It is amazing what elicits a response. Maybe it is a smell that creates some Pavlovian drool. My wife wears this lotion sometimes called warm vanilla sugar. Once I was on an air plane and the lady beside me had some on. She probably thought I was a nut because that created a funny look. I can be changing channels and see a movie and it reminds me of where, when and who I originally saw that movie. Maybe it’s a taste that brings back some haunting memory. You have to love that new car smell. Whatever the catalyst, certain things can jog the memory.
Let me take you back about 27 years. It was Sunday night and a “teen night at this bar” which meant it was for 18 and under. Large crowds of teenagers would converge on this place. Of course I would hang around about 7 or 8 other guys, sitting in the corner and daring each other to talk to a girl. And there was this girl. She was gorgeous. She was also a year older than me. And she was a cheer leader at the rival high school. I can’t remember how, but somehow we knew each other.
But she was the girl that everybody loved from afar. Remember the show The Wonder Years? Well some episodes were taken directly from my life. So if I was Kevin Arnold, this girl was definitely my Winnie Cooper. Her name was Sadie DePolo. What a name. Has some kind of magical syntax to it. Say it while you read it. Sadie DePolo. See what I mean.
Any way, one Sunday night the planets must have been aligned in the correct order or God was having some fun but somehow I ended up dancing with Sadie. Now it was a fast song because she never danced slow with anyone. I don’t know the song but it was probably Rick James or the Gap Band.
After the song ended I said thanks and I turned to walk off the dance floor. And then she said those magical seven words. “Where are you going? Dance with me.” I don’t think I spoke. I am not sure I was breathing, because it was a slow song. Sadie DePolo wanted to dance with me to a slow song. The entire world stopped spinning for 3:55 seconds. My friends stood in the corner with this wide eyed, mouth opened gawk. I know I didn’t touch the floor.
For Sadie it was probably just a moment of weakness. Maybe her friends dared her to do it. But for me, every time I hear that song I think of those 3:55 seconds where I was the coolest guy on the planet and was dancing with the most beautiful girl in the world. Can you guess the name of the song? Don’t laugh! Lionel Ritchie and Diana Ross’ Endless Love!
January 21, 2008
December 23, 2007
Be A Hero to a Teen
Work with Teens is one of the 4 key priorities for our YMCA. In our plan we want to do monumental and transformational work with our young people. So we need heroes to step forward. As I thought about heroes I came across a definition of hero from Andy Stanley, pastor at North Point Community Church in Atlanta. Stanley says, “a hero is someone who has clarity in a situation. They eliminate the fog. And then they have the irresistible urge to act on that clarity.”
I love the word irresistible. CLARITY – IRRESISTAVBLE URGE TO ACT!
A few summers back I pulled together a group of teens for lunch and we had a focus group on what teens need and want and also discussed the future of the Y. I needed this information as our Y develops a long-range plan. Toward the end of the meeting this young girl asked what my vision was.
I talked about teen only facilities where they could come and hang out with friends and be safe. Where we would have exercise equipment that would be high tech and would encourage them to exercise. I talked about mentors and programs that would teach teens life skills and develop positive assets and build self-esteem.
The teens asked when I thought this would happen. I told them it would be part of our long-range plan so probably in the next 3 or 4 years.
This young girl looked up at me with her big brown eyes and said, Mr. Corder, “I don’t have 3 or 4 years.”
This girl was right; she doesn’t have 3 or 4 years. Many of our teens live in neighborhoods where it’s just common to drop out of high school and have babies at 16. Their lives become more like prisons rather than places where dreams take root. They live in poverty and their neighborhoods are dead or are dying – their hope is dying. Something is wrong with this picture, and these kids need heroes.
We need to have the ability to create first class programs and facilities to these kids. We don’t have three or four years. But we do have our hearts, our minds and our hands..and if we work together we can change the world.
Can you see the clarity? Can you feel this irresistible urge to act?
Go be a hero!
I love the word irresistible. CLARITY – IRRESISTAVBLE URGE TO ACT!
A few summers back I pulled together a group of teens for lunch and we had a focus group on what teens need and want and also discussed the future of the Y. I needed this information as our Y develops a long-range plan. Toward the end of the meeting this young girl asked what my vision was.
I talked about teen only facilities where they could come and hang out with friends and be safe. Where we would have exercise equipment that would be high tech and would encourage them to exercise. I talked about mentors and programs that would teach teens life skills and develop positive assets and build self-esteem.
