The Sixth Sense

Author Interview: Eric Bryant

Following on from yesterday’s introduction, here is the short interview I did with Eric Bryant recently.

* * * * *

Thanks Eric for agreeing to be interviewed for The Sixth Sense. Why don’t you start by telling us a bit more about who you are and what you do?

I live in Los Angeles with my wife Debbie and two children (Caleb and Trevi).  I serve at Mosaic, a diverse and creative community of people who believe we can change the world.  :)

Your latest book is called ‘Peppermint Filled Pinatas: Breaking Through Tolerance and Embracing Love’ (published by Zondervan). Tell us a bit about what the book is about and why you wrote it.

I wrote a book to Christians about learning to embrace the people Christians “love to hate.”  In essence, my goal was to help people discover they can actually develop meaningful and beautiful friendships with people who look, act, and even believe differently.

Is there a specific group of people you’’d really like to see having a copy of this book in their hands? 

Anyone who wants to create a more diverse, missional, and loving world.  Tolerance and Racial Reconciliation aren’t good enough.  We need to create a reconciled and diverse community!

Why should anyone part with their hard earned cash and precious time to read your book? Sell it to us! 

You really want to help me sell this, huh?!  I have received lots of feedback from people saying they see the world differently after reading my book and laughed while reading it.  Erwin McManus, our lead pastor at Mosaic, wrote the Foreword in which he compared my book to a combination of “Saving Private Ryan” meets “Nacho Libre.”

What books/magazines/websites are you reading at the moment and, more specifically, what would you recommend?

Besides The Sixth Sense?  :)  I have really enjoyed Core Magazine there in the UK plus Outreach Magazine here in the U.S. in terms of magazines.  In terms of books, I am enjoying Dust Off Their Feet by Chris Seay plus The Black Swan and MicroTrends.  In terms of websites, we work hard to have a great deal of valuable free content up at www.mosaicalliance.com and www.ericbryant.org as well.

Thanks again for your time, Eric. We really appreciate you taking the time to answer our questions.

* * * * *

If you are based in the UK you can buy the book here. If you’re from the US you can get your hands on it here.

Any thoughts, comments, or questions?

Tags: Author Interviews, Authors, Books, Culture

Interesting Links

• Automatic cars ’slash journey times’
• In US election, every (written) word counts
• 12 Traits of Successful Bloggers
• The card that lets you choose death

Tags: Interesting Links, Random Sites I Visit

Presidential math(s)

Despite the fact that my voice has such global influence, I am not in the business of endorsing US Presidential candidates. (Sorry Hillary, Barack, John.)

That said, those of you who follow The Sixth Sense will no doubt have detected a definite slant towards Obama in the fight for the Democratic nomination.

The last few days have uncovered another reason why I have this slant: Hillary is terrible at math(s).

For some bizarre reason she thinks she has a larger share of the popular vote than Obama. (Details here). Sadly - for her - no one else agrees. Or, to put it another way, everyone else knows how to actually add up.

This is SERIOUS manipulation of numbers that seems to be either absolute desperation or downright dirty. Or possibly a combination of both.

Whatever the case, these are not the kind of qualities I’d be looking for in a potential President of the United States of America.

What about you?

UPDATE:

• There’s a good, semi-related piece by Michael Tomasky in today’s Guardian. Check it out.
• Also, Clinton is getting into more and more debt. $31 million to be precise. Details here.

Tags: Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Politics, US Elections

Interesting Links

At least once per week I plan on having a post that includes a selection of interesting links. I’ll be asking different people to sometimes contribute to this selection. The selections this time though are my own.

Why homophobia is so gay - Blog post by Eric Bryant

Hypocrisy on Hamas - Washington Post article by James P. Rubin

The curse of the talisman - Article in the London Times by Simon Barnes

That’s not all folks - Blog post by Johnny Dee from the Guardian Film Blog

Churchgoing isn’t always religious - article in the London Times by Camilla Cavendish

What do you think?

If you haven’t already, please reply to the ‘Who Are You?’ post. Thanks!

Tags: Interesting Links, Random Sites I Visit

A new kind of model

Following on from yesterday’s post about a new kind of leadership, in the same article I referred to, there was another fascinating comment by Peter Leyden of the New Politics Institute. Here’s what he had to say:

“What’s amazing is that Hillary (Clinton) built the best campaign that has ever been done in Democratic politics on the old model—she raised more money than anyone before her, she locked down all the party stalwarts, she assembled an all-star team of consultants, and she really mastered this top-down, command-and-control type of outfit. And yet, she’s getting beaten by this political start-up (Barack Obama campaign) that is essentially a totally different model of the new politics.” (Emphasis mine)

My interest in sharing this is not as a political statement. I do think though that there are parallels for those of us who are involved in organisations, businesses, churches, etc. One of the biggest challenges is making sure we don’t become slaves to any one model. Because the world around us is constantly changing we too need to have models that are flexible enough to adapt.

Something we all need to think about is whether we see the world around us through the models we use or whether we see the world around us and then choose models to serve the world as it is.

As well as this, another thing we can draw out from the differences between the Clinton and Obama campaigns is that Clinton was institution based whereas Obama was people based. And the reality is that people’s trust of institution is in rapid decline (particularly amongst the younger generations).

Whatever our organisation, do we want it to be an institutional hierarchy or a people based movement?

What do you think?

If you haven’t already, please reply to the ‘Who Are You?’ post. Thanks!

