Video Transcript: Traditions

being an effective manager task 14 traditions, Israel's festivals. It's interesting.  When people try to read the Bible, you try to get people to read the Bible.  Genesis is very interesting. Exodus is pretty interesting. But then you get to  Leviticus, some people decide they want to read the whole Bible, let's say, in a  whole year, and and they get going, and it goes pretty good, and then they hit  Leviticus. Leviticus has all these rules and festivals and a lot of it people have a  hard time understanding. But you have to understand that that God gave all  these things to a people that didn't know who God was number one, and they  didn't know who they were. They were slaves, they came out of Egypt, they're  going to some unknown promised land that they didn't know. They didn't have a  national identity. They didn't have a people identity. They didn't really know who  this God was that they were following. And so God sets up all these rules and  traditions, really. And these rules and traditions gave the people a sense of  something. God arranged the 12 tribes in a specific order around the tabernacle, and he did that for a reason. They didn't have a land of their own. But when they picked up and they moved and they traveled, and then they set up their tents  again, they set them up exactly like the place. They just left the same order and  and when they saw the tribe across the tabernacle, yeah, that's the tribe of Dan,  yeah, that, Oh, there's the tribe of Naphtali. It's, it's like, it was, it was like,  common to them. They could relate to it. Even though life is changing. We don't  really have a place. We do have a place. It feels like we have a place. It feels  like we're connected to each other. So all these rules and these traditions and  these festivals that you read in the Book of Leviticus really gave the people a  sense of identity and a sense of purpose and a sense of belonging, and it's the  same kind of thing that you want in your own organization. So the Lord said to  Moses, give the following instruction to the people of Israel. These are the Lord's appointed festivals, which you are to proclaim as official days for the Holy  assembly, you have six days each week for your ordinary work, but on the  seventh day is a sabbath day of complete rest, an official day for the Holy  assembly, it is the Lord's Sabbath day, and it must be observed wherever you  live. In addition to the Sabbath, these are the Lord's appointed festivals, the  official days for the Holy assembly that are to be celebrated at their proper time  each year. This is chapter 23 and listed in chapter 23 are seven special  appointed days, appointed festivals. And some of the festivals were things that  took place eventually in Jerusalem. So there were things that happened every  year, and they were things that happened in Jerusalem. So the Israelites would  travel from wherever they lived, and it could be anywhere in Israel or eventually,  many of the Israelites were scattered throughout the Asia Minor and they would  all make a pilgrimage back to Jerusalem. So a kid growing up in that culture  every year, the whole family, the uncles, the aunts, the cousins, they would all  travel together and and there'd be songs that they sang and times around the  fire, and they would, you know, tell stories. And, you know, Uncle Bob would, 

you know, always tell this funny story and and things that happen. And so the  memories and the layers would add up. So every year, they look forward to this  kind of thing. It's interesting that I'm videotaping here in Grand Haven, Michigan, that's where CLI is headquartered. And I grew up about an hour from here in  Grand Rapids, Michigan. And as kids, my family and my cousins, my uncles and aunts and so on, we all came to Grand Haven once a year, at the end of  summer, we would camp here at Grand Haven. Right? The Grand Haven is right on Lake Michigan. It's a beautiful beach. And we would camp here every year  the last two weeks of summer with my cousins and everybody. And we did that  every year, probably from when I was eight years old to maybe 13 years old. So  five years in a row, we we camped here and it was so much fun that, I mean, I  didn't want to miss anything. I didn't want to even go to sleep at night, because  you'd miss some fun activity with your cousins and all the games that we played  and and back then, parents just let you run and we could do anything we you  know, we said we had breakfast, and then we said goodbye, and we came back  later that evening, and we were just out doing things. And we go to the pier, we  do the fishing, we find the crawdads. We play in the reeds. We we had all these  things that we did. It was a windy day. Then we try to body surf the waves and  and we would do these things. And then next year we'd come to the same place. And when we would come to the same place, we would do some of the same  things. And as we're doing the same things, the memory of the year before  would come back. And so it wouldn't be just doing the same things, it wouldn't  be just doing something. It'd be doing something with the layers of the year  before and the year before and the year before and the year before. So now, if I  were to, you know, for lunch, just take a stroll through the state park and walk  through where we camped and all the things that we did, I'd have all these  memories, all this niche would come and flood, and it would give ordinary space. Meaning, I mean, if someone knew they'd come and they'd look and it's a  beach, and it's a nice beach, it's a pretty beach, but it wouldn't have all kinds of  meaning. For me. All these places, all these spots, will have some meaning.  Yeah, this is where they sold the bait. That doesn't exist anymore, but the  building is there, and I'd have to tell someone, well, this is what it used to be.  And when you walk on the pier, if you look carefully on the cement of the pier,  you will see that something, something that was metal, was eventually cut off  and was somehow they sort of I don't know what they used, but, but, but they  they took it and they sawed it off or something. You can see the marks of those  of that steel left over. And what used to be there is eyelets, really thick eyelets.  There were eyelets every 10 feet along the pier, all the way down and all the  way back. Because people used to tie up their boats to this. I mean, this is a  huge, you know, hundreds of yards pier, and people would tie up their boats to  these eyelets. Well, I remember camping here, those eyelets would they stick  out. And eventually, at some point in the vacation, you would not be looking 

