am sorry for the type of fisherman I was in my adolescence. Your mother saw the potential in me and we’ve persevered through the junk. I hope you can be just like her when you grow up. But I’m grateful that I didn’t let that define me as a dad. I accepted those mistakes and I’m moving away from them. Knowing what I know now, and experiencing what I experienced then, makes me even more scared for you to come into this self-centered world.

I can’t promise you that I won’t get upset if you post 10 straight selfies. I can’t promise you that people won’t say mean things about you on your social media accounts. I can’t promise you that your girlfriends won’t say you’re beautiful on a pictures comment and then gossip behind your back.  I can’t promise you that you won’t have your heart broken and be thrown back into the lake by some crumby fisherman.

But I can promise you this:

No one will ever love you more than daddy does.

No matter what happens, what you do, where you go, how many selfies you take, or how many mistakes you make, you will always and forever be…

My Sweetest Pea

With all my Heart,

Daddy

Christians vs Gays and Why Both Sides are Losing

This is an ugly topic to tackle. Even as I write it, I am mildly nervous about the response that I might get. But I genuinely feel it’s time to address a different side of a dialogue that has long been silenced in the name of “acceptance.” So I will commit to maintain “acceptance,” if you will commit to maintain your sense of “acknowledgement.”

For too long now, I have watched my Christian counterparts who “vote the Bible” and “stand up for righteousness” walk all over the hearts and attitudes of the LGBT community. By the same token, I think it’s time that the LGBT community admits that they haven’t been exactly a basket of kittens either. I’m constantly amazed at how much scripture both sides know about their particular angle and how their counter parts are wrong, wrong and wrong. Neither side is making much ground and neither side is doing themselves any favors.

Now before I add my two cents, I’d like to point out that I am not a spiritual giant. If anything, I am largely fallible and perfectly imperfect. I spend a lot of time apologizing for things I said, both meant and unmeant, regretting decisions and choices I’ve made and most of all, I find myself frustrated with myself for not being the person I know I should be. In short, I am a Christian, and by human race standards, a pretty crummy one. But I have also come to learn that there is a fine line between grace and surrender, between love and tolerance and between humility and sorrow.

So in no way am I stating that Pastors and Christians who vote the Bible and “stand against homosexuality” are wrong, nor am I telling the LGBT community to tone it down. But considering that there is an unhealthy dialogue floating around Facebook pages and workplace water coolers, I figured I could offer the perspective of a completely flawed 28-year-old white Christian Conservative male…because that’s what we have all been looking for, right?

So to Christians first, because they will probably be the most upset with me:

Guys- Please. PLEASE stop. Your motives are pure, yes. Your stance is just, of course. And your beliefs I actually agree with. But for the love of God and everything that is Holy, literally, stop. You are embarrassing us. But that’s not the problem. Your salvation isn’t for me and you certainly shouldn’t be living your life as I see fit. However, what is the problem is the simple fact that you are actually a deterrent to the Christian faith. You are not drawing people to Jesus. You aren’t. If anything, you are confusing people. The last thing we need is for people to think that Jesus is like the Christian church, when in reality, we need people to believe that the Christian church is like Jesus.

Chew on this: There is nothing, literally nothing, that you can say to a sinner, regardless of their salvation status, that will change their mind. Nothing. They don’t want to hear from you. From a pulpit, in a blog, in person face to face or in a Facebook status. Your words, our words, even these words I am writing, mean absolutely nothing. We don’t change anyone. God does. But we sure can get in the way. Sometimes we use God’s words and then when he is done, we make our additional contributions…as if he forgot something.

Too often, we are doing our very best to say the right thing or post the right thing and get that last piece of information into the sinner’s brain that we think will finally push them over the top and bring them to our side. Spoiler alert: the Bible has been around for centuries. It’s a free book in America. Christians and non-Christians alike know 50 Bible verses to validate their points. The biggest sermon anyone can ever preach doesn’t come with a love offering, a pulpit and three points and a poem. The Bible is a tool to guide YOUR life, not a tool to guide the lives of people you don’t agree with (and that includes finding sin in other Christians).

Whatever happened to “Being still and knowing that He is God?” Too often in our cliché’s of playing church, we think that means to sit quietly in silence for 3-9 minutes and then we will magically hear an answer to our prayers. But sometimes, that Scripture doesn’t apply to you in that capacity. Sometimes that Scripture means that we as Christians need to shut our traps, look a sinner dead in the face, while they are sinning and know that He is God (and NOT stand up for our faith?!?!?! *gasp).

There are two reasons why I believe this:

1)- The only, and I mean ONLY difference, between a Christian and non-Christian is the salvation rights and privileges. But holy bananas, guess what? Christians Sin! Yup. All of us. We all have things that we do that are wrong. We are imperfect. We make mistakes. Sometimes we don’t even know we sin. And that is because…

2)- Sin is subjective. Oooo, don’t like that huh? Too bad. It is. Not all of it. But some. Sin is the absence of God. It’s missing the mark. So while some sins are black and white and are specific in the Bible, like lying or adultery, or…homosexuality, that isn’t the only sin that exists. What is sin for you may not be sin for me.

Example: About two years ago, Fantasy Football became sin in my life. How is that possible? Because it consumed me. It swallowed me whole. I was constantly watching TV and listening to podcasts and found reasons to even avoid church on Sundays because I wanted to watch football. I replaced my relationship with my wife and with my God for fantasy football. It became an idol. It became sin. Is fantasy football wrong? No. Is it a sin for all who play? Of course not (unless you have Tony Romo…joking). I play Fantasy Football today, but it doesn’t consume like it once did. But if it becomes a priority in your life above your relationship with God, then it, like anything, can become sin.

So bring it back to the war on the LGBT community: what in the world are we telling these people about Jesus? Are we really saying that we don’t sin anymore? Are we really saying that WE have the answers to their problem? Are we saying that our job is to stand up against them, instead of against their sin? Or maybe we won’t directly tell them to their face that they are wrong, but instead we show passive aggressive behavior by saying it indirectly on Facebook in how we share specific articles or challenge their thought processes on our own newsfeeds.

Yea, that’s not Jesus. At least not the one I know. Because to you it’s just a gay person who won’t change and it’s not gluttony, it just that you really like eating two bacon cheeseburgers after a “long” church service. But gluttony and homosexuality are the same as murder and adultery in the eyes of God.

And now to members of the LGBT community:

Guys- Please, PLEASE stop. We get it. We’ve understood your cries about this being how you were born. We realize that you have been outcasts for a long time. And we can all acknowledge that the church hasn’t really been to kind to you. But why the chip on your shoulder? Why the grudge? I’m genuinely perplexed.

