It seemed like it was going to be a good experience, everything seemed to move super fast and efficient at first. I had a few X-Rays and a CT scan as well as all the other normal tests they do on you. But they really couldn’t identify why my fever was still so high. My temperature was helped greatly by some IV they gave me, but when I was just sitting in the bed, waiting, having finished the IV my fever went back up, higher than it was when I came in. And then they got slow. No new IV. No doctors or nurses. No word of why I was sick, just waiting, trying to drown out the sound of Rachael’s own frustration for what seemed like forever. All in all we where there about 6 hours, and did not yet have a reason why I was sick, just some prescriptions to take and hopefully I would get better. We finally got a call on Thursday from the hospital telling us that I had pneumonia which somehow was related, or not, to the heat stroke that I had experienced on Saturday.

The rest of the week I was just out. I couldn’t do anything. Not work, not play, no eating or drinking. It seemed like everything made me miserable. But the drugs did start to help. And I was able to drag myself out of bed and get into the car (for the first time since Tuesday) to go to church on Sunday. I didn’t help with set up or tear down as I usually do because I knew that doing something like that as I was just starting to heal would put me back down. I need to take it slow.

So, I’m back at work, before I should be (I am still very week) and trying to take life as slow as I can so that I can heal. And I promise to get back to posting more regularly. Oh, and by the way I think I’ve learned a huge lesson by all of this as to how to take care of my body in the extreme heat. And I just might have had my last energy drink.

Please pray for me.

Anyway, the conference on a whole has been a good experience if for no other reason than to see what some of the great leaders of our day think is important when it comes to leadership. One of the things that was tough for me to understand on the first day of the conference was that the conference was simply a leadership conference, not a “Christian leadership conference.” I think I was getting a bit of a mixed message about the purpose of the event as it was hosted by a church, in churches, had times of worship, prayers to Jesus, and most of the other indicators that it was a Christian event. But, there was very little mention of Jesus or the Holy Spirit being the most important ingredient in leadership, Christian or otherwise. Believe it or not, there was a day in our country’s history that almost all good leaders, leading Christian institutions or otherwise found Jesus to be the most important influence in their own lives and a model by which to lead others. That day seems to have gone away as most people in the non-Christian world view Jesus, and faith in Him, to be a crutch.

That aside, thursday’s sessions brought a mixed bag for me. The first session was taught by Bill Hybels, pastor of the Willow Creek church that hosted the event, who spent most of his time talking about the importance of having a vision for the future of your church or organization and how you develop and communicate that mission. This was a pretty good session as it taught some basic principals of getting you team or congregation to work in concert with you (or you with them) toward a common goal. There are two points that impressed themselves on me more than the rest.

• People don’t always have to get their way, but they do have to have their way considered.
  This is a great point as it echoes what I know to be true in my own life. I know that when I have an idea, I want the respect of others to consider it, not dismiss it and make me feel like my opinion doesn’t matter. The same goes for all people. People might not have the best ideas in the world, but the fact that they are trying to participate in the formulation of a vision means that they care for the mission and that as leaders we should not just treat them like we value their opinion, but really do value them and their input.
• Nothing matters more than the ownership of the vision.
  You can’t get people to go willingly (or at least enthusiastically) down a road toward a vision that could require compromise and sacrifice that they don’t care about. People must all share a healthy dose of passion for the mission, and that means that as a leader you must be passionate about your vision and not just live it privately, but to the inclusion of everyone around you, so that they might be just as passionate and willing to compromise or sacrifice for a vision that they now feel like they own.

The next session was a an interview with the ex-CEO of HP, Carly Fiorina. This one had some good points, but more than anything it was a good story about her rise and fall as one of the most successful women business. I think this one was, more than anything, a session for the women in attendance.

The third session was the one that confused me the most. It was hosted by the Rev Flake from a large church in Queens. He spoke pretty exclusively about community development, and the part that got me a little confused was that he seemed to measure his success as a pastor on how well he improved the value pf the community around his church. And although I agree that fixing poverty is an important thing to engage in as a church, I would argue that the more important thing that people need is Jesus. If a church decides to do any service in the community (which it should) it should be not only with the intent to raise the value of the community, but to seek opportunities to tell them about Jesus.

I might be a bit right of center on this (unapoageticly), but I believe that the main need of every soul, both rich and poor is the creator of the universe. Sometimes I get a little worried that the church, as a whole, sees fixing poverty and sickness as a fulfillment of the great commission. I feel like we, as a global church, are catching on to compassion, but are leaving it there walking away feeling good about ourselves because we have done something. It is almost as if the church feels like it is easier to quantify the change in a community (house values, literacy, infant mortality rates), than it is to measure the change in a soul, and because of that we feel like that’s where we should spend our time. Visible results. I would argue that if we really did have compassion and love for the poor and sick that we would share with them the only thing that can save their souls from hell. Yes, a bowl of soup, or a regiment of medicine is important to sustain the lives of people in a lowly position, but more important than that is that the God of the universe loves them. Yes, give them soup, but show them Jesus, and not just in an abstract “they will see Jesus in my kindness” kind of way, tell them about Him. Wouldn’t it be the worst tragedy of all to feed and clothe billions of people in the name of Jesus and never speak his name or share what He did only to fill stomaches and leave souls starving?

Anyway, the last session that we had on day one was pretty good as well. He was more of an inspirational speaker than anything else, but he did a good job; I felt inspired. His name was Marcus Buckingham, and he taught that we ought to identify ourselves and others by their strengths, not their weaknesses, and to continue to build on our strengths with more fervor than we try to build on our weaknesses.

Well, I guess the last one isn’t their fault really, but those others are. I used to be healthy all of the time, never getting colds or really anything throughout the year, but not anymore. Since Rachael has been attending daycare it seems that my body has become a place for diseases to come and hang out for a while, and it seems that every couple of months Rachael and I come down with some illness that makes life miserable for a couple of weeks. Somehow though, Alina manages to avoid most of these sick times, which is good, because we would all be a hungry pathetic mess for those couple of weeks. But, she caught this one. For some reason Alina always gets and then passes on (thanks for sharing) here pink eye, or eyes. And thanks to her generosity, I have it again. So for the second time in the last 3 months (and the second time in my life) I have pink eyes.

I feel like all day long as people see me they are thinking that I am just another stoner who is looking for another hit. It’s not true. Unless of course you catch me going back again and again for eye drops. I know it’s pathetic, but at the moment I have three different kinds of eye drops in my pocket for an immediate fix. But I’m not like those other guys with blood shot eyes, because I promise, I can quit at any time. So anyway, if you see me, feel free to point and laugh, but please don’t give me that “that poor guy needs freedom from his habit, he needs Jesus” look, it’s starting to drive me crazy. So, no, I’m not high, it’s just pink eye. (Wow, look at that: a bit of poetic mastery.)

Oh yeah, and be grateful that I didn’t put a picture of my pink eyes up here for you.