where you're walking, and you would stub your toe on one of these steel  eyelets, and it would hurt like crazy. So as I walk down the pier, I see where  those eyelets used to be. You can see the remnants of it. And most people that  are new, they'd have no idea what that is. They have no emotion, no tie to that  at all. But I look at it, and all the emotions and all the time and all the fun would  come back just by the residue of this thing. Well, that's what these festivals did.  It gave the people a sense of purpose and meaning. And in an organization, a  church or whatever it is that you're managing, you need to create these kinds of  meaning and purpose. Organizations are like families, and they need layers of  memories to create emotional bonds. So there's daily things, you know, what do  you do around your place daily? And I suggested maybe there's some game.  Maybe at noon, we all, you know, do a word puzzle, or we have, you know,  What? What? What joke Did you hear today? So there might be something that  you do on a daily basis that people can sort of get into weekly. And our church  will, as the staff will put a little video. It's so easy to do now, you can just do it on  your phone, and then you can upload it to your Facebook page or whatever. So  we have a church Facebook page, and we'll just do a little pep talk middle of the  week. Hey, this is what's going on. This is what's happening this week. These  are the things you need to look forward to. My associate and I we do it together.  Usually there's some humor involved. We have a good time with it. And people  actually look forward to this little pep talk in the middle of the week. Monthly  things, maybe having lunch with some of your staff. Yearly things, retreats,  having a retreat in the same place every year is just that's what happened to me with this Grand Haven thing. We went to the same place every year, and all the  memories stack up at our church, we have a Christmas concert every year. We  put a lot of effort into that. It keeps growing every year. And it's a it's a thing, and  people look forward to it, and people plan for it, and and people get elaborate  with the decorations, and people vie for being a part of it, decorations, songs,  uh. Uh, Christmas songs. We sing the same Christmas songs every year. And  why? Because we don't burn them out all year. We only use them at one time of  the year that those songs get associated with all the memories and all the good  feelings that happen at Christmas time. And we put them away for a whole year,  and then the next Christmas, we take them out again. It's like, oh yeah, we have all those memories come flooding back. And as a manager, you need to, need to be thinking about these, these emotional kind of traditions. Traditions give  people a feeling of stability. They give people a feeling of belonging. It's, you  know, all the nostalgia that we feel about life is because of some tradition. You  know, we used to eat this meal at mom's house and, and now you have that  same meal again. We have grandma's gravy, and we do it at Easter. You know,  once a year we make this gravy and, so Easter is not just Easter, but it has all  the memories of all the Easters that we had as a family growing up, and now  we're passing it on to our kids and on to our grandkids. Those are the kinds of 

things that you need to be thinking of with your organization. Organizations are  like families, and they have memories, and you want to layer those memories on top of one another.