In our society, our culture has slowly but surely gravitated to being less and less about what others want, and more and more about what the individual wants. So if this is you, then be you. Why the show? Why the aggressive stance? And specifically against Christians? Doesn’t that kind of work against you?

When Martin Luther King, Jr, Rosa Parks and Malcom X where enduring the civil rights, they had a choice to make: they could have fought and rioted constantly, or they could just be “black.” What Rosa Parks did on the bus that day was not important because she took a stand; it was because she took a seat. Rosa decided, I’m black and that’s not a big deal, so I am just gonna be black. This is who I am. She didn’t make a fuss about it? She just…was. So she sat down.

Now sure, that example may have changed over the years. But the point is, if you are gay, just be gay. If it’s who you are, then why are you trying to explain it? When the military repealed DADT, you know what everyone did that day? They went to work. They just…were.
In any other area of life, if we had to explain our definition of what we claim to be, we would be called a sellout.

“Oh, I’m a rapper. Look how much I rap.”

“Oh, I’m not jobless and lazy, I’m an entrepreneur.”

“I’m an honest person. Look how much I tell the truth.”

If you have to explain how you are, then you aren’t very legit. People should just know. So we don’t need the big show about how much of an activist you are. Just be. We get it.

And furthermore, since I have hammered my own Christians so far, I have a small challenge for you. Can you please, PLEASE, try to understand Christians? Can you please not lump us all up into the category of the 1974 Big Tent Revival Crusaders? Let me be the first to say that there are some weirdoes in the Christian faith. I don’t agree with them. They aren’t me and that isn’t my Jesus.

But dudes and dudets… give us a break. We aren’t all out to make sure that poor gay people don’t get WIC. Here is why Christians get so up in arms with the LGBT community. Mind you, this is not an attack and it isn’t meant to pinpoint anything or anyone. It’s genuinely an example. Say you’re a homosexual or lesbian and you believe in God. You have said that this is how you were born or this is who you are. You found a church that doesn’t try to cast all the gay demons out of you right after the offering and you consider yourself a Christian.

I say consider yourself because NO ONE can judge who is and who isn’t a Christian besides God. Not an attack, right? We good? Ok. If that’s you and you say that, you would have to acknowledge that “homosexuality” would be a sin, right? Ok. I’m not calling you out, I’m just asking. And if you would agree to that, then you would have to ALSO agree that everyone has sin in their lives, right? Alcoholism. Adultery. Lying. Stealing. Whateves

…Stay with me.

Why wouldn’t you want to be without that sin? Why wouldn’t you want your sin to be given to God? Or better yet, why would God make a mistake when he created you? We’ve heard it said, “I was born this way.” So God made a mistake with you, but not to the others? I’m confused. You said you were a Christian who goes to church and everything.

See, those two things don’t mix. That’s why Christians, these absurd, know-it-all, imperfect Christians, become the finger-pointers that they do. The problem is, they get ridiculously annoying and off-putting in how they address it, and for that I am sorry. But the truth is, they are kind of right.

If you don’t believe in the whole Christianity thing and you think Christians are stupid either way, then, well I guess this doesn’t really apply to you. But you can’t claim to be a Christian and then in the next breath claim that God made a mistake when He made you. You can’t claim to be a Christian and then reject the grace that God offers to absolve you from sin. Neither can the person who says, “I’m an alcoholic and alcoholics run in my family” or “My dad cheated on and beat my mom, so that’s how I treat my spouse because that’s the way it is.”

Do you have to be sin free to be a Christian? No. You don’t even have to be on your way out of a sinful life to become a Christian. But do you have to want to be absent of your sin and constantly working toward it? Yes. That doesn’t mean you won’t sin, but it means that you won’t WANT to sin. Sin is ugly and it’s addicting and consuming. That’s why God hates it. It’s a fine line, I know. But allow me to provide some insight to your battles against Christians.

We believe that God doesn’t make mistakes and God can restore anyone from anything. That’s a foundational principle of our faith. So if you claim to be “one of us” but don’t agree with those sentiments, well then to us, you are poser. I’m not saying that’s necessarily fair, but it should help if you know who you are fighting. Because the two things don’t compute, Christians freak out, short circuit and then start the blame game.

If you have read this far, then allow me to summarize; Frankly, I don’t really care if you are gay or not. And I don’t really care if you are saved or not. I care about your souls, of course, but over the last 28 years, I have had enough trouble keeping my own ducks in a row. I sin every day. Maybe not every day, I guess. But the odds are definitely stacked against me. However comma, I do care about being transparent about the fact THAT I sin rather than transparent about the sin itself, because it’s all the same. I do care that there are two sides here that are spinning their proverbial wheels and neither is making any progress.

Christians should realize that it’s not our words that make the change in a person, nor is our secret sin any better than a public sin, like homosexuality. Remember: the church should be like Jesus, rather than trying to make Jesus like the church. Be still and know that He is God…like all the time, in everything. For reals…

LGBT friends, just be you. Understand that Christians can’t compute someone claiming their faith and not claiming the principles. And if you are a member of the LGBT community and don’t claim to be a Christian, then stop fighting against them. It’s a really bad look for you and it doesn’t help your cause.

To both sides, please realize that your counterpart is just as passionate about their side as you are yours. Just as you would never expect to abandon what you think is right for their side, you can’t expect they would do the same for your side. So stop the war and let your actions speak for your side. So instead of acting like a buffoon, maybe just…be.

I leave you with this gem, which is something my father said to me when I was young lad and I am sure his father said to him. I’m sure it’s a famous quote by someone but whateves…I still haven’t mastered it, but maybe you will have better luck.

“Better to have someone think you are an idiot, than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.”

NBA Off Season Thoughts

I’ve been sitting on this for a couple days and here are my thoughts, so far.

Atlanta-Atlanta is gonna be the best 6th seed in the history of basketball…forever. They got incredibly long on the wings, drafted Payne from MSU and still managed to bore everyone in the process.

Boston- The C’s are gonna be fun to watch and see what develops. Drafted Marcus Smart and James Young, lost Kris Humpries and Danny Ainge is still treating the NBA like it’s a play station game.

Brooklyn-The Nets got worse and are gonna miss the playoffs next year. They are gonna pay over $90mil in luxury tax. Ew.

Charlotte- Well, they are the Hornets again. But no sign of Zo, Mugsy or Grandma-ma. Noah Vonleh on the other hand, will look great in Purple and Teal. They lost Josh “Dunk on you anywhere, anytime” McRoberts, but salvaged it by signing Marvin Williams. Looks like they signed Lance Stephenson too, because the greatest player of all time is not as good in the front office as he was in the paint.

