The Goings on and Work of Sam Mahlstadt

We are entering the last few days before our baby is due to come on the scene. I’m going to be taking the next week or so to step away and unplug. When I return, it will be to formally announce CreativeTheology.com and way more importantly, Baby Mahlstadt!

In the mean time, if you have any parenting advice, or well wishes for Baby and Mom, I’d love for you to leave them in the comments section. Be well and see you soon!

Sam

Mine is actually a bi-vocation. I would love to write books that stretch and deepen people’s understanding of God, while leading a local faith community (not sure what that part looks like yet).

What’s your dream job?

I read a great article on the tendency to get selfish (and ineffective) when the going gets rough from MSNBC Business.

Here is the bottom line: when you turn inward, whether in glory or defeat, the team suffers. Always. There is no room for selfishness on a team. I’d even go as far as to say that a team with selfish members (or even one member ) can be successful outwardly, and all the while, the team is crumbling internally.It’s not sustainable.

And how about selfishness when it comes to the personal victories and defeats of people of faith? When we turn inward, rather than recognize the One who spoke this whole thing into being, things can get pretty ugly, pretty fast. The tendency to focus on ourselves creates distance between ourselves and the one who desires to dwell amongst us.

Just a reminder: This isn’t about you. Lift your eyes, friends.

My phone needs replaced. iPhone 4: $200. There is a conference I really want to attend. Story: approximately $200.

I have the following budgetary decision to make:

OR…

The decision will be revealed in a few hours…

I have to confess that even though I claim to follow Jesus, if you inspected my life, you would find greed, laziness and envy.

I confess.

Now I move forward and continually ask for radical grace.

Do you have anything you would like to confess?

I’d suggest you get it off your chest and keep moving.

• Finished up a post for ChurchCrunch.com – check it out HERE – let me know what you think.
• Set up a domain parking page for a soon-to-be-launched blog. So pumped for it.
• Working on an article for COLLIDE magazine, that will feature the insight of someone much smarter and creative than myself. *hint: when you are writing an article, including someone better than yourself makes your writing better :) *
• Working on my first ever newsletter. Once it launches, it will be an added bonus to the above referenced blog. I am pouring a lot of time and effort into it, and hopefully it will be so much more than just noise. If you have any ideas for ways to add value, hit me up! Who’s got a killer newsletter that you can’t wait to read?
• Plugging away at the book…with a new designer on board to handle layout. Excited! Still room for another designer – someone who deals with typography and layout – to serve as an art director of sorts. Email me if interested smahlstadt@gmail.com.

This past weekend, I found myself making a few phone calls and writing emails that were a bit uncomfortable. I hate asking people for things as much as the next guy, but sometimes you have to suck it up and ask for help.*

I asked for help on the book I’m writing, from two designers. I have asked, and been turned down by, several people already. But I couldn’t be more thrilled with the possibilities that lie ahead. When one door closes, go kick in another one.

I also asked for an interview with a very well-known graphic/web/branding designer in the church world for a magazine article I am working on. He agreed! Originally, my focus was to land an app-developer. I got one prominent figure in app development for the church world to agree to an interview, only to not hear from him once I submitted questions. Frustrating. Then, after a very cordial denial from another prominent figure in church/tech, I switched gears and the project will be better for it. More details on the article coming soon…

A message to the creative: you can’t do everything by yourself. Persevere, face rejection and keep moving. You will get turned down regularly, but only YOU have the power to hault your work.

*See “Don’t Go It Alone” in the Going Pro resource

Let me preface this post by saying: I hate when people tweet about taking a break from Twitter. I hate when people blog about such things as well.

With that said…last winter, I wrote about taking a sabbatical. The thing about sabbaticals is that they put things in perspective. When you aren’t working/creating/networking you realize things like:

• the world keeps spinning
• no one is dying because I didn’t {enter what you do here}
• other people are speaking too
• I can breathe

Yesterday, I took a one-day hiatus from Twitter. No tweets. I read a few, but posted none. As these blog posts are automatically tweeted, this day away also included no blog posts. (This is another goal I gave myself at the start of the year; no filler posts.)

I wanted to feel a day where I didn’t create anything for consumption, including a stupid comment about something funny I saw walking through my office (trust me, that’s tempting). It felt good to breathe, and not have the pressure I place on myself to create something, drive attention to it, and then worry what people thought about it. What a huge relief, if at least for a day.

Here is the TED talk I previously linked to in the winter sabbatical post. It is Stefan Sagmeister talking about the power of sabbatical. You can find his new book in the Going Pro Bookstore. Enjoy. And remember to breathe.

I received from Sojourners that caused me to ask a major question about the correlation with my personal faith and current events in our country. It made me wonder specifically, do major accidents (such as the oil spill and the coal mining disaster) lead me to repent for my personal sins? To be honest, both events caused me to grieve for the loss of life and destruction of the environment, but I didn’t repent my personal use and abuse of the environment as a result. I believe this is due to a mindset of desiring positive associations but reeling away from negative associations.

It is similar to sports fans who cheer for their team in good times. We had such a great game, and we played so well. But then when things head south, they were pathetic out there, and they can’t coach or execute. It’s easy to be “us” in the good and “they” in the bad, because we can associate ourselves to a cause, team, group or affiliation and dissassociate ourselves at will. This is a dangerous cycle that leads to a lack of accepting responsibility, but accepting praise all the while.

I hold myself at arm’s length of what “they” are doing, and rebuke the “greedy/lazy Americans” but don’t associate myself with those whom I find at fault like I should. It is my problem as much as anyones. I am part of the problem. And I need to repent.

Here is an exerpt from the email that caught my attention:

Tragedies never cease to dominate the headlines, but two events in the last six weeks tear a hole in our hearts.
Big Oil’s broken well in the Gulf of Mexico is destroying God’s creation – the lives of fish, birds, and turtles – as well as the livelihoods of many people in a vulnerable regional economy.
King Coal’s disregard for safety regulations caused our nation’s worst mining disaster in more than two decades, with 29 lives lost.
These disasters are a call to repentance for each of us. Our overdependence on coal and oil requires repentance and immediate personal change. But now is also the moment to advocate for energy and climate legislation.

I have a few things going this week, and I am excited about each project in their own way.

I sent a section of the book I am working on to the designer this past week. She is extremely talented, and the design of the book is going to be every bit as good (and probably better) than the content. You can catch a few exerpts of the book here, here and here. The working title is A Creative Theology.

I sent off a few questions to a major authority in the church/technology field that will become a part of an article dealing with church and non-profit leaders navigating our app-laden culture. I am excited to see what he has to say on the subject, and hopefully we will all get see his responses sprayed throuohut a piece published in a magazine. I am sending off the query today. Always makes me nervous.

I am working with the material from the Going Pro series, developing a packet/booklet thingy that will have each post, expanded and full of greatness in a PDF format. You can expect that by the end of this week. I hope it will be content you enjoy and find useful.