Wanted: Dreamers

Dreamers wanted but not all dreamers are wanted.

There have been times in history that dreamers were wanted men. They were wanted because their ideas, hope and beliefs were counter cultural, revolutionary. Men like Joseph and dr king suffered great losses from their dreams. Today more than ever men and women need to dream; big, elaborate and often.

Some have misunderstood dreams. Some dismiss them as passive nocturnal entertainment. Freud treated dreams as "the royal road to the unconscious," a thesis that served his general conviction that consciousness, the reasoned control of life, constitutes only the surface part of the energies that propel or immobilize persons. Some dreams require sleep, some require imagination but both require fuel, hard work and tenacity.

Before I invite you to a dreamers symposium, please be inspired by some innovative pioneers; dreamers that changed the landscape of everything we know.

Joseph from the Bible
The Bible says that, “Joseph dreamed a dream”. Too bad his dream got his dream got him beat, almost left for dead and ultimately sold into slavery. The story turns out good, actually, really good but it just goes to show 1, share your dreams cautiously and 2, when you share them find a friendly audience, especially if the dream could result in the unwanted involvement of others.

Dr Martin Luther King Jr
The only one on this list to have a dream that did not require sleep. His dream is also one that everyone who reads this needs to re-dream themselves. A dream of equality, freedom and justice. A dream that took many waking hours to partially come true.

Here is the invite...

Now the invitation - The December 6, "UnConference"

Click here for more info and registration info - cost is totally free. Were NOT selling anything, promoting anything or attempting to DO anything unless its a GOD THING.


December 6th and 7th DFW area youth pastors and workers want to invite you to join us for a day of prayer and dreaming.

There will be no advertising, marketing, or pitches. Our purpose for gathering is straightforward: We want to come together to pray for the youth in our communities and dream about how God might use us to help them know Him more deeply.

And now for some more dreamers...

Albert Einstein
Einstein had a teenage dream (long before Katy Perry). He dreamed that he was sledding down a steep hill at night, his sled traveled faster and faster, until it approached the speed of light. At that speed, the stars and night sky were transformed into a dazzling spectrum of colors.
Einstein once told a journalist, "that my entire scientific career has been a meditation on that dream."

Robert Louis Stevenson
The novelist Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894) described dreams as occurring in "that small theater of the brain which we keep brightly lighted all night long." Dr Jeckle and Mr Hyde and Treasure Island are some of his most famous works.
From an early age, his dreams were so vivid and moving that they were more entertaining to him personally than any literature. He learned early in his life that he could dream complete stories and that he could even go back to the same dreams on succeeding nights to give them a different ending. Later he trained himself to remember his dreams and to dream plots for his books.

Carl Jung
Jung wrote of his early dream journals, " All my works, all my creative activity, has come from those initial dreams which began in 1912, almost fifty years ago. Everything that I accomplished in later life was already contained in them, although at first only in the form of emotions and images. "

President Abraham Lincoln
Lincoln dreamed about his assassination.
" About ten days ago, I retired very late. I had been up waiting for important dispatches from the front. I could not have been long in bed when I fell into a slumber, for I was weary. I soon began to dream. There seemed to be death-like stillness about me. Then I heard subdued sobs, as if a number of people were weeping. I thought I left my bed and wandered downstairs. There the silence that was broken by the same pitiful sobbing, but the mourners were invisible. I went from room to room; no living person was in sight, but the same mournful sounds of distress met me as I passed along. It was light in all the rooms; every object was familiar to me; but where were all the people who were grieving as if their hearts would break? I was puzzled and alarmed. What could be the meaning of all this? Determined to find the cause of a state of things so mysterious and so shocking, I kept on until I arrived at the East Room, which I entered there I met with a sickening surprise. Before me was a catafalque, on which rested a corpse wrapped in funeral vestments. Around it were stationed soldiers who were acting as guards; and there was a throng of people, some gazing mournfully upon the corpse, whose face was covered, others weeping pitifully. "Who is dead in the White House?" I demanded of one of the soldiers " The President " was his answer; " he was killed by an assassin! Then came a loud burst of grief from the crowd, which awoke me from my dream. "

General George Patton
General George Patton, when at the battlefield on Langres France, said to his driver that he already knew the place. He told his driver where to go and said it was as if someone were whispering directions in his ear. He correctly went to the Ancient Roman Amphitheater, The Drill Grounds, The Forum and even correctly went to the spot where Caesar had pitched his tent. "You see, I've been here before " He had been there in his dream.

Jack Nicklaus
Nicklaus credits a dream for finding a new way to hold his golf club.
"Wednesday night I had a dream and it was about my golf swing. I was hitting them pretty good in the dream and all at once I realized I wasn't holding the club the way I've actually been holding it lately. I've been having trouble collapsing my right arm taking the club head away from the ball, but I was doing it perfectly in my sleep. So when I came to the course yesterday morning I tried it the way I did in my dream and it worked. I shot a sixty-eight yesterday and a sixty-five today."