Chicago-Bulls deserve a lot of credit for finally dumping Boozer and gaining Pau. “Dougie Buckets” was a good draft pick up as well. Kind of a bummer to lose Augustin, but now Hinrich doesn’t have to look over his shoulder. By the way, are we ready for a Rose/Gasol screen and roll montage yet?

Cleveland-Cleveland obviously has had a great all around offseason. Excluding the fact that they had the best player in basketball play a hidden “loyalty” card, they got a stud in the draft, who will be paired with 3 other former lottery picks. It looks like they cashed in their chips at just the right time. They should really thank that guy for leaving 4 years ago. Draft pick, draft pick, draft pick. If they get K-Love and manage to keep Wiggins, yikes.

Dallas- So far, the Mavs have had the best off season. Richard Jefferson, Felton, Parsons and Chandler, plus Dirk resigned basically for free. They resigned all the right people and let the wrong ones walk. Definitely gonna be a top 3 team in the west.

Denver- Now is not the time to be a nuggets fan. Loooonnnngggg road ahead. Of course, when you fire the coach of the year, you deserve to stink for a while.

Detroit-The Pistons got some key role players on good deals, but that’s all they have- role players. They have to sign Greg Monroe though. At least they had an awesome 30 for 30.

Golden State- Talks have resumed on the Klay-for-Love package, so they may not be done. They got a great pick-up in Shaun Livingston…wait. Scratch that. Livingston stinks. He’s incredibly overrated. “They got Shaun Livingston.” There. That’s better.

Houston-The Rockets are a real “lol.” They just botched the offseason. Whiffed on Melo, Traded Jeremy Lin, who is a good player, just absurdly overpaid, and to make matters worse, didn’t match Dallas’ offer sheet for Parsons. Huh? I don’t get it. Oh well. At least they made up for it by signing..wait for it…Trevor Ariza! Again.

Indiana- Ya, they had a fun two years. But that team is dissolving into itself. Lance Stephenson left for purple and teal and word is, they are shopping Hibbert. Can you blame them? Paul George can’t wait for his contract to be up…in 2018.

LAL- Steal of the draft, IMO. Julius Randle is a great fit in LA. He’s their first bright spot in a long tunnel of darkness. Jeremy Lin will be the best PG Kobe has had since a young D-Fish. They even got a fair price for Jordan Hills resign. I think they should have pushed hard for Lance Stephenson, but he signed with Charlotte Wednesday morning. Lin-Kobe-Lance-Randle-Hill, with Swaggy P off the bench? I don’t hate that.

LAC- *note: Don’t talk about Donald Sterling.——–So it looks like Donald Sterling will still be the owner of the Clippers to start the season, so they are already off to a bad start. They lost Darren Collison to the Kings, but gained Jordan Farmar, so that offsets. But seriously, don’t underestimate that Spencer Hawes signing. I have a buddy from Philly who is a baseball fan. He made it a point to turn me on to Hawes because he knew I liked hoops. I’ve yet to be disappointed. He can even make FREE THROWS!

Memphis- Added the ghost of Vince Carter, who apparently had his career revived by hitting a buzzer beater against San Antonio last year in the first round of the playoffs. Grizz did the smart thing by bringing back Z-Bo, but Mike Miller was the only guy on that team who could shoot outside 9 feet. Have you seen Tony Allen’s jumper lately? Let’s just say, “it needs work.”

Miami-Heat (McRoberts and Deng, not so much Granger) have has an awesome offseason. Sure, Miami lost that one guy, but they are finally gonna be able to put 5 guys on the court, now that they have a more rounded roster, including a well-fed and fully-tattooed Shabazz Napier (replace one knucklehead with another).

Milwaukee- RIP Jabari Parker. At least he can count on J Kidd to spill a soda if he ever needs a timeout.

Minnesota- The Wolves had a great draft actually, by snagging Levine and Glenn Robinson III. However, it’s very obvious that they can sense their hopes and dreams slipping away the more Kevin Love talks to the media.

New Orleans-Russ Smith and Asik are two nice pieces for an already up and coming team. Russ probably won’t play much, but Asik will. The Asik-Davis combo, IMO, just became the most terrifying front court in the west. Davis plays 1000 times harder than Dwight and I think it’s gonna revive Asik. Watch out Western Conference PGs driving the lane.

New York- What an offseason for the Knicks. They have been in the news so much lately and they haven’t really done anything. New President. New Coach. Same problem. Melo signed for $5mil less than the max. What a sweet heart. Apparently he hates winning more than he hates Chicago (can you imagine Rose, Melo, Pau, Noah and ANYONE ELSE?!?!). Good for the Bulls. Bad for NYC. But hey, I guess everyone is playing that whole loyalty card now a days. Cleanthony Early will be a nice pick up for them. Sadly though, he won’t ever get to shoot the ball. *Side note, my wife and I agree: our next son will be named “Cleanthony.”

Oklahoma City- Seriously should have amnestied Perkins, but that team forgets that this is a business sometimes and wanted everyone to stay friends instead. Per Larry Coon, KP is now the sole player left to not be amnestied. They lost their best defender (Thabo) and Caron Butler. At first I loved Mitch McGary as the 21st pick, but now I have no clue where he is going to play. He’s basically another Stephen Adams, with better range, on a team loaded with bigs. Jerami Grant would have been a smarter choice, but what do I know? Also, they have Russell Westbroke on their team who is the most incredible athlete in the league and also the dumbest player in the league. So the only question is, will KD go to the Lakers or will he play his own loyalty card and join John Wall in DC?

Orlando- The Magic need a standing ovation for their draft. Aaron Gordon was my favorite player in the draft, but Elfrid Payton is gonna be special. They snagged Channing Frye and for the first time in a long time, Ben Gordon got a contract for what he is worth. Orlando needs another year or two and they will surprise us in the east.

Philadelphia -Speaking of draft picks, one day Philly is gonna be really good. Not anytime soon, but one day. They get last years lottery pick (Noel) back just in time to send this years lottery pick to IR and they sent their 10th pick rockstar PG to Orlando for…um. Well, this is awkward. *facepalm

Pheonix- The loss of Frye will hurt, but I can’t wait to see Isaiah Thomas play with Gordon Dragic. This Suns team is so much fun to watch. They also added TJ Warren to the mix, which is another bullet in their gun. If they can find a way to keep Bledsoe, wowsers.

