Why we need each other.
Two people are better off than one, for they can help each other succeed. If one person falls, the other can reach out and help. But someone who falls alone is in real trouble. Ecclesiastes 4: 9-10 NLT
In today's world of superstars, brands and celebrity endorsements, it is easy to believe that the world belongs to the lone ranger, the solo achiever and the independent mind. The truth is, however, that "one is too small a number to achieve greatness" (John C Maxwell). Every lone ranger needs a Tonto, every entrepreneur needs the support of bankers, staff and other experts. We simply cannot change the world on our own.
This is why I want to dedicate this blog entry to partnership and, more specifically to a little known partnership in the Bible. In the books of Ezra and Nehemiah in the Old Testament we read the story of how the people of Israel came to arrive back into their own land after being in exile and how they came to have a rebuilt city and the foundations of a new temple. They went from being scattered refugees in danger of losing their identity to being a people rededicated to God, with a purpose and vision.
In the middle of this incredible story we find Ezra and Nehemiah. The former was a theologian, an incredibly intelligent and godly scholar with sharp leadership abilities and a hunger for the Word of God. The latter was an official, an administrator and leader par excellence. He also became an efficient project manager and a godly governor with a passion for God's people.
Often, we read their stories separately. We read about Ezra's passion to bring the people back to God and marvel at how he could marry amazing scholarship with life-changing speech. We read about Nehemiah and learn lessons about leadership, priorities and dealing with opposition.
But in Nehemiah 8 and 9 we see them working together. The walls of the city has been rebuilt, the people are safe from immediate danger. At this point, Nehemiah takes a back seat and allows Ezra to step forward and teach the people how to live. Nehemiah had rebuilt the physical walls, now it was Ezra's time to rebuild the spiritual lives of the people.
This is partnership. There is no question here of Nehemiah being threatened by Ezra's gifts and talents. Nor is there ever any question about Ezra worrying about Nehemiah's practical skills crowding out time for the Word. The spiritual and the practical need to be brought together and that will take the skills and dedication of both men.
I believe that the key to all achievement lies in real partnership. Not partnership on my terms, lasting as long as I still "win." But partnership that goes deeper, partnership that realises that without you, I cannot succeed; without me, you will not reach the goal. In my own life, I realise my own weaknesses and I deliberately seek out people with expertise in those areas to either teach me or help me. I also try and find ways of helping others, giving them the boost they need to get to the next stage.
There is nothing like helping someone achieve their best or being part of a team that aims high and makes it. So, what partnerships do you have in your life? When was the last time you admitted that you need help? When was the last time you sacrificed some of your life to help someone else? Are you "me" centred or "team" centred?
Life is too short and too hard to try and go it alone. But together, we can change the world. That is the power of partnership.
Thursday 30 April 2009
Thursday 16 April 2009
As you might have noticed, it has been almost a week since I last posted. Since then, things have become very interesting!
To start with, Sunday was excellent. It is always amazing to have the privilege to preach and even more of a privilege when God shows up! The sermon is available online, along with two excellent sermons from Pastor Crawford Kirkwood and a passionate word from Ian Hawker. All can be found here. Please note, things go a lot faster if you download the entire sermon using the instructions on the site than if you try and stream it. I will fix that bug soon. Another little tip, Firefox is superior to IE for download management!
I have also been working on two new research projects, one of which is nearing completion. So, fun all round!
I will write a longer entry soon.
Until then,
Jonathan
To start with, Sunday was excellent. It is always amazing to have the privilege to preach and even more of a privilege when God shows up! The sermon is available online, along with two excellent sermons from Pastor Crawford Kirkwood and a passionate word from Ian Hawker. All can be found here. Please note, things go a lot faster if you download the entire sermon using the instructions on the site than if you try and stream it. I will fix that bug soon. Another little tip, Firefox is superior to IE for download management!
I have also been working on two new research projects, one of which is nearing completion. So, fun all round!
I will write a longer entry soon.
Until then,
Jonathan
Thursday 9 April 2009
Upcoming (Published) Articles
Just to let everyone know, I am high as a kite at the moment. Two articles I wrote on choosing a Bible translation are shortly to be published. One called "Are you suing the right Bible translation: A professional translator's perspective on translation choice" will be appearing in the Summer 2009 issue of The Pneuma Review (Vol. 12 No. 3). The other called "End of an Era? Does skopos theory mean the end of the free vs literal paradigm?" will be appearing on the website of the same journal (found here and then in the "In Depth" articles section).