Famous People Who Were Not Perfect

Sometimes the things that make us great have the ability to pull us down OR challenge us to greatness. Here are some examples of icon of success that could have just as well been failures. Question of the day - What made them different?



Walt Disney: Walt was fired from the Kansas City newspaper for not being creative enough and was considered “slow” as a child. He is now considered one of the best known motion picture producers in the world, and holds the record for the most awards and most nominations.


Albert Einstein: Arguably the greatest physicist of all time. Known for his theory of relativity and E=mc2. He revolutionized the way we think of the universe and opened up our eyes to the possibilities in front of us.


Winston Churchill: Was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and one of the greatest political leaders of the twentieth century. Known for his powerful speeches it’s ironic that he had a stuttering problem and hated school and math.


Alexander Graham Bell: Well known as the inventor of the telephone and one of the founders of National Geographic Society, had dyslexia, poor grades, and a general indifference towards almost everything except science.


Thomas Edison: Patenting over 1000 inventions including the light bulb, Edison had dyslexia, difficulty with speaking and words, was considered too dumb to be in school, and hated mathematics.


George Patton: Patton was most known for leading the U.S. in World War II as an Army General. In World War I he was a senior commander of the new tank corps. He was deficient in reading throughout his whole life and had to memorize his lectures just to get by.

Worms, Birds, In-Vetro, Jiggling Belt Exercisers and Early Adopting

The early bird gets the worm – good for them but if that expression is supposed to inspire me to be an early adopter; it’s not working.

I do get excited about the champion visionaries that begin a noble project with no support, little fact but lots of passion and determination. I’m inspired by the brief tales of Columbus who “knew” the world was round or Roger Banister who believed that man could break the 4 minute mile barrier (and did) or even John Wycliffe (one of the earliest opponents of papal authority and translator of Latin scripture to English) who had a vision that every person could read the Bible in their own language. This makes me want to eat a worm or, more germane to the point, be more passion about something that I believe in even though it may not be a popular or proven “fact”.

Today I am inspired again by a name I didn’t know but who’s work everyone is familiar with, Robert G. Edwards. Everyone will recognize his work from his headline, ‘ ‘The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2010 was awarded to Robert G. Edwards "for the development of in vitro fertilization".’ http://bit.ly/dogCnZ

Edwards began his work on in vitro in the late 50’s and early 60’s. In 1977 with help from Patrick Steptoe, Edwards successfully carried out a pioneering conception which resulted in the birth of the world's first baby to be conceived by IVF, Louise Brown on 25 July 1978, in Oldham General Hospital, Greater Manchester, UK. Almost everyone has heard of in vetro (in the glass) fertilization. In the US, ART cycles started in 2006 resulted in 41,343 births (54,656 infants), which is slightly more than 1% of total US births. That means there are a lot of happy parents and “test tube babies” out there because of Edwards tenacious belief and tireless work. Some additional accomplishments include: In 2007, Edwards was ranked 26th in The Daily Telegraph's list of 100 greatest living geniuses and of course the announcement of his Noble Prize today, October 4, 2010.

There is a lot of time between the late 50”s and 2010; it made me think about tipping points and early adopting of ideas. The graphic above shows the route from nothing to something. I’ve used this graph to illustrate the life of a great idea, program, leadership initiative or just something to consider for future planning on how to plan. You can see this in play around us in companies like Apple (think adoption of iPhone), Presidential campaigns (yes we can) and even the current “overnight success” rock band, video game or social media (where you using Twitter six months, a year or two years ago?). Everett Rogers is usually linked with the genesis of early adopter thought.

The Everett Rogers Diffusion of innovations theory - for any given product category, there are five categories of product adopters:
 Innovators – venturesome, educated, multiple info sources; (2.5%)
 Early adopters – social leaders, popular, educated; (13.5%)
 Early majority – deliberate, many informal social contacts; (34%)
 Late majority – skeptical, traditional, lower socio-economic status; (34%)
 Laggards – neighbours and friends are main info sources, fear of debt; (16%)


So how does this relate to youth work, churches, non profits or families? Here are a couple of my own take aways.
1. Stack the deck – you need innovators before you can reach your early adopters. Use your leadership for early and much needed buy in.
2. Focus. Remember the light that shines the farthest shines the brightest at home. Go after strategic small groups in your sphere of influence before you start going after the masses who don’t know you or are not ready to be influenced by you just yet. Think sniper riffle not shotgun. Think laser beam not florescent light.
3. Pace yourself. Big ideas and big programs usually take more time to get out so realize that this is a process. Know on the front side you are running a marathon, not a sprint. The race belongs to the steady.
4. About half of the people are going to be late adopters at best. More than likely, they will be detractors. The good news is that you will only have between 16 and 50 of the people who will not embrace this. These are actually good odds. And there is a high likelihood that lots of late adapters will eventually come your way. See number 2.
5. Accept the fact that some will never see your way. I believe people still use typewriters, 8 track players and those things that jiggle your butt from the 1950’s that were supposed to make you lose weight.