Portland- Got a solid pickup in Steve Blake who has made a career out of being a very average and consistent PG. But they also got the mountain man, Chris Kaman. You know, The former All-star who sat on the bench for no reason in LA because Mike D’antoni doesn’t know what he is doing? Ya. That guy.

Sacramento- I rolled my eyes at the Nik Stauskus pick, but I think Darren Collison made up for it. But this is a young team, undisciplined and lost. Who knows what will ever become of the Kings? Who knows?

San Antonio- The best team in basketball, resigned everyone, including their coach. Duncan picked up his option. They also hired the best coach in Europe to their coaching staff because the Coach of the Year said, “we don’t move the ball as well as we should.” Pfffff. What? Also, all the Spurs players with the exception of two will forego playing with their national teams this offseason so they can either have surgeries (Mills and Manu) or in the case of 22 year old Kawhi Leonard, “rest.” Pffffff. And one other thing: they signed Kyle Anderson, who is basically a skinnier, faster, younger Boris Diaw. They haven’t decided if he is gonna play the 1 or the 4. He was the 30th pick in the draft. Pffffffffffffffffffffffff.

Toronto- Canadians can finally breathe a sigh of relief now that Kyle Lowry has resigned. That could have been bad. They found DeAndre Daniels buried in the second round and resigned everyone but Nando de Colo. Poor Nando.

Utah- At first, I was skeptical of how Trey Burke and Dante Exum would work. But guys, this is gonna be fun. Dante is really good and really raw and really young. The Jazz were smart enough to get a max deal done for Hayward and cut the dead weight by letting RJ and Marvin Williams walk. I like the Jazz. They are gonna be terrible for the next decade. But I like em.

Washington-The Wizards are creeping up on everyone (Paul Pierce is a great fit for them.) Gortat didn’t hesitate to stay in town and I think they have the right mix of young talent and veteran leadership. They are going to be the new Pacers. They even added Kris Kardash…Humphries to the mix. If Bradley Beal can be as good as we all hope he can be, this will be a team to compete in the east.

So how did I do? Crazy?

A Night with the Stars

The Oscars.

 

Man, what a blur. I just spent that last 10 hours down on the red carpet, dodging rain and cramming over 200 photographers and broadcasters into what seemed like a can of pringles. I have never felt more like a sardine in all my life.

 

Well, besides those deployments on an aircraft carrier.

 

All for the hope that screaming like a banshee will pay off and someone famous would come over to me and do a quick interview.

 

For those of you who don’t know, I work at the American Forces Network. AFN is a TV Station where we get programming for our troops all over the world, as long as we don’t air commercials. To summarize, they watch the SuperBowl just like you do, but when the feed cuts to commercials, they don’t get to see the funny Cheerios commercial or the moving Budweiser commercial. They get Public Service Announcements and Command Information. We basically fill the commercial break with spot material and promos. Obviously, we run out of spots and promos very quickly, so we look to fill that time with other spot material, some of which are celebrity shout outs, if possible.

That’s where events like the Academy Awards come into play, as well as others, like the Grammys, the Spike TV Guys Choice awards, Golden Globes etc. My teams job is to hang out on the Red Carpet, in uniform and fight the masses and hope for an interview.

 

The event begun about 9 am with our arrival to the Parking Lot. We had to be in full military dress uniform and our civilians team members in tuxedos and walk around the block to the bus stop. A bus would take us 8 blocks over to the theatre. Once there, we have to go through security and have all our equipment scanned. When we finally make it to the red carpet around 10, we have to find our little designated spot. I kid you not, we had two 32 inch sections for which to put two talents, two camera men and their equipment and two “spotters.”

 

Ya, it was tight.

 

Once we have our place, we can then begin to do our intros and stand up packages. We expected this to take about 15 minutes for each talent, but something happened today that kinda set us back a tad.

 

Rain.

 

Rain. Rain and then more rain. I think it rained from about 10:30 until almost 1:30 and then bam! Clear, sunny, blue skies. Go figure.

 

As fate would have it, our section was being blocked by the Today show. But I think they were a different Today show because they all sounded British. Very nice people, but without a doubt, in the way. But the uniform speaks and before long, one of the Oscar Runway Directors was all like, “No way, not in front of the troops, guy. Move it or lose it, sister.” So they moved and we were satisfied, because now that we don’t have to balance our cameras on one leg to get a shot.

 

By 2pm, we were rolling.

 

So here I am trying to keep my wool dress blues from getting wet, trying to balance on this 32 inch space, raised two feet off the ground and my team and I are thrown right in the middle of the paparazzi. I will say this about those guys: they may be ruthless, but they know what they have to do to get pictures. It ain’t always pretty and I think they may have ticked off Anna Kendrick. I was really enjoying watching them work, but she got to a point where she needed to take a step back, get private for a moment to gather herself and then try again. Poor girl was almost to the point of tears.

 

The Red Carpet is very long and had three photo stops along the way. We were next to the Paparazzi stop 2. I like that position and here is why: The stars have two options when they come in. They can go down media row, which is where they hit the three photo stops and where they can choose to speak to one of the many media outlets (bro, there is seriously like a gazillion news outlets. Everything from E News, to BBC, to Telemundo, to Dubai One, to Shanghai Express, to…AFN), or they can take option B, which is the fire lane. The fire lane goes right down the middle of the Red Carpet and is basically the celebs way of saying, “I aint trying to do no interview right now.”  A couple fire lane notables: John Legend and Chrissy Teigan and Pharrell: not actors.

 

So because we are next to “Pop Stop 2,” all the celebs had to stop and do their read and repeats. But they get a solid 15-20 seconds of camera flashes, so it creates a bottleneck of people waiting for their pictures. That’s when I just wave a microphone at them and ask for an interview. I am not the only person waving a microphone, but I am the only person wearing a uniform, holding a microphone, so ya, it helps. I just yell with my loud obnoxious voice (you all know what voice I am talking about), “Mr. Spacey, say something to the troops!” And here comes Kevin Spacey.

 

From 2-430, it is relatively slow, with “B” and “C” list actors coming to up to us, looking for some publicity. It’s people like so and so from such and such movie who wrote the score and is being nominated for such and such. We may not know them, but we take all of them.

 

Then the last half hour is all the important “A” listers. They are either fashionably late or don’t need extra publicity, but either way, their time is valuable. They don’t just do any interview. Some people, like Brad Pitt and Angelina, are just a bit too famous to “need” to do interviews. So when they stop to talk to you, you know it’s because they want to. They have passed on literally hundreds of other interviews, but they stop for us? Ya, that is cool.

