I heard some insightful wisdom last night while watching the Blue Man Group on a PBS fund raising special. They are the entertainers with the blue painted faces. I’ve seen their incredibly creative and off-the-wall show in person and tremendously enjoyed it. What they do is so simple, unique, weird, and hysterically funny that their show is sold out in Las Vegas and around the world. In an interview on PBS one of the team members said the secret to their success was to get over themselves. In other words he said they had to completely put out of their mind what others thought about them personally. They found that they could not be as silly or as creative as they needed to be as long as they were concerned with what people were thinking about them. If they were to be successful, they could not be pre-occupied with themselves. This freed them to be very creative and to get out of the box and be successful.
This is wise advice that if we all followed in so many areas of our life we would be freed up to be “Fully Alive”. Another way of saying it is to “die to self”. If we were not so preoccupied with self and worried about what people thought we could lead so much more effectively. Dying to self would even help with recruiting our team members. One reason we don’t have enough people on our teams is because we just fail to ask enough people to join us. We think announcements in worship and Bible study will do the trick. But the most effective way to recruit is to ask.
Why don’t we ask people to volunteer more? For myself I find that it is often a fear of rejection or some deep seated concern with what people think about me. However, when I die to self, then Christ takes over and much like The Blue Man Group, I am freed up to do what I’m called to do. Get over yourself as the Blue Man Group spokesman says. Great advice! Die to self. It will make an incredible difference is so many areas of your life and actually help you lead much more effectively.
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