Me And The Mythbusters

I recently submitted a question to the Freakonomics guys for an interview with the MythBusters.

They picked my question as the first one!

Here’s my question and their answer:

Me: Could you describe the brainstorming process that goes into an episode? How far in advance do you begin planning? Who sits in during those meetings?

ADAM: The usual crowd at a brainstorming session is me, Jamie, Alice Dallow (our producer), and whichever researcher is doing the segment we’re working on — either Dennis Kwon or Eric Haven. We also have an on-the-ground executive producer during an official “story meeting.” We usually have one or maybe two of them before shooting a myth, but discussions about stories can happen all over the place, and at any time.

Often, we’ll ask for certain parameters as far as locations or materials, and as we discover what’s possible or not possible, we’ll hone it down to what we’re actually going to do. The show’s researchers are fantastic about finding the weirdest of things and experts, and Alice is brilliant at keeping us on track. The discussions can be like herding cats — there’s a ribald, funny atmosphere, and we’ll range very far from the topic at hand.

Planning can take anywhere from a month to a day or two, depending on the schedule. We’ve had critical locations fall through at the last minute, and needed to turn 180 degrees on a few hours’ notice. We’ll also flag difficult stories as far in advance as we think necessary. Some things, like getting permission to film at Giants Stadium for the Jimmy Hoffa story, have taken the better part of a year to work out.

Then there’s the discussions that Jamie and I have. We’ll often take a difficult problem home, think about it overnight, and maybe discuss the problems we see in it while driving to a location. We also play devil’s advocate with each other — if one of us has a good idea, the other will poke as many holes in it as possible, and in this way we try our best to shake out any problems before we hit them.

JAMIE: This is, believe it or not, the most fun we have on the show. There is no underestimating the thrill of a big catastrophe or explosion; but if you really want to know what gets us going, it’s the brainstorming. Once a topic has passed muster, some basic research has been done by our research team, and we are down to nutting it out, Adam and I swing into action — sort of. Usually we go home first and think about it overnight, and then come in bursting with ideas. We set up in front of a dry erase board, and lay out any solutions we came up with by ourselves.

Amazingly, as much as we are of different temperaments, we quickly spot the best solutions and chip in to flesh the approach out. It becomes like playing Ping-Pong with ideas. Sometimes it gets so intense that there is no time to complete sentences; it becomes a bunch of gesticulations, some pieces of words or phrases, and then, when we come out on the other end, the approach is fleshed out. We call it the “MythBusters Mindmeld.” To anyone listening, it is gibberish, but it allows us to plow through a huge amount of designing in no time (which is what we have a lot of on the show).

Read the rest of the interview.

Some Thoughts On Servant Leadership

At a Chi Alpha conference in St. Louis I just heard Dick Schroeder use an interesting phrase to compliment someone — “he puts ‘us’ before ‘me’.” Here are some off-the-cuff and unpolished thoughts inspired by that phrase:

“Us before me.” What a beautiful phrase to describe servant leadership.

“Us” puts the leadership into servanthood: “us before me” leads to the overall good of the group whereas “you before me” can lead to the detriment of the group.

To be clear, the Bible does command us to “in humility consider others better than ourselves” (Philippians 2:3). Doesn’t this lead directly to “you before me”?

Yes. It does. But the practical question for me as a leader is how to be self-sacrificial in a way that honors my obligations to those I am serving. And I have learned that there is a healthy way to prioritize others and a destructive way to prioritize others.

To serve as fully as possible there is a certain amount of self-maintenance that must take place. Boundaries must be established and maintained. Recreation and sabbaticals must be incorporated. Growth and learning have to take place.

All of these things are self-serving. They require us to say no to others and yes to ourselves. At times, we wind up saying “me before you today because I want to be able to serve you tomorrow”.

But at the same time, all of these things flow from a mature understanding of “you before me” — putting our followers’ long-term good above their short-term desires. For an organization, a leader who says “us before me” builds strength. A leader who naively/hyperspiritually says “you before me” leads the organization to implosion (and likely to high leadership turnover).