 

Then you have guys like Matthew McConaughey, Jason Sudeikis, Johnny Knoxville and Channing Tatum who get pretty fired up about the military and don’t even want to rush the interview, because “I wanna know how you are doing, man!”

But the most memorable are stars like Anne Hathaway. She came to us. She sought us out. Same with Sandra Bullock. They didn’t even have to be asked. They wanted to be near us. They wanted to talk to us, and they wanted to talk our ears off.

 

Now, here is what you have to remember, rather what I have to remember and what I want you to know I am aware of. I, Stephen Hale, am just the interviewer. But  Leonardo Dicaprio will not remember who I am. Olivia Wilde won’t try to look me up on Twitter. Amy Adams won’t recall what my smile looks like, and Jessica Biel won’t remember that I stuttered like four times when I talked to her. But they will all remember that “military guy” and they will all remember that they “talked to the troops.”

 

You see, on nights like tonight, thousands of our service members across the world are shutting down for the night and hopefully, if they are lucky, they have a TV that will air AFN. It’s the same for Super Bowl, the same for NBA All Star Weekend, the same for March Madness, and the Emmys and the Grammys and the Oscars and all of it. They don’t have UVerse, Time Warner Cable, Cable One, Verizon, Direct TV or any of that other stuff. They get AFN or they get…well that’s it. AFN has a global audience. So if they are some of the lucky few that aren’t in a foxhole, that aren’t on watch, that aren’t on a ship that lost it’s satellite signal, this will be their feed. I was that audience and I know how badly I needed AFN.

 

People think what I do is a waste of time for the military. Even some of my fellow service members think I am not a “real soldier.” I can see their point I guess, but that doesn’t offend me. I served. I deployed.I went to dangerous places. I missed holidays. I missed birthdays. I had to watch my wife ball her eyes out at 5 am in the morning when I left on deployment for 7 months.  I remember how much that sucked. And I also remember that during those 7 months, I wanted ANYTHING that reminded me of home. I watch so many TV shows and movies that I would have never watched, just because my wife was watching them and I wanted to be connected to her. I read about athletes and celebrities because that kept me connected.

 

Our motto for our AFN spots is, “We bring you home.” Our goal is to bring our troops home, in whatever way we can. If home for them is watching the Oscars, then lets bring it to them. And if I can get Kristen Chenowith and Bill Murray on camera to tell our troops how important they are, well, then that’s my mission.

 

If I get a few extra questions, I always ask these stars, “On a night like tonight, what does it mean to you to have that type of audience?”

 

Matthew McConaughey had the best answer tonight. He looked me dead in the eye, patted me on the back and said, “Ya know, on a night like tonight, this is a waste of time. This is silly. We should be having a red carpet for you guys. Without you, this would be for nothing. You’re the hero. You guys are the ones who we should be giving awards to.”

 

Ya, that dude rocks.

 

So for me, I remember that it isn’t me. I am not great. I am not special. I am fortunate and blessed to be in this situation to get to interview people. But I do not think I am going to be a movie star, I don’t think they are my friends, and I am certainly not better than any of my brother’s in arms. I am just the guy who interviews these people, at least for now, until my mission changes.

I am just the guy who wears the uniform at the Oscars…a uniform I couldn’t be more proud of.

Follow me on Twitter and IG @thehalestone

Twitter and the Social Cognitive Theory

Twitter and the Social Cognitive Theory

 

            For my critical assignment, I have decided to discuss the social cognitive theory and its relationship to the social media site, Twitter. I believe that twitter is the fastest paced social media site and one of the most frequented websites by teens and young adults. The high volume of traffic leads me to believe that the “twitterverse” is impacting us more than we know. It is the social cognitive theory that supports this.

            The Social Cognitive Theory provides a framework that allows us to analyze the human cognitions (or mental functions) that produce certain behaviors (Bryant, Thompson and Finklea, 2013).The theory can be summarized by saying that an individual’s knowledge is formed by observing the world around them.  It is how they see the world. They look at life as a system that is dependent on the continual evolution of the world around them. Their ideas and belief system are not influenced by self-trial that leads to personal success or failure, but rather by the actions of others in the world around them. They are products of their environment and they develop their belief system on what works or doesn’t works for others.

Mr. Albert Bandura and Mr. James Webster gave extensive research into the world of the social cognitive theory.  In an article from 2001, Bandura talked about the social cognitive theory being an analytical and psychological process (Bandura, 2001). In the article he states,

 

 “Social cognitive theory analyzes social diffusion of new styles of behavior in terms of the psychosocial factors governing their acquisition and adoption and the social networks through which they spread and are supported. Structural interconnectedness provides potential diffusion paths; sociocognitive factors largely determine what diffuses through those paths.”

 

–Bandura, 2001

           

Bandura’s idea is that a person’s belief system is defused by how they receive or acquire their beliefs through social networking. If that is true, then I believe that the reverse must also be true. If they can defuse a belief system, then they can certainly enhance it by the use of social networking.

            Webster spoke more to the general populous as being responsible for developing a belief system. Even though people have not fully developed their belief system, they are more inclined to accept it because of what they read on social media. Webster notes that users of social network are more comfortable learning in this environment. In his 2011 article, he states

“Social commentators and users alike often take comfort in these systems because they appear to embody the ‘wisdom of the crowds,’ the notion that many ordinary decision makers can produce collective judgments superior to experts…but even if one accepts the premise, user information regimes often fail to meet the prerequisites for producing good decisions.”

 

                                                                                                -Webster, 2011

A familiar passage immediately comes to mind. Romans 1:22- Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools. Without being an expert, people take this “wisdom of the crowds,” accept it as fact because it is a large belief system and then adopt it into their belief system. Bandura seems to believe that people can diffuse the information they receive on social media, which I believe means they can also enhance the information. Webster believes that people can justify their beliefs and take the information on social media as “gospel,” if it is a general consensus of the masses. That is why I believe that Twitter is a dangerous game.

Twitter is a social networking site that allows users to express their thoughts or share information by using a series of updates or “tweets” comprised of 140 characters or less. It is a thought provoking website, primarily because most of us are long-winded. The 140 character limit encourages us to “get to the point” and develop tweets that are centrally focused on a single idea. 

The idea is to gain followers and have them receive your message. You can do this by coming up with your own authentic tweets. But the beauty of twitter is that you can follow people and if you like something that a person tweets, you can retweet them and send their message to your followers. Hopefully, this will trigger a chain reaction, causing your followers to also like something you have tweeted or retweeted and they will retweet you.

