Posture and Presence

by Abraham Cremeens

Two words have been on my mind a lot lately: posture and presence. They may seem minuscule compared to other words, but they actually pack a big punch.

 

When I say presence what I mean is the idea of awareness. When I’m with a group of people am I fully present, undistracted and focused on the lives around me? Or, am I thinking about that email I neglected to respond to or my phone that is alerting me to another text just received? Full presence seems to be a lost art these days.

 

Posture is a related concept. The thought I have relates to the actions I’m taking to position myself to be fully present. Did I come ready to serve or to be served? Did I choose to leave my phone in my bag so that I could fully focus on the relationship I am connected to in that present moment?

 

I am recently hearing several voices for this concept. My favorite book in 2018 so far is called The Culture Code by Daniel Coyle. If you work with people at all, or know people at all (basically, if you are a human being), you should read this book. One study he cites relates to both posture and presence. During the Cold War between Russia and America both sides labored hard to engineer new technologies for warfare. At one point the US Military conducted a study to determine why some engineering teams were successful in achieving their goal and other teams were not. Thomas Allen, tasked to conduct the study, began his research by finding any project that had multiple teams designated with the same task. If two or three teams had been organized to pursue the same goal, then why did some succeed and others not?

 

Allen determined that the most successful teams were those with “clusters of high communicators.” But what made them that?

 

Did they possess the same levels of intelligence? Were they the same age? Had they attended the same undergraduate schools or achieved the same level of degrees? Did they possess the most experience or the best leadership skills? All these factors would seem to make sense, but Allen could find none that played a meaningful role in cohesion. Except for one. The distance between their desks (pages 69-70).

 

Did you catch that last sentence?! The best minds in the country were put in a room to work technological miracles and the key role to success was how they sat in the room. Amazing. That is posture. How we position ourselves to be fully present before God and in our relationships has significant impact.

 

Ruth Haley Barton, in her book Sacred Rhythms, says, “I cannot transform myself…What I can do is create the conditions in which spiritual transformation can take place…” That’s posture before God and being fully present with him.

 

Though this pursuit crosses both genders and all ages, I want to hone in on the men right now. There are two opportunities coming up that will help men with posture and presence. On September 14 and 15 Dr. Don Whitney will be speaking at an event near Indianapolis. We would like to take a group to this event as our Men’s Summit for 2018. You can find more information (here www.geist.org/renew) but do not register. We have already registered as a church. Whitney is a long-time sage when it comes to posturing ourselves before God. You will appreciate everything he has to say and I believe it will help us all grow in being more fully present in our relationship with him.

 

Since we realize that not everyone will be able to make this trip we are also hosting a Kossuth Men’s Breakfast in October right here in our church building (details to come). We will eat some good food but also spend quality time together in those same concepts of posture and presence in how we relate to one another and invest in one another as men.

 

We all are given one life to live. I know we all want to make the most of it. Let us be fully present in our relationship with God and our relationships with people.