Clearly, there is the potential for “us before me” to become a pretext for putting “me before you.” The antidote is to keep expanding our definition of “us”. Whenever we begin to suspect that our “us” is too comfortable, we need to redefine the group we are serving in a larger way, and continue to put “us before me.”

And so a big thanks to Dick Schroeder for giving me my new favorite phrase: “us before me”. It will probably be my favorite for at least a week. 😉

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Praying The Psalms

One of my habits is to listen to something stimulating while I’m exercising or on a long drive — and this morning I hit a hybrid between a lecture and a sermon which is absolutely fabulous.

It’s about praying the Psalms, and I found it extremely insightful. If you’ve ever wondered why so many of the Psalms are downers, or how we can pray some of the more vengeful Psalms as Christians you need to listen to this. Gordon Wenham

talks about much more than just that, but the listening is worth it just for those nuggets.

And if you desire to create worship songs yourself, this is a must. The Psalms have always been the food of worship writers, and anything that helps you understand them better will help you compose better songs yourself.

http://www.sbts.edu/MP3/spring2006/20060328wenham.mp3

Just download it and burn it to a CD so you can listen to it while driving or throw it in your iPod for when you’re jogging or whatever.

If you decide you want to begin praying the Psalms, you can either pray one a day (which will take you through the Psalter about twice a year) or you can pray 5 a day (which will take you through the Psalter in a month). A slightly different plan that takes into account the length of the Psalms (so that 119 stands alone, for example) is at http://www.bibleplan.org/ps/niv/

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Zeitgeist

A friend of mine asked me to watch the first section of Zeitgeist (a movie you can watch for free on the internet at http://zeitgeistmovie.com/) and give him some perspective on it.

Here goes:

I don’t recall ever having run across so many factual inaccuracies in such a short span of time. I doubt I even caught them all — they were flying fast and furious.

I’ll start with a few that are easy for an untrained layperson to see right away. There’s some other stuff he said that I know is false, but demonstrating it is less easy. It becomes “my expert you’ve never heard of” versus “his expert you’ve never heard of” with me saying “my expert is better than his expert — trust me.” So I’ll keep this list focused on stuff anyone can easily verify on their own.

One easily-checked fact that he builds his argument on is that the Southern Cross is the real inspiration for the cross of Jesus (watch from 17:35 through 19:03). Three problems with this:
a) The Southern Cross is a modern invention — not an ancient constellation. Check http://www.windows.ucar.edu/the_universe/crux.html and http://www.fillingthesky.com/constellationhistory.html
b) The Southern Cross is not visible from where the New Testament was written. In the Northern Hemisphere you have to be below 30 degrees latitude to see it. The New Testament was written from Jerusalem on north.
c) It’s hard to see how a constellation that didn’t exist and couldn’t be seen inspired the story of Jesus when Romans actually killed people on crosses all the time. Is he seriously suggesting that the Romans didn’t actually crucify people?

Missing such a basic fact doesn’t inspire confidence in the more esoteric, less easily-checked facts he uses to make his entire case. There are other easily-checked facts he distorts. Two from the Bible struck me.

In the time range 23:38 — 25:20 the movie claims that Jesus is a personification of the astrological sign of Pisces. Towards the end of this section, the narrator states that Jesus’ disciples asked him when he would celebrate the next passover with them him after he is gone and that Jesus’ answer in Luke 22:10 was code language for Aquarius (the next age of the Zodiac). This is easy enough to check — and it turns out to be a lie. Luke 22:10 is about the passover they are celebrating that night, not the next meal they will share after his resurrection. That isn’t a minor difference — it undermines his entire interpretation.

Another example of his willingness to distort the Bible to make his point occurs around time marker 21:10, when he says that the Bible teaches that Jesus comes from heaven wearing a crown of thorns, which represent the rays of the sun. He quotes John 19:5 to support this point. Look it up. There’s not even a hint of Jesus descending from heaven anywhere in this passage. He’s walking from one place to another — not descending from the clouds as the narrator claims.

These two instances aren’t nitpicking — these are very easily checked statements in the bestselling book of all time which is always available for instant fact-checking on the internet at places such as Bible Gateway. If he didn’t even check these references that key parts of his argument rely on, then how much stock can we place in his references to obscure ancient Egyptian texts that only scholars have ready access to?