The teens asked when I thought this would happen. I told them it would be part of our long-range plan so probably in the next 3 or 4 years.
This young girl looked up at me with her big brown eyes and said, Mr. Corder, “I don’t have 3 or 4 years.”
This girl was right; she doesn’t have 3 or 4 years. Many of our teens live in neighborhoods where it’s just common to drop out of high school and have babies at 16. Their lives become more like prisons rather than places where dreams take root. They live in poverty and their neighborhoods are dead or are dying – their hope is dying. Something is wrong with this picture, and these kids need heroes.
We need to have the ability to create first class programs and facilities to these kids. We don’t have three or four years. But we do have our hearts, our minds and our hands..and if we work together we can change the world.
Can you see the clarity? Can you feel this irresistible urge to act?
Go be a hero!
November 30, 2007
Office Food
Food around the Y is a major commodity. The other day I had a few sandwiches leftover from a meeting and I put them in the fridge. 20 minutes later when I went to get one, they were gone. I wish I had a camera to see who steals food.
At this time of year friends of the Y always bring food to us. When I take it the office to share, all of a sudden everyone has business near the copy machine. Some people I haven’t seen in 14 or 15 months, but as soon as we display some banana bread they visit the shredder.
Sometimes I will get something really good and I have to debate, “Do I take this to the office and share, or do I put this in my drawer and keep for myself.” Don’t laugh at me if you visit my office and you find Alan and me with white powdered sugar on our face!
My Christmas resolution this year is to share the cookies! In fact, I want just take them to the copy room, but I will walk them around the building and give to the staff who never get cookies. I’ll give them to the members so they’ll take a few more laps around the treadmill!
On second thought, I’ll share the popcorn, but Alan and I may just have to keep a special guard over the cookies.
Make sure if you bring me something, put my name on it and seal it up tight. If not, it will be gone by the time I see the crumbs in the bottom of the tin!
At this time of year friends of the Y always bring food to us. When I take it the office to share, all of a sudden everyone has business near the copy machine. Some people I haven’t seen in 14 or 15 months, but as soon as we display some banana bread they visit the shredder.
Sometimes I will get something really good and I have to debate, “Do I take this to the office and share, or do I put this in my drawer and keep for myself.” Don’t laugh at me if you visit my office and you find Alan and me with white powdered sugar on our face!
My Christmas resolution this year is to share the cookies! In fact, I want just take them to the copy room, but I will walk them around the building and give to the staff who never get cookies. I’ll give them to the members so they’ll take a few more laps around the treadmill!
On second thought, I’ll share the popcorn, but Alan and I may just have to keep a special guard over the cookies.
Make sure if you bring me something, put my name on it and seal it up tight. If not, it will be gone by the time I see the crumbs in the bottom of the tin!
October 29, 2007
A Word to Y Staff
Based on a sermon by Nancy Ortberg
This is about the wonder and the gift of work, and a reminder that when we were kids, and someone asked us, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” we had a magical response for them.
I want to share with you about the possibilities and the gift of work, whether your work is doing the payroll, or whether your work is scheduling life guards. Work is about the creation of value. And no matter what your job is, you have an opportunity to live that out every day. Work gives you an opportunity to make a meaningful and significant contribution to the world. Work gives you an opportunity to live out what it means when Jesus says, “You are salt, and you are light.”
I love when our Y is in a groove, like when we are away at a retreat. We not only accomplish great things, but we become better people in the process, and I believe that is the kind of release that is available in our work.
It is a shame that many people go to work every day where there is no direct correlation between what they do and any meaning or sense of significance. There is no creation of value. For those of us who are Christ-followers, I believe it is incumbent upon us to create YMCAs and departments and work environments where there is what Ortberg refers to as “The Nobility of Service”—the reminder to people that whatever it is that you do, it is a noble thing to serve.
It is the nature of God to serve. We forget sometimes in our jockeying for positions in the politics at work that it is a noble thing to be a servant.
Early on in my career I watched Harry Brace, the late CEO of the Charlotte YMCA. Even though he was from this huge YMCA you never got the sense from him that what you did was any less important than what he did.
Oftentimes, after our YMCA made headlines, he would call me and congratulate me. Sometimes, he would run into somebody from Shelby and he would write me and thank me for doing my job and starting this Y. I saw him talk to Charlotte program directors and thank them by name for doing a job well done. I heard about him picking up the phone and calling a branch staffer and thank her personally for being a part of the team that made a difference in somebody’s life. I bet he knew the names of everybody in the housekeeping department, all those who would come in late at night to clean up and get the facility ready for the next day.