One of my good friends is due to see his first review published in the same journal issue and after that he will be published even more! Watch this space!
God is very, very good!
One last thing, I am considering "monetising" this blog. This would involve the placement of small text-ads on one or two spots. Please feel free to leave your comments on this.
Thanks,
Jonathan
One of my good friends is due to see his first review published in the same journal issue and after that he will be published even more! Watch this space!
God is very, very good!
One last thing, I am considering "monetising" this blog. This would involve the placement of small text-ads on one or two spots. Please feel free to leave your comments on this.
Thanks,
Jonathan
Tuesday 7 April 2009
From Competent to Excellent
From Competent to Excellent
The Distance Between Doing the Job and Winning the Race
As a professional translator and amateur researcher, I occasionally have the privilege of checking others' work. I also often have the honour of received checked copies of my own work. In both of these cases, what becomes quickly apparent is that there is a great gap between work that is competent (i.e. that ticks all the right boxes) and work that is excellent (that makes you sit up and go "wow"). Since it is one of my goals to always produce and encourage excellent work, this blog post will talk about how wide the gap is and how to cross over it.
What do I mean by competent work? Well, after five or more years of university education, most new professional translators will be able to produce work that is both accurate, readable and will do the job. They might be able to produce a translation of a users' manual that you can use without risking injury. They might be able to translate websites that don't make you immediately want to go elsewhere. However, many of these translations are still "translation-y." There is still something about them that makes you instantly aware of the fact that they weren't originally written in your language. Maybe the sentence structures are a bit off or maybe there are too many strange idioms. Whatever it is, something isn't quite right.
On the other hand, read some of the work produced by the rare few "genius" translators and you feel exactly the opposite. Take "The Message," a new translation of the Bible by Eugene Peterson. Unless you were told otherwise, you might easily imagine that it was written in the past decade or so by modern English speakers. It leaps off the page and captures your heart and mind. What about the translations of books by Watchman Nee? If you didn't know better, would you for one second believe them to be translations?
The difference isn't just clear in translations. Think about it. How many people can kick a football, pass it to an opponent and do a few keepie-ups? But how many of those same people will ever make it to a Champions League or World Cup final?
If you believe some people, crossing the chasm between competence and excellence is impossible. "If you ain't got it, you ain't gonna have it," is their battle cry. Stop it with the pipe dreams, give up, sit down and live like the rest of us.
But there is a whole host of evidence that such a view is simply wrong. For example, K. Anders Ericsson, who has dedicated his life to studying expert performance in a range of fields, believes that practice has more to do with performance than you might think. In fact, in a recent article in an Interpreting journal, he stated that the only factors that could not be improved by regular, focussed practice were body size and height. Everything else, he says, can be developed and improved.
So, what is the "focussed practice" thing? According to him, it involves finding structured exercises to work on your weaknesses with the advice and guidance of a coach. The job of the coach is to keep you in line and to locate exactly the areas that need toned up. Maybe for a translator, this might mean finding a style workshop to keep their writing skills in shape. For a preacher, it might mean working on sermon structure or delivery. For footballers, it might mean ball control or shooting exercises. For theologians, it might mean asking more experienced scholars to check your work. The list is endless but the advice is the same. Find a coach or mentor and work, work, work.
The truth is that the gap between good and great is not as wide as you might think. Even those who are born with "it" have to keep "it" in shape. Even experts can only stay experts as long as they keep working. In the end, it all comes down to how far you want to go. Sure, you might never be able to dribble like Maradona, but what about your writing skills? What about your love for working with children?
As the Bible says, do everything as if you were doing it for God (Colossians 3:23). We have gifts from God and are expected to use them (Matthew 25: 14-30). So, push hard to reach the best level of performance you can. After all, if the difference between "competent" and "excellent" is only practice, what have you got to lose?