He’s evidently received criticism along this line, because he felt compelled to give some documentation for his use of ancient texts at http://www.zeitgeistmovie.com/GMappendix.htm

Just look through it. Pay attention to the stories of Jesus in the right column (you are presumably more familiar with them). I think you’ll be surprised at how flaky that list is.

Bottom line: Zeitgeist is very imaginative, but that’s about it.

UPDATE 2/24/2008: This post is still generating comments. It’s been six months since I wrote this post, and since then a helpful review by Ben Witherington has been posted — The Zeitgeist of the ‘Zeitgeist Movie’. Look to it for a more detailed rebuttal of the movie’s claims.

Congratulations, George O. Wood

While I was busy touring Monterey Bay Aquarium with my family and eating durian, most of the rest of the Assemblies of God was in Indianapolis for our biennial ministerial gathering.

George Wood has been elected General Superintendent of the Assemblies of God. I honestly didn’t think he had a chance — our movement is still pretty anti-intellectual and he has two earned doctorates. In addition, I thought he might be perceived as part of the “old guard” in a time of great change. I’m delighted that I was wrong — he’ll be a great leader. He’s a very flexible thinker and sees both the strengths and weaknesses of our movement pretty clearly.

Alton Garrison was elected the new Assistant General Superintendent (I expected he would take one of the two top spots) — and he’s a very savvy leader. He’s much more well-read and innovative than most people expect an evangelist from Arkansas to be. He’ll be a great voice to have at the table.

John Palmer is the new General Secretary — I had expected him to become the executive director of AG US Missions instead. I’ve never met him, but I’ve heard nothing but good things. Tim and Julie Smith in particular have given me very encouraging reports about him. He seems like a great addition to the team.

Zollie Smith was the most surprising election. He’s my new boss’s boss (director of US Missions, taking the position I expected John Palmer to land), and I’ve been hearing good things about him for years. His election was a milestone for the Assemblies of God — he’s our first non-Caucasian executive officer.

I’m very excited about the leadership team that came out of this General Council. It bodes well for our future as a movement. We picked some extremely competent people.

Oh — and the business sessions were feisty this year. If you’re into that sort of thing, you might want to check them out

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A Missionary As General Superintendent?

The way the Assemblies of God works, our next General Superintendent will almost certainly be or have been the pastor of a megachurch (I add “have been” because district officials come primarily from these ranks).

In fact, some are clamoring for changing our leadership model to require that our General Superindendent be required to serve as pastor while serving as our national leader. There’s merit to the idea, but I’ve always had a notion in the back of my head that I’ve wanted to see tried instead: elect a missionary as General Superintendent.

The Assemblies of God is exploding worldwide, partly due to the leadership of our missionaries. Turning to these proven and capable leaders seems like common sense to me, especially since we are increasingly realizing that America is a mission field just like any other. We need someone who is able to separate the way they want to do things from the way things need to be done — the very essence of an effective missionary.

Why not someone who has led a nation to revival? None of our stateside leaders has that kind of resume, but several of our missionaries have relevant experience.

Why not someone who has proven that they can function with leaders they did not select themselves? This, after all, is a key aspect of the General Superintendent position to which megachurch pastors are unaccustomed.

Why not someone who is accustomed to training and coaching leaders on the ground instead of trying to run the whole show themselves?

The only other candidate I think is as well-suited for the job is a district superintendent who has led his district to health and growth. I expect that Leslie Welk (Northwest) and Don Gifford (Indiana) will both receive nominations on this basis. Jim Braddy (Nor Cal / Nev) might also — but I’m a member of his district and so I don’t have a good sense of how he’s perceived outside our narrow little world.

However, I’m betting that Alton Garrison (former Sup of Arkansas) is ultimately going to get the nod. He’s led a megachurch, led a district, and is providing leadership on the national level as the director of AG US Missions.

So there’s a good chance that we’ll get someone from AGUSM into the top spot — but not because of his connection with missions.