One of the things that I saw Harry do repeatedly—I never saw any other CEO do this—was to visit his people and tell them specifically that how they were doing their job had made his job easier. He would thank them for serving. He had a very quiet way of living among us and reinforcing the nobility of what it meant to serve. He had a great impact on me as I started off in my leadership role.
It doesn’t matter what you do if it’s true that God sees work as the creation of value. Then everything you do matters, whether you go back to work next week and create sports schedules, or manage aerobic instructors, or organize after school, or lead volunteers, or take care of preschoolers. When you serve, you are most accurately reflecting the character and the nature of God. What an amazing transformation would happen in our places of work if those of us went to work today with that first and foremost in our minds.
One of the great days for me in mt career was reading a letter from a woman who a year before was so heavy that she had to be wheeled into the Y in a wheel chair. Her husband would help her change and then wheel her to the lift so she could get in the pool. Today she can walk in and change and get in the pool unassisted more than 100 pounds lighter. And she attributed it to Pat Darty calling her name and encouraging her every time she came to the Y. WOW, just because Pat knew her name.
As leaders, we can go about getting change out of people by doing the typical external motivational things or we can start to tap into the deeper issues of meaning and significance and the nobility of serving other people. I believe it becomes sort of a perpetual motion machine, a ripple or a pay it forward. Because eventually that is what motivates people to want to serve. It sure changed the life of Pat’s friend.
There is nobility in serving that we sometimes lose sight of that adds meaning and significance to work. Part of what happens to us that hurts a servant mentality is we get our scales out, and we start weighing people according to their job titles in a way that compares them and dismisses them. On the heavier side we will put Exempt staff, or a CEO, or an Executive or an Associate Exec. Those people might be more important and have more meaningful work.
Then in our minds, the lighter side of the scale gets filled with other management or serving positions of administrative assistant and receptionist and people behind the scenes. When we do this in our minds and in our behavior, we are operating out of a false economy. We are valuing things very differently than God values them. We would be wise to remember that the person at the front desk, or the person that drives a bus, and the person that runs the Y are all part of meaningful work and part of the nobility of what it means to serve.
The second phrase that Ortberg uses is meaningful work. We should understand what it means to bring meaningful work back into the workplace is to provide the context and the vision, to remind people of the role they play in the overall big picture of what the organization is trying to accomplish.
Another letter I received a few years back was from a woman who noted that she had not spoken to her neighbor in several years. It had been so long that she barely remembered why their friendship had ended. At the start of her aerobic class one day, the instructor had a read a simple bible verse that talked about forgiveness. And she thought about her young son who was criticizing the neighbors at breakfast that morning. She knew that it was her hatred that was poisoning his mind. She left the class and went home and apologized to her neighbor. They are back as best friends and all because of a simple bible verse.
When I think of that story I think about what great leadership is — it is when we remind our people that they don’t just fill slots, but they do work for a greater purpose. We need to be reminded of the incredible responsibility we have, because leaders shape lives. We are stewards of that kind of change.
Our team needs to take very seriously the responsibility that we hold in our hand from a position of prestige and privilege that we can use to learn to serve. When we do that as Christ-followers, we remind ourselves of what Paul says:
You do not work for other people. Whatever you do in your job, do it with all of your heart, because God gave you this work to do. It is God that you work for in an audience of one. (Colossians 3:23-24)
The last thing Ortberg stressed is about the idea of relationships at work. How many people come to work and nobody knows their story or much about them? They’re just viewed as cogs in a wheel in sort of an invisible way. As Christ-followers, one of the ways that we can create value in our workplaces and build relationships as a primary way out of which we lead is to provide a place where people can be known.
The other day I had an appointment in Rutherford County and I found myself near one of our after school sites. I quickly called our director to get the names of the staff working. Instantly I could see how important it made them feel when I called them by name. On a fluke of an idea, I had made two employees feel valued. Just knowing the names of our staff may seem insignificant yet in reality that small gesture can be monumental!
Another phrase Ortberg uses that will help us figure out how to do this relational piece is the “dignity of people.”
One of my most embarrassing days was while sitting at my desk, pounding on my computer, preparing for an appointment, I heard a staff person come into my office. As they asked for a second I stuck my hand in the air while I finished my thought. They said they would come back later. In that one sentence I could hear the pain and anguish in their voice. As I chased them down the hall and begged for them to come back. As I begged for her to give me another chance. As I begged for them to forgive me. Eventually I heard a story filled with pain and heart ache. And I heard this unbelievable desire to be listened to and valued.
