One day, when Plumb and his wife were sitting in a restaurant, a man at another table came up and said, “You’re Plumb! You flew jet fighters in Vietnam from the aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk!  You were shot down!”

“How in the world did you know that?” asked Plumb.

“I packed your parachute,” the man replied. Plumb gasped in surprise and gratitude. The man pumped his hand and said, “I guess it worked!”  Plumb assured him, “It sure did. If your chute hadn’t worked, I wouldn’t be here today.”

That night, Plumb couldn’t sleep, thinking about that man. He said, “I wonder how many times I might have seen him and not even said ‘Good morning, how are you,’ not even given him the time of day because I was a fighter pilot and he was just a sailor.”  Plumb thought of the many hours the sailor had spent at a long wooden table in the bowels of the ship, carefully weaving the shrouds and folding the silks of each chute, holding in his hands every day the fate of someone he didn’t know.

Now, as Plumb lectures, he asks his audience, “Who’s packing your parachute?”  Everyone has a source, a supplier, a wellspring that feeds who they are becoming day after day.

Who do you listen to?  What are your inputs?  What feeds you?  I know a guy who seems to be in a “terminally hacked-off” mode.  The people who feed him are whoever happens to be the angriest person that day – whoever is on a rant, he’s on their side.  People who pack his parachute always seem to be the ones pointing a finger of blame.

There’s another person I know who surrounds himself with people who are fed from the Spirit of God, whose constant message is one of peace and assurance; consequently, his message to others is always one of hope and trust.

Who’s packing your parachute?

As someone who spent 15 years climbing the corporate ladder at a multi-national telecom company, and later went into vocational ministry for nine years, I can tell you I’ve never been at a place where the people are so focused on doing what God built them to do.  It’s what Max Lucado called “living in your sweet spot” in his book, Cure for the Common Life.

UpperRoom was started by a group of Christians who said, in essence, we feel called to serve our church by using our technology experience from the workplace to energize small groups ministries.  These were young couples who wanted to get connected, and were willing to bring their professional gifts to bear to serve the body of Christ.

I’m impressed daily with two things:

Missional Focus

First, the focus and passion of the staff and volunteers who unswervingly fulfill their personal rendering of the Great Commission:  to make disciples by connecting and deepening the communities of the Church, to care for each other and impact the world.  This is their mission statement.

Ministry-driven

The second thing is more subtle but just as impressive.  As the latest technological features become more widely available through cloud computing and shared services, it’s easy for the tail to wag the dog.  As someone has said, “The worst reason to do something technologically is because you can.”

The best solution providers know how to make technology serve the church, rather than the other way around.  I’m glad that UpperRoom carefully discerns this boundary, so that each implementation with each church partner is carefully calibrated to match their particular circumstance and need.  It’s all about our common mission.

How cool is it to work in this biosphere?  Very.