As to the other spots I have no idea. In addition to the nominees I mentioned above, I’m pretty sure John Lindell will get nominated. He may even let his name stand (although I suspect this depends on whether or not he can continue to pastor at James River). Dary Northrop will probably be nominated. Dan Betzer will be nominated. Bret Allen might get nominated but he will decline. I would not be surprised at all if John Palmer gets nominated (especially for the AGUSM leadership role if Alton is elected Gen Sup), but I have no idea if he will accept.

Beyond that, I really don’t know. There are a lot of potential candidates out there, and our desire to avoid the appearance of politics means that we never know for sure who will be nominated and who will allow their names to stand.

Speaking of avoiding the appearance of politics — the only way to really avoid politics is to select our leaders randomly. Any solution involving voting is extremely political and the only question is whether or not those politics will be public. In our movement we’ve decided that hidden politics are preferable to transparent ones, and more and more of us are unhappy with the result.

However it shakes out, the Assemblies is in for a wild ride at General Council this year. Too bad I’m going to miss it…

Electing A New General Superintendent

A friend of mine (Jay Newland) just sent me a fascinating site talking about the future of the Assemblies of God: Future AG.

Sites like these are controversial in our movement because we wish to avoid the appearance of politics — it seems too tawdry for us. But our goal is not to be non-political (as though that were possible), but to be wise in our selection process. Conversations such as those at Future AG can help us make wiser choices, and are therefore a good thing.

One post was extremely helpful to me, and so I share it in the hope it will be helpful to others as well.

Here is how it will work. When we arrive we will be asked to nominate someone for the position of general superintendent followed by the assistant general superintendent, general secretary, AG World Missions executive director and members of the Executive Presbytery. Any ordained minister can be nominated.

In the past this has been done by writing someone’s name down on a piece of paper, however, voting this year will be conducted electronically. This should speed up business considerably. For example, following an election results should be available in 10 minutes rather than the hour or more it has taken in the past.

With these changes, it is important that you register early. Go to www.ag.org and you can register online before August 3rd. If you miss that date make sure to register immediately upon arrival.

Voting will require: Registration, Voter ID Badge, Voter Guidebook

Voting delegates will receive a voting number on the back of their registration cards, which will give them access to the voting machine.

If one nominee receives two-thirds of the ballots cast by the delegates at the general council, a winner will be declared. That is what happened in 2001 and 2005 when Trask was re-elected.

If no one receives the two-thirds majority, the voting is limited to the top 15 vote-getters.

If that doesn’t produce a winner, the field is cut to the top three.

You might also wish to check out http://www.agleadershipchange.blogspot.com/

Information Overload?

Every so often I’ll hear someone mention in passing that we are overloaded with information compared to our ancestors. I’m sure that’s true if you measure “information” in a very specific way, but I’m not sure it’s as true as people think it is.

Augustine, the 4th century bishop, left behind over 5,000,000 words in writing.

That’s 5 million words.

Many novels have 50,000 (the range varies depending on the genre).

He left behind the equivalent of 100 novels. And he’s just one author.

For the educated elite, the ancient world was rife with information. And, by and large, the stuff they read was more important than the “information” we’re so proud of. Most of what we devote our brainpower to processing is from newspapers, magazines, and television… the knowledge equivalent of empty calories.

For all the “information” we each have at our beck and call, not many of us could muster up 5 million words.

And since our point in saying that we’re so overloaded compared to the ancients is that we’ve got so much more stuff to process than they did, maybe we shouldn’t be so smug. After all — we don’t really process the “information” that bombards us. We rush through it and promptly forget as much as possible to get ready for the next deluge.

The ancients were reading and rereading and rerereading substantive works and actually understanding them. And so Augustine was able to write 5,000,000 words that people still mull over today.

We have no idea what information overload feels like. If we canceled our newspaper subscriptions, threw away all our magazines, and replaced all that reading time with rereading a handful of solid books until we understood them thoroughly, then we’d have some inkling of what true information overload is.

And since we’ve got so many years of insights beyond Augustine to avail ourselves of, and the modern peer-reviewed system of journals to draw from, we’d be very justified in saying that we wrestle with information in a way that the ancients never did.

But not now.