 As you can see, the social cognitive theory is already at work. Before long, you look around your twitter feed and are seeing that you have developed a belief system and it is being expressed in your tweets and retweets. You are following people who may share in your belief system and retweeting their information. You now may have followers who share your belief system and are retweeting your information.

The danger level varies depending on your number of followers. A person with 1 million followers has a far greater level of responsibility to tweet out substance than that of a person with 100 followers. An example of the social cognitive theory in action is found in another feature of twitter, the reply. Let’s say a celebrity with 1 million followers tweets out a controversial topic. That celebrity is now subject to feedback from their followers: A million different types of feedback. This feedback is the theory at work. People can reply and agree and provide thoughts that will encourage or enhance the mindset of the celebrity, or people can “diffuse” the information and rule it as incompetent.

While I believe that the social cognitive theory is a highly functional component of the twitter world, I do recognize some gaps in the theory. For instance, often times twitter users follow people that they may or may not agree with. Sometimes, people will use the “know your enemy” tactic. Not that they are true enemies, but perhaps a person will follow a news sources twitter feed, a sports commentator or a celebrity that they do not agree with. When this happens, they are showing that the social cognitive theory is actually absent. They are not being influenced by the ideas and belief systems of others. In all actuality, they are following Bandura’s model by defusing the information that comes to them.

Twitter is unique because it gives you a real time dialogue of the world around you. For instance, live sports. When Richard Sherman of the Seattle Seahawks did his post-game interview with Erin Andrews and aggressively called his opponent, San Francisco 49er Wide Receiver Michael Crabtree a “sorry receiver,” the twitterverse exploded. Immediately, social cognitive theory and twitter combined to form a conundrum that we as viewers never really solved.

People were immediately faced with a decision: “Do I think that was acceptable for Sherman to make such a public spectacle and harsh criticism of Crabtree?”  Once they answered that question, they put it on social media. Talks of class, respect, sportsmanship, emotion, justification, confidence, arrogance and many other attributes flooded Twitter timelines. Whatever stance people took, that is what they were looking for. They wanted agreement, or they wanted to argue with people who had a varying stance. 

People were immediately letting the world around them enhance their belief system. They read the things they wanted to read, retweeted things they agreed with, and replied to people they disagreed with.  As more disagreements arrive, they become more passionate about their belief system. Before long, they have lost sight of their ability to diffuse and moved into Webster’s model. The wisdom of the crowds, or the agreement of multiple people on their argument, helped make collective judgments, as if they were an expert.

Twitter gives people live information in real time, but it also gives people an instance voice. I believe Webster was correct in saying that sometimes people forget they need prerequisites to be considered experts. With the creation of hashtags, we can click on a hashtag and immediately be taken to tweets of the same topic. Then, we think we decide for ourselves if we agree with those tweets. The problem is that the social cognitive theory has taken place well before this. Our belief system is already set. We browse through hashtags, not to hear others voices, but to match another’s voice to ours.

We are constantly influenced, consciously and subconsciously, by those who we follow, even if we say we disagree with them. We follow our friends, who we know and share lives with, and we follow celebrities, who don’t know us. However, our cultural idolization of them perceives them as experts, and we gobble up what they say to us. Most shockingly are the amount of people we don’t know and that don’t know us, yet we follow them or they follow us and we allow them to impact our belief system, based off a few good tweets they may have.

For example, I am a San Antonio Spurs fan. A lot of twitter followers and people I follow are Spurs fans that I have come across using hashtags or by tweeting about the Spurs. I may have retweeted them or they may have retweeted me. Regardless, our only sense of connection is the Spurs. However, because I follow them, I still have to see all the other garbage that they tweet, and them me.  So without realizing it, I begin to feel a connection with these people, not even knowing who they are and even begin to learn a few things about them. Soon, I may even like a few things that they tweet that are not even related to the Spurs. I allow the social cognitive theory, found in my twitter feed to trickle into my subconscious and affect my belief system.

In conclusion, The Social Cognitive Theory is fully present on twitter. We allow the beliefs and ideas of others to become ours. Twitter is a valuable tool, and a dangerous one. I think that when we initially start a twitter account, we have a belief system in place. But the more we tweet, the more that belief system molds and takes form. Twitter is used to enhance your belief system, because we follow people that we agree with.

However, it is a vicious circle. Not only do we follow people that we agree with, but we follow people we disagree with. Their belief system begins to trickle into our own. We are aiming to stand firm in our beliefs, but the social aspect, the social ideas, and the social interaction of others, begins to mold us.

 The social cognitive theory is ever present on a social network site like twitter. It is because of the opportunity for a voice that we use twitter, but that same opportunity is what influences us. As social media progresses, the voices will get louder. The current generation treats Twitter likes its own newspaper. If it isn’t on twitter, it isn’t news worthy. The future of this voice will become louder and demand more attention, leading to the further development of belief systems. Our belief systems will change, our attitudes will change and twitter change. But the social cognitive theory will continue to be the driving force in our acceptance of reality.

Preacher or Pastor?

            Church. Ministry. Christians. Believers. Saints. Sinners. The Holy Ghost. Jesus. God. Tongues. Worship. Praise. Offerings. Tithes. Forgiveness. Gluttony. Jonah and the Whale. Hebrews. Bathsheba. Angels. Satan. Planes. Suits. Drums.

Blah.

That’s basically what comes to my brain when I think about Christianity for about 20 seconds.  It’s a bunch of random thoughts that are part of the broad system inside of our faith. But inside the larger system, we have all these very narrow subsystems that make the unit as a whole, function. If you analyze one too much, you lose sight of the entire system.

It’s like the Christian-version of Inception, with worse acting (can we please get Leo an Academy Award?).

While this is what came to my mind in the 20 seconds spent thinking about our faith, it doesn’t mean they are the most important. It means that’s what randomly came to my brain. For each person, they will have their own random thoughts about Christianity. As I am looking over my list, I am immediately reminded of all the other parts I missed.

Did I prioritize wrong? Am I more concerned about Tongues than Grace? It didn’t even make it to my random thought list over 20 seconds! What about Gluttony? Why is that on there for Pete’s sake?

The bottom line is, the thoughts just scare me. Like terribly scare me. If I have all these jumbled thoughts and questions and opinions and attitudes and motivating factors regarding these thoughts, how can I properly be a witness for Jesus? How can I answer these kinds of questions with certainty when I have not arrived fully at the answer? How can I expect to witness to a non-Christian when multiple leaders of the faith still have varying opinions about each of them and so much more?

That’s bonkers.

Now please, I know that God has not given us a spirit of fear.  So let me clarify: the fear is a “respectful” fear.

