It’s obvious that both the introvert and extrovert can thrive in the online environment: The former being able to now express themselves more comfortably and the latter simply doing what they did in meatspace but now online.

- John Saddington

I’m an introvert… sometimes, and I’m also an extrovert… sometimes. So I suppose you could call me an inexplainabletrovert. Sorry… that was lame. Okay moving on.

I suppose my situation is typical of most people though. In the ‘meatspace’ I am an extrovert when I’m around the high school kids in my church’s youth group. I’ve been an active leader in my church’s youth group for the last decade. I’ve seen a lot of stuff. I’m at the point where I feel like I’ve heard it all and that’s a cool place for me to be because I feel that I can really help my kids when things come up. I’m not phased by some of the stuff they come to me with, which I believe allows me to jump right in and get dirty to help them through it.

So I’m an extrovert around them because I’m comfortable around them. I act completely goofy around them and many of them think I’m weird. But that’s okay. That’s what I’m going for. I do it because it puts them at ease and creates the notion that their church is a place where they can come and just be themselves. It’s really important for high school kids to have a place where they can feel safe to just be themselves. The world tells them they need to judge each other and they all get judged at school. Their church is one place they can come and just let loose. So I try to be an extrovert when it comes to the youth group.

Okay… so that was kind of a promo for our youth group… I’m not sorry. I needed to make my point. You understand.

I’m saying that because of blogging, these last two conferences I went to and my leadership role in my youth group… I’m becoming more of an extrovert. Which I like. All these people follow me on twitter. Some of them I have met in the ‘meatspace’ while some I have not. They all have their own reasons for following me… I don’t know what they are. But every time I tweet from my phone or my computer, over 400 people know what I’m up to. That sounds like an extrovert to me.

There are those that say the internet is making the human race more socially isolated. We are just changing the way we do things. I’m really sort of new at the idea of only speaking for myself but I agree with the concept and I’m going to try it for you here. I have become more aware of my surroundings and of differing opinions than my own BECAUSE of new technology.

Is it possible that blogging and social media can cause an introvert to be more extroverted in the ‘meatspace’ as well as online? Discuss…

Donald Miller left home at the age of 21, traveling across the country until he ran out of money in Portland, OR, where he lives today. He wrote the New York Times Bestseller Blue Like Jazz and started The Belmont Foundation, which is recruiting 10,000 mentors from 1,000 churches as a response to fatherlessness in America. His newest book, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years, shares how to apply the principles of writing great stories to real life.