We need to remind ourselves that everybody is made in the image of God. That automatically bestows on each person great dignity that you and I sometimes miss. As Christ-followers, we must move towards people whom we work with recognizing that they have great dignity as human beings.
Every one of us who is a Christ-follower is called to take seriously our responsibilities of creating meaning and significance for ourselves and for other people when we go to work.
A few years ago, we had a slogan; there were signs in the lobby that said simply, Dreams Begin Here.
There is only so much we can do in here to be “salt and light.” You are already sitting next to little pieces of salt and light. We come together for a very important purpose. We come together corporately at retreats and meetings to do what we can’t do apart: to see each other, to feel community in the room, to be together. But when we leave, I think that that is really when dreams begin—when we move out into our jobs and communities and ask God to go with us in the creation of value.
So when you go to work this morning and whatever it is you go to do—whether it’s today or tomorrow, when you go to work—whether you work at Dover or at GWU, whether you work at the corporate office or the Girls Club, whether you’re at the Ruby Hunt YMCA or at Kings Mountain, —wherever you go to work, if what God says about the creation of value is true, work is a gift. You can show up at work with a completely different attitude, convinced that over time you will convince other people of the meaning and significance that sits inside the role that they do, and you will become sure of the great relational connectedness you can offer in the workplace. That is the true meaning, I think, of what it means to be Salt and light.
This is about the wonder and the gift of work, and a reminder that when we were kids, and someone asked us, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” we had a magical response for them.
I want to share with you about the possibilities and the gift of work, whether your work is doing the payroll, or whether your work is scheduling life guards. Work is about the creation of value. And no matter what your job is, you have an opportunity to live that out every day. Work gives you an opportunity to make a meaningful and significant contribution to the world. Work gives you an opportunity to live out what it means when Jesus says, “You are salt, and you are light.”
I love when our Y is in a groove, like when we are away at a retreat. We not only accomplish great things, but we become better people in the process, and I believe that is the kind of release that is available in our work.
It is a shame that many people go to work every day where there is no direct correlation between what they do and any meaning or sense of significance. There is no creation of value. For those of us who are Christ-followers, I believe it is incumbent upon us to create YMCAs and departments and work environments where there is what Ortberg refers to as “The Nobility of Service”—the reminder to people that whatever it is that you do, it is a noble thing to serve.
It is the nature of God to serve. We forget sometimes in our jockeying for positions in the politics at work that it is a noble thing to be a servant.
Early on in my career I watched Harry Brace, the late CEO of the Charlotte YMCA. Even though he was from this huge YMCA you never got the sense from him that what you did was any less important than what he did.
Oftentimes, after our YMCA made headlines, he would call me and congratulate me. Sometimes, he would run into somebody from Shelby and he would write me and thank me for doing my job and starting this Y. I saw him talk to Charlotte program directors and thank them by name for doing a job well done. I heard about him picking up the phone and calling a branch staffer and thank her personally for being a part of the team that made a difference in somebody’s life. I bet he knew the names of everybody in the housekeeping department, all those who would come in late at night to clean up and get the facility ready for the next day.
One of the things that I saw Harry do repeatedly—I never saw any other CEO do this—was to visit his people and tell them specifically that how they were doing their job had made his job easier. He would thank them for serving. He had a very quiet way of living among us and reinforcing the nobility of what it meant to serve. He had a great impact on me as I started off in my leadership role.
It doesn’t matter what you do if it’s true that God sees work as the creation of value. Then everything you do matters, whether you go back to work next week and create sports schedules, or manage aerobic instructors, or organize after school, or lead volunteers, or take care of preschoolers. When you serve, you are most accurately reflecting the character and the nature of God. What an amazing transformation would happen in our places of work if those of us went to work today with that first and foremost in our minds.
One of the great days for me in mt career was reading a letter from a woman who a year before was so heavy that she had to be wheeled into the Y in a wheel chair. Her husband would help her change and then wheel her to the lift so she could get in the pool. Today she can walk in and change and get in the pool unassisted more than 100 pounds lighter. And she attributed it to Pat Darty calling her name and encouraging her every time she came to the Y. WOW, just because Pat knew her name.
As leaders, we can go about getting change out of people by doing the typical external motivational things or we can start to tap into the deeper issues of meaning and significance and the nobility of serving other people. I believe it becomes sort of a perpetual motion machine, a ripple or a pay it forward. Because eventually that is what motivates people to want to serve. It sure changed the life of Pat’s friend.