It makes me scared of the ministry because frankly, I don’t want to screw up. God has called us to “go into all the world and preach the gospel (Mark 16:15).” That’s pretty much our fundamental commandment and new reason as to why Christians here. He didn’t say wait until you have all the answers. He didn’t say wait until you have it all figured out. He just said to go. The point is, in short, to tell someone.

But that doesn’t clarify or calm my thoughts about the ministry. Because how in the world can I be expected to preach about all that random stuff? It’s what terrifies me about the ministry.  Preaching is a commandment, but it’s also a huge, HUGE, responsibility.

Because so many people preach like they are pastors, like they have been given the secret special answer to each of these questions. But that’s not what we all were called to do. We weren’t all called to be pastors. We weren’t all called to be evangelists or prophets or apostles or teachers. At the fundamental beginning of our faith, we were all just called to be preachers.

Ephesians 4:11-12 says “Now these are the gifts Christ gave to the church: the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, and the pastors and teachers. Their responsibility is to equip God’s people to do his work and build up the church, the body of Christ.”

It doesn’t say anything about preachers.  Yes all of those gifts require preaching in some form, but that isn’t one of the “gifts” that he has given us because we are already called to be preachers.. The gift to sinners is salvation, which preaching is a part of. Now that we are saved, we have the “gift” of preaching. These “gifts” are for Christians after salvation and are not for everyone. As Christians, we are already commanded to preach, so it’s natural to a believer. It may be raw, but all Christians possess it and can and should use it. Maybe not in the literal way of giving a sermon, but at least in conveying our faith to the world.

My Uncle Garth taught me in Children’s Church growing up that when you start to learn something, you “see what Doctor Webster has to say.” So let’s see what he has to say about pastoring and preaching.

 PASTOR

1 – a spiritual overseer; especially: a clergyman serving a local church or parish

 Now, I wonder what he says about preaching.

 PREACH

intransitive verb

1: to deliver a sermon

2: to urge acceptance or abandonment of an idea or course of action; specifically: to exhort in an officious or tiresome manner

 transitive verb

1: to set forth in a sermon <preach the gospel>

 2: to advocate earnestly <preached revolution>

 3: to deliver (as a sermon) publicly

 Obviously, all of those 5 gifts mentioned above fall into the realm of preaching. But preaching does not fall into the realm of those 5 gifts.

 Preaching is for the sinner. Pastoring is for the saved.

 In other words, our responsibility is to preach. But if we aren’t called to pastor, we shouldn’t pastor. The same with apostling (is that a word? Spell check says no), evangelizing, teaching and propheting (again spell check says no, but you get it).  It doesn’t mean we don’t preach.

 The definition of preaching will attribute to the characteristics of a pastor. But the characteristics of a pastor do not attribute to the traits of a preacher . Why is that? Because pastoring requires us to be “spiritual overseers.” Whoa! Dude, I am glad that’s not a commandment for all Christians, because I am not sure I want that responsibility.

 My concern is that some folks DO want that responsibility. Some people want the responsibility of the spiritual overseer, but are meant just to be preachers. But pastoral leadership is so much more than preaching. You are literally overseeing the lives of your flock. How do you train for that? How do you humbly accept that role, with honest and true humility? It’s not credentials or being ordain. Yes, those things are important, but that isn’t what makes you a pastor.

 A pastor is a heart condition. It requires dealing with people, who constantly are failing you, constantly hurting you, constantly wondering away from the flock. Pastoring is about directing people toward the right answers when they come up with their own thoughts in 20 seconds. It gives, gives, gives with no take. It takes a special person to do all of that, and then, at the end of the month, accepting that church bills come before your salary, all while having joy in your heart because you know it’s what you have been called to do, regardless of the circumstance.

 That is a pastor’s heart.

 And I ain’t got that.

 Preaching requires no “condition” of your heart. That’s why anyone who has said the sinner’s prayer is now, based on God’s commandment, a qualified preacher. Guess what, even if they still have sin in their lives.

 WHAT?!?!?!

  It’s not because you are spiritually superior to everyone else. It’s a basic commandment. Christians are preachers, by default. You may not think you are a preacher, but you are. If you truly love Jesus, you are “delivering a sermon” even if it isn’t verbally.

 You ever been in church when someone other than the pastor is speaking and you find yourself judging them? Maybe you know them or know of them and you find yourself listening to every word they say just so you can find something to disagree with? Perhaps that person is just a preacher and they are trying to pastor. Maybe they are trying to “spiritually oversee” the congregation. But what if you as the listener are not receiving them as a preacher. Are you analyzing them as a pastor?

 Personally, I have an individual who I refer to as my “pastor.” The pastor of my church is a spiritual leader whom I love, respect and receive from. But I have another individual who is my personal pastor. He is an ordained minister, but not the pastor of a church. By definition, he is just a Christian, or as Mark 16:15 says, a preacher, just like me. However, he is my spiritual overseer. He over sees me. I talk with him and seek his counsel. When he does get the chance to preach, he preaches as a pastor should, by advocating earnestly and with love. I was drawn to him the first time I heard him preach.

 But I also have a handful of friends and mentors who I listen to who are great preachers, but I do not view them as pastors. They are not overseers. Some are aware of this and some are not. I saw a lot of this at Bible School. Some preach a good word, but don’t understand the difference of the two roles. So when they preach, they come off as bossy and arrogant. They aren’t pastors yet, but they want to be. So when they preach, they don’t have the pastoral traits.

 It’s like they want to be the overseer without the responsibility. That’s why young preachers struggle when they preach one well-received sermon, but the following sermons are not well-received. They have tried to become overseers. They should continue to just be preachers until the appointed time. Sadly, one of those Bible School students used to be me.

 Now, who am I to tell someone they are not “called to be a pastor.” That isn’t my place any more than it is for me to appoint someone as a pastor. My greatest concern is that I personally do not blur the lines. If when I preach, I come across as bossy, arrogant, or a know-it-all, I am ineffective.  If when I preach, I am not loving people, but I am correcting them, I am ineffective. In order to become a pastor, we must first be effective preachers, because that is our commandment. We must “advocate earnestly” and connect with our audience in love. That will develop a pastor’s heart in us, if that is God’s call for us.

 But as for me, I respect the position of “pastor” too much, that sometimes, it causes me not to preach. And I am wrong, so, so wrong for that. The pastor’s heart is not in me. Yet because my heart is geared towards Jesus, the preacher’s heart is inside of me, whether I know about it or even want it. I am commanded to do it and for me to not do it, based out of fear or “respect,” is disobedience. I don’t need a pulpit. I just need to preach.