-Story Chicago

• What are the basics of a story?
• His friend Jordan wonders if puppy poodles can be trained to fight?
• A story is a character that wants something and overcomes something to get it.
• What’s meaningful in a story and a narrative is meaningful in real life.
• Stories have an unbelievable power to engage people.
• If we took random noises and filtered it through certain principles we can make music.
• Lists of values are great but unless they’re in the context of a narrative they don’t make sense.
• That’s why the Bible is full of stories.
• The Bible doesn’t stop to explain that the five stones that David threw represent Faith hope love tithe and tithe. It doesn’t need to.
• We have this strange relationship with scripture.
• If we were to go to starbucks and discuss what’s going on in our lives… you might be talking about taking kids fishing. I might ask “what’s in it for me?” You would hate me!
• What if we look at the bible with that same mentality? What if we read the Bible and then ask “what’s in it for me?”
• What if only your life is meaningless?!
• What if you’re not sure where you’re going?
• What if you’re projecting your own reality on the world?
• It’s not just a character that tells a story… it’s a certain kind of character.
• It doesn’t take a character that never makes mistakes.
• The character has to sacrifice for themselves for the benefit of others. If the character doesn’t do that… the story doesn’t work.
• We need to make our characters save a cat halfway through the story.
• There’s a lot of depression where I live because I’m from Portland, OR and it rains there.
• Rocky is the Mother-Teresa of boxers. He fed a homeless man and took in a single mom, he adopted a dog.
• Success doesn’t tell you a very compelling story.
• A character isn’t who they feel like they are, or who they want to be, or who they wish they were… a character in a story is only what they do.
• Character actually matters. Success doesn’t matter as much as we think it does in terms of telling a beautiful story.
• If the protagonist doesn’t want something… the story doesn’t work.
• Someone has to say I need to take this ring and throw it into the lake of fire in the temple of doom before darth vader gets to the death star.
• In terms of creating a compelling story… we should want more. We should want a lot more. It’s just that we don’t really know what we want.
• The stuff we want is actually what our story is about.
• We’re bombarded with over 3,000 advertisements per day. 3,000 times a day your story is being tricked…
• What do I teach a kid who’s growing up without a dad? I grew up with out a dad. What do I teach them? How to be bitter?
• We hear in church that there’s not supposed to be conflict. What does it mean that we were designed to be the person God designed us to be.
• Who God designed you to be is a guy who walks around naked and doesn’t know it. I don’t want you to be who God designed you to be!
• Conflict is here to stay.
• There was conflict before the fall of man!
• God intended for there to be conflict in paradise.
• Genesis 2 – Adam couldn’t find a mate suitable, and Adam was lonely. Adam is experiencing something that he does not want to experience.
• Instead of giving Adam, Eve, God told Adam to name all the animals. That’s potentially a long project.
• Adam doesn’t know what he wants because Eve hasn’t been created yet.
• The only way we become a better person is through pain.
• Even the pain that comes from the fall of man, which God isn’t happy about… there’s a blessing to it.
• The reason the Incas would make people take the long journey over the mountains… is because if they didn’t, they wouldn’t appreciate the city once they got there.
• If there were a movement of Christians that had a compelling attitude towards conflict… they would change the world.
• There’s this darkness in the world and we want for it to be over.
• The desire for a climatic action… where all the conflict is resolved in one single action.
• There is no climax in life.
• Throughout human history there has always been this desire that the conflict would go away… and it doesn’t.
• We’re taught that the conflict goes away through Jesus. – What is that?
• Raise your hand if you would consider yourself a Christian. Now keep it up if you’ve never had a bad day since.
• The act three climax takes place at the wedding feast of the lamb. When we die and we finally meet Christ.
• The number one way Americans consume stories isn’t through TV or books or movies… it’s through each other.

[Image by: Collide Magazine]

Mike Foster is the founder of Ethur, which develops projects that promote spiritual and social change. His projects include the Junky Car Club, XXXchurch, Deadly Viper, and People of the Second Chance. He is the co-author of Deadly Viper Character Assassins and blogs daily at DeadlyViper.org. He currently lives in Southern California with his wife Jennifer and their two children, Jackson and Taylor.

• Deadly Viper Character Assassins
• The book is about our struggle and the things that are bringing us down in our lives.
• Taking radical integrity and marrying it to radical grace
• We’re all cheerleaders of radical integrity in our churches and ministries that we lead.
• Radical grace is the key linchpin… the thing that drives change within us.
• We sensor our stories when we only talk about success.
• We’re good about talking about the brokenness in the world but we’re sometimes afraid to talk about the brokenness in ourselves.
• The story we learn is to hide and isolate and pretend…
• My “junk” is gonna come out, and I can either embrace it and control it or it’ll just come out uncontrolled and in a very bad way.
• We celebrate with each other’s successes but we identify with each other’s failures.
• The struggle of now is more important than things that happened 10 years ago.
• Second chances… that’s what it’s all about
• Mike trusts his friend Judd because he’s a broken person. Judd trusts Mike because he knows Mike can keep a secret.
• We’ve got to be able to trust each other and the only way to do that is to see each other’s limp.
• We don’t connect with leaders who are projecting success all the time.
• The idea of having the perfect pastor/leader is going to the wayside.
• We sometimes connect with other’s pain.
• The enemy tells us to be scared and fearful of our pain.
• God tells us that it’s all about our pain and failure… and somehow we’re not getting that.
• One of the greatest tools of the enemy is isolation and the thought that you’re the only one.
• Crack that door… and find someone whom you really trust and let them in.
• If we would allow our canvas of brokenness… what a beautiful piece of art and beauty that he would create!
• The idea of grace, gospel, and restoration is what it’s all about.
• If you’re wondering if God could ever use you again… because you’re so broken… know that the answer is “Absolutely Freekin Yes!”
• “I encourage you to let God to come and heal you. God wants to take the pieces of you and put them back together… that’s what he does.”
• When we trust God and we get some bros around us… there’s nothing we can’t do.”
• This is where we move from not just being redeemed… but to God restoring.

[Image by: storychicago]