The Distance Between Doing the Job and Winning the Race
As a professional translator and amateur researcher, I occasionally have the privilege of checking others' work. I also often have the honour of received checked copies of my own work. In both of these cases, what becomes quickly apparent is that there is a great gap between work that is competent (i.e. that ticks all the right boxes) and work that is excellent (that makes you sit up and go "wow"). Since it is one of my goals to always produce and encourage excellent work, this blog post will talk about how wide the gap is and how to cross over it.
What do I mean by competent work? Well, after five or more years of university education, most new professional translators will be able to produce work that is both accurate, readable and will do the job. They might be able to produce a translation of a users' manual that you can use without risking injury. They might be able to translate websites that don't make you immediately want to go elsewhere. However, many of these translations are still "translation-y." There is still something about them that makes you instantly aware of the fact that they weren't originally written in your language. Maybe the sentence structures are a bit off or maybe there are too many strange idioms. Whatever it is, something isn't quite right.
On the other hand, read some of the work produced by the rare few "genius" translators and you feel exactly the opposite. Take "The Message," a new translation of the Bible by Eugene Peterson. Unless you were told otherwise, you might easily imagine that it was written in the past decade or so by modern English speakers. It leaps off the page and captures your heart and mind. What about the translations of books by Watchman Nee? If you didn't know better, would you for one second believe them to be translations?
The difference isn't just clear in translations. Think about it. How many people can kick a football, pass it to an opponent and do a few keepie-ups? But how many of those same people will ever make it to a Champions League or World Cup final?
If you believe some people, crossing the chasm between competence and excellence is impossible. "If you ain't got it, you ain't gonna have it," is their battle cry. Stop it with the pipe dreams, give up, sit down and live like the rest of us.
But there is a whole host of evidence that such a view is simply wrong. For example, K. Anders Ericsson, who has dedicated his life to studying expert performance in a range of fields, believes that practice has more to do with performance than you might think. In fact, in a recent article in an Interpreting journal, he stated that the only factors that could not be improved by regular, focussed practice were body size and height. Everything else, he says, can be developed and improved.
So, what is the "focussed practice" thing? According to him, it involves finding structured exercises to work on your weaknesses with the advice and guidance of a coach. The job of the coach is to keep you in line and to locate exactly the areas that need toned up. Maybe for a translator, this might mean finding a style workshop to keep their writing skills in shape. For a preacher, it might mean working on sermon structure or delivery. For footballers, it might mean ball control or shooting exercises. For theologians, it might mean asking more experienced scholars to check your work. The list is endless but the advice is the same. Find a coach or mentor and work, work, work.
The truth is that the gap between good and great is not as wide as you might think. Even those who are born with "it" have to keep "it" in shape. Even experts can only stay experts as long as they keep working. In the end, it all comes down to how far you want to go. Sure, you might never be able to dribble like Maradona, but what about your writing skills? What about your love for working with children?
As the Bible says, do everything as if you were doing it for God (Colossians 3:23). We have gifts from God and are expected to use them (Matthew 25: 14-30). So, push hard to reach the best level of performance you can. After all, if the difference between "competent" and "excellent" is only practice, what have you got to lose?
Thursday 2 April 2009
Happy, happy, happy
The title of this article pretty much sums up this week, since Tuesday, for me. While the week started with a bit of a shock, God has been incredibly good since. Here is a shortlist of some of the highlights:
1) I heard this week that I will definitely be published in the next issue of The Pneuma Review and online on their website. For this, I really have to thank my wife, Helen, and my good friend, Trevor. Helen proofread and checked the first article and kept me from veering into the academic abyss. Trevor proofread both articles as they happened (brave man) and made sure I didn't go to the opposite extreme.
2) I got a good day's worth of work this week and have just completed it. The more work, the better just now.
3) I am getting to spend more time with my wife!
So, there you go. A happy week and a boring blog post. Still, you can't win 'em all! ;-)
1) I heard this week that I will definitely be published in the next issue of The Pneuma Review and online on their website. For this, I really have to thank my wife, Helen, and my good friend, Trevor. Helen proofread and checked the first article and kept me from veering into the academic abyss. Trevor proofread both articles as they happened (brave man) and made sure I didn't go to the opposite extreme.
2) I got a good day's worth of work this week and have just completed it. The more work, the better just now.
3) I am getting to spend more time with my wife!
So, there you go. A happy week and a boring blog post. Still, you can't win 'em all! ;-)
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