 If we try to act like a pastor without the pastor’s heart, we will eventually just be blowing smoke in the wind, ultimately clouding everyone’s eyes and making it hard for people to breathe. Think of a fireman trying to lead a bunch of people out of a burning building. Chaos.

 Since all preachers are not spiritual overseers, they should just be “urging acceptance” and “earnestly advocating” but not as an overseer. But sometimes, the greatest sermon ever preached is the one not spoken. Our walk with Jesus is the greatest sermon. Our audience is everywhere. It needs no pulpit or microphone. The requirement is salvation. And that’s all of us.

 I thank God that’s all it is. I do not know if I am called to be a pastor. I DO know that as of now, I don’t have a pastor’s heart. But I am glad that means I can still preach the gospel. Even if I do receive a pastor’s heart, I pray that I will not take that role until I am called to do so. I want my preaching and pastoring to be separate and the same, with no agenda. I pray that in my preaching, I am not perceived as a know-it-all, who is trying to be an overseer. I pray I remain humble and “advocate earnestly.”

 I pray that I preach just to share the good news, not to enforce it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Spiritual Farming

Tell me if this sounds familiar.

You are a Christian. You have been raised in your faith and have known about it your entire life. You went to church 13 times a week, spent countless summers at Bible Camp and even went to a Christian College. Then for whatever reason, you got sick of “the Bubble.”

You left for a while and enjoyed some sin. You discovered what the world was like on Sunday mornings between 10-12. You learned that one drop of alcohol will not give you a liver disease. You enjoyed having an extra 10 percent of your paycheck in your pocket. You found a life outside of the churchhouse.

Then you wised up and realized that although that was fun for a couple weeks/months/year, you still felt empty because deep down inside, you still held close to your Christian faith. You still believed it and you knew that you were doing wrong. So you have come back to Christ and He has welcomed you with open arms.

But now you face a problem bigger than your secret tobacco addiction, more intimidating than your “spiritual re-virginizing” and scarier than publicly giving your testimony.

You are now associated with His followers.

Now this wouldn’t be so bad normally, but since you have gone out into the world, your view of the world has changed. You have seen the sin of the world first hand. You have experienced it. Tasted it. Rolled around in it, like a pig in the mud.

You have seen addiction first hand. You have seen how lives are secretly destroyed and tormented by the effects of sin. You have made friend with good people, who you know are not “saved” and you just don’t know how to witness to them.

Then to make matters worse, your “brothers and sisters in Christ” have created a model, a stigma, a perception, of what Christians are like. This is your nightmare.

Sound familiar? Ok, good. I am not the only one.

In my world, I work with several unsaved people. The church calls them “sinners” (as if we aren’t all sinners). Let me tell you, Non-Christians know a lot about our faith. They just know the wrong stuff.

On one hand my past mistakes and testimony brings me to a common ground, a place where we can relate. I have experienced many of the same problems that they have had and have committed many of the same sins. They think I am “cool.” They consider me a friend.

Then I tell them I am a Christian and they look at me like I am crazy. The minute my faith is made known, I don’t have to say another word.  Suddenly, I get a life story about how First Church of the Frigidaire said this about their mom when she got divorced and how Pastor Billy Bob takes four offerings per service and has a jet. They talk about how Christians hate gays and how all we do is speak in tongues and flop around on the floor.

Then they put two and two together and realize, I must be like that. These assumptions come out of nowhere and suddenly I am classified as this Christian who has done all these things to them. They use phrases like, “you know how it says in the Bible something like …” or “I pray all the time, every night before I go to bed” or “I just don’t go to church.”

It takes everything within me to not defend my faith, on the spot. It takes all the courage I can muster to not give them the Romans Road to salvation on the spot, hoping to lead them in the Sinner’s Prayer right there in the break room. Instead, I leave them with one statement and one statement only. It’s always the same.

“What you experienced, is not Jesus. I am sorry that my faith has brought you hurt and confusion. Please forgive me and my fellow Christians. I want to be like Jesus, not those people.”

That’s it.

I don’t witness to them.

 I don’t hand them a track.

 I don’t tell them that I will pray for them.

The End.

In 1 Corinthians 3:6-9, Paul is talking about how he planted the seed and how Apollos watered it, but only God made it grow. He says specifically in verse 7, “It’s not important who does the planting and who does the watering. What’s important is that God makes the seed grow.” Whether we are planting or watering, it doesn’t matter, we all have the same purpose. But it is God who makes it all grow.

In John 4:34-38, we learn about “spiritual farming.”  Jesus is clear that some people plant, some harvest. In verse 38, He even says, “I sent you to harvest where you did not plant.” That sounds great! The hard part is done. Or is it?

This is where the perception scares me. So many of my fellow Christians want to be harvesters. No one wants to plant. Planting is hard. The sun is hot. Takes more time. No instant benefit. But everyone wants to harvest. You see the results. Sometimes, God will call us to harvest, immediately, on someone else’s plants. But that doesn’t mean we can never plant and water the seed. It has to grow.

It’s like we have a bunch of farmers (Christians). They are walking in the field (the world). They are looking for plants to harvest (souls to be won). But nothing has been planted. Nothing has been watered. So instead, they are spending all their energy wondering around in the hot sun. But because nothing has been planted, there is nothing to harvest! Even worse, they expect to go to another farmer’s field and harvest his crops!

Or…

They plant their fields and the next day they run back out to the field and try to harvest it. It hasn’t even budded yet and they want to bring in the tractors and get the harvest. It takes time. You plant. You water. God grows it. When it ready, you harvest.

So many times, we as Christians, talk with sinners. We want to plant the seed and immediately harvest it.

Getting back to the scenario, we want to interrupt a sinner who may just have questions about our faith and immediately confront their sin (plant the seed). We want to water it (convince them they are wrong). And then we want them to repent on the spot (harvest time). Sometimes, as Christians, we are all perceived as a bunch of farmers with pitch forks and sickles just trying to harvest others farmers crops.

I can see why we aren’t leading people to Christ.  Because his followers don’t want to plant and water the seed. They just want to harvest

I want to be like Jesus. But being like Jesus means I am more concerned about the growth of the plant than the harvesting of the plant. When it is time to harvest, I will know. But it can never be harvested if it isn’t planted, watered and then grown, by God.

To say a cliché, I want to win souls for the kingdom just as much as the next guy. But if I have to plant and water some seed in order for someone else to reap the harvest, then so be it. I pray that we as Christians all realize that we all have the same purpose. Let’s let God decide when the crops are fully grown.

-Stephen