Tags: Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Leadership, Models, Politics

A new kind of leadership

I just came across this from Barack Obama’s new-media director Joe Rospars. He was talking about how the Obama camp has been able to build such a successful grassroots campaign, particularly in relation to raising funds.

“We’ve tried to bring two principles to this campaign, one is lowering the barriers to entry and making it as easy as possible for folks who come to our Web site. The other is raising the expectation of what it means to be a supporter. It’s not enough to have a bumper sticker. We want you to give five dollars, make some calls, host an event. If you look at the messages we send to people over time, there’s a presumption that they will organize.” (Emphasis mine)

Read the full article here.

This really resonated with me because it captured precisely some of what we’ve been trying to do with pioneering Mosaic here in Sheffield. 

Mosaic is a movement of dreamers and visionaries who are working together to try and create a world that works for everyone. At the heart of this movement, is a community of followers of Jesus Christ.

And, as a community, two of our expressed goals have been to:

• Lower the bar on what it means to be and do ‘church’
• Raise the bar on what it means to be a follower of Christ

People have had enough of being spectators. They want to be involved. For too long leadership has been about doing it yourself. Leadership should be about equipping and empowering others to be involved and engaged.

This is why Obama is on the brink of winning the Democratic nomination when he should never have been in with a shout. And this is the direction leaders of any kind of community need to go if they’re not going to get left behind in this new 21st century world.

What do you think?

Don’t forget to reply to the ‘Who Are You?’ post. Thanks!

Tags: Barack Obama, Church, Leadership, Mosaic, Politics

John Edwards (finally) endorses Obama

He’s taken his time deciding (and he still may not be in agreement with his wife) but John Edwards has come out to give his support to Barack Obama. After a bit of bad press following the thumping in West Virginia, this was good timing!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OShT_QK5WTI]

You can read more of the story here.

Don’t forget to reply to the ‘Who Are You?’ post. Thanks!

Tags: Barack Obama, John Edwards, Politics, US Elections

Hillary wins but it is irrelevant

All week the US news sites were saying that Hillary Clinton was out of the Democrat nominee race.

Not only that, they were saying this whilst at the same time acknowledging that she will win BIG in West Virginia.

And then, when she does win big (like they said she would), the news sites are suddenly asking whether this now changes things.

This was always going to be a win for Clinton. We knew all week she would win big. Everyone said all week that her winning big was pretty much irrelevant. And then, when the big win happens, suddenly it’s relevant?!

Oh come on! Stop playing games. Anyone with half a brain knows this is all over. Stop selling news and start reporting.

Here’s the reality as I see it. Obama has:

• More popular vote
• More states won
• More pledged delegates
• More super delegates

In light of that, with 5 states left to vote, how is anything going to change? Are the super delegates really going to go against Obama now? Of course not. Why? Because, at this stage, to hand Clinton the nomination is to hand the Republicans the White House come November.

All that to say last night made NO difference to the nomination so stop trying to pretend otherwise news you US news agencies!

What do you think?

Don’t forget to reply to the ‘Who Are You?’ post. Thanks!

Tags: Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Politics, US Elections

Gordon Brown doomed?

Following on from my recent comments about Gordon Brown being promoted to the level of his incompetence as the British Prime Minister, it seems that I’m not alone. Here’s a segment from The Observer today:

According to a survey published in The Observer today, only one in five voters now thinks Brown is doing a good job as Prime Minister. He is rated worse than Cameron on every key leadership quality, including competence, decisiveness, fairness, likeability, trustworthiness and strength.

A unique opinion tracker using a panel of 5,000 voters, much larger than conventional opinion polls, reveals that fewer than a quarter of voters now think he is the best person to be in Number 10. As many as 43 per cent choose Cameron as best Prime Minister against just 23 per cent selecting Brown. (Read the full article here.)

What do you think?

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Tags: Conservatives, David Cameron, Gordon Brown, Labour, Politics

The Problem with Ladders

What is it with ladders? And why are our lives so shaped and controlled by them?

Here’s two for starters:

• The property ladder
• The career ladder

As a recent first time buyer my wife and I have now finally got our feet onto the first rung of the property ladder. And that’s important right? Why? Because we are now in a much better position to keep moving up that ladder (of course).

But is that what life is about? Constantly getting onto the next rung? We’re never satisfied with where we are. We always need to keep taking steps up. Bigger house. Better car. Higher paid job.

Clearly these ambitions aren’t all bad necessarily. But doesn’t it promote perpetual dissatisfaction? We’re never content with where we are because there’s always another rung we could move up on ‘the ladder’.

Here’s the problem I see. We all get caught up climbing the various life ladders which our culture says we must climb. But we keep climbing until it hurts us. We end up buying a house that we really can’t afford. Or we take that job which, though will bring in more money, is pretty much selling our soul.

This, incidentally, ties in with what is known as the ‘Peter Principle’. A guy called Lawrence Peter said that “In a Hierarchy Every Employee Tends to Rise to His Level of Incompetence”. That’s another way of saying that the career ladder ends up biting us back.

Gordon Brown is a good example of this. He was brilliantly wired to be Chancellor but, as the ladder tells us, we must all aim for the top of the ladder. (What’s the point of being on a ladder if the goal isn’t to keep climbing to the top?) So, Gordon, though having the skills and talents to be Chancellor got sucked into thinking he should be Prime Minister. And the ladder is biting back. He doesn’t have what it takes. He has reached a rung on the ladder that is his level of incompetence.

What about us though? Do we want to be caught up in a life that is all about ladders? Is there another way?