There is nobility in serving that we sometimes lose sight of that adds meaning and significance to work. Part of what happens to us that hurts a servant mentality is we get our scales out, and we start weighing people according to their job titles in a way that compares them and dismisses them. On the heavier side we will put Exempt staff, or a CEO, or an Executive or an Associate Exec. Those people might be more important and have more meaningful work.
Then in our minds, the lighter side of the scale gets filled with other management or serving positions of administrative assistant and receptionist and people behind the scenes. When we do this in our minds and in our behavior, we are operating out of a false economy. We are valuing things very differently than God values them. We would be wise to remember that the person at the front desk, or the person that drives a bus, and the person that runs the Y are all part of meaningful work and part of the nobility of what it means to serve.
The second phrase that Ortberg uses is meaningful work. We should understand what it means to bring meaningful work back into the workplace is to provide the context and the vision, to remind people of the role they play in the overall big picture of what the organization is trying to accomplish.
Another letter I received a few years back was from a woman who noted that she had not spoken to her neighbor in several years. It had been so long that she barely remembered why their friendship had ended. At the start of her aerobic class one day, the instructor had a read a simple bible verse that talked about forgiveness. And she thought about her young son who was criticizing the neighbors at breakfast that morning. She knew that it was her hatred that was poisoning his mind. She left the class and went home and apologized to her neighbor. They are back as best friends and all because of a simple bible verse.
When I think of that story I think about what great leadership is — it is when we remind our people that they don’t just fill slots, but they do work for a greater purpose. We need to be reminded of the incredible responsibility we have, because leaders shape lives. We are stewards of that kind of change.
Our team needs to take very seriously the responsibility that we hold in our hand from a position of prestige and privilege that we can use to learn to serve. When we do that as Christ-followers, we remind ourselves of what Paul says:
You do not work for other people. Whatever you do in your job, do it with all of your heart, because God gave you this work to do. It is God that you work for in an audience of one. (Colossians 3:23-24)
The last thing Ortberg stressed is about the idea of relationships at work. How many people come to work and nobody knows their story or much about them? They’re just viewed as cogs in a wheel in sort of an invisible way. As Christ-followers, one of the ways that we can create value in our workplaces and build relationships as a primary way out of which we lead is to provide a place where people can be known.
The other day I had an appointment in Rutherford County and I found myself near one of our after school sites. I quickly called our director to get the names of the staff working. Instantly I could see how important it made them feel when I called them by name. On a fluke of an idea, I had made two employees feel valued. Just knowing the names of our staff may seem insignificant yet in reality that small gesture can be monumental!
Another phrase Ortberg uses that will help us figure out how to do this relational piece is the “dignity of people.”
One of my most embarrassing days was while sitting at my desk, pounding on my computer, preparing for an appointment, I heard a staff person come into my office. As they asked for a second I stuck my hand in the air while I finished my thought. They said they would come back later. In that one sentence I could hear the pain and anguish in their voice. As I chased them down the hall and begged for them to come back. As I begged for her to give me another chance. As I begged for them to forgive me. Eventually I heard a story filled with pain and heart ache. And I heard this unbelievable desire to be listened to and valued.
We need to remind ourselves that everybody is made in the image of God. That automatically bestows on each person great dignity that you and I sometimes miss. As Christ-followers, we must move towards people whom we work with recognizing that they have great dignity as human beings.
Every one of us who is a Christ-follower is called to take seriously our responsibilities of creating meaning and significance for ourselves and for other people when we go to work.
A few years ago, we had a slogan; there were signs in the lobby that said simply, Dreams Begin Here.
There is only so much we can do in here to be “salt and light.” You are already sitting next to little pieces of salt and light. We come together for a very important purpose. We come together corporately at retreats and meetings to do what we can’t do apart: to see each other, to feel community in the room, to be together. But when we leave, I think that that is really when dreams begin—when we move out into our jobs and communities and ask God to go with us in the creation of value.
So when you go to work this morning and whatever it is you go to do—whether it’s today or tomorrow, when you go to work—whether you work at Dover or at GWU, whether you work at the corporate office or the Girls Club, whether you’re at the Ruby Hunt YMCA or at Kings Mountain, —wherever you go to work, if what God says about the creation of value is true, work is a gift. You can show up at work with a completely different attitude, convinced that over time you will convince other people of the meaning and significance that sits inside the role that they do, and you will become sure of the great relational connectedness you can offer in the workplace. That is the true meaning, I think, of what it means to be Salt and light.
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