Dangerous Churches...

Craig Groeschel posted the following earlier this week. It hit me somewhere between "gut punch" and "wake-up call."

I was talking to a guy on a plane about God. When I asked him if he went to church, he explained politely that he wasn’t interested. I asked him why he wasn’t and he said matter of factly, “Because I’ve already been and nothing happened.”

Maybe he went to a “safe” church. In a safe church:

* The message makes you feel better.
* You’re never confronted about your sin.
* No one rocks the boat.
* You don’t have to change.
* You may never truly encounter our Holy and Life-giving God.

When I read about the New Testament church, it was filled with people with a dangerous faith. While we certainly should make our environments welcoming, our message should remain dangerous.

* We’re called to leave everything to follow Christ.
* We’re invited to believe God for the impossible.
* We’re told to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us.
* We’re told that to find our life we have to lose it first.

There is nothing safe about that message. May our churches become a safe place to encounter a dangerous message.

What are some of the ways you offer a welcoming environment while presenting a dangerous message?

Criticism & Critics...

Seth Godin had a great post a few days ago about critics. Here's my take on what he had to say.

Criticism and critics. We've all experienced it and them. Whether it's a blog comment, or a person at church who criticizes us. We could get 98 positive comments and 2 negative comments, and we will still dwell on the 2 negatives. Why do we do that?

Godin says dwelling on criticism and critics is a shame: "The critics are never going to be happy with you, that's why they're critics. You might bore them by doing what they say... but that won't turn them into fans, it will merely encourage them to go criticize someone else."

Godin's words ring true. When was the last time that you turned one of your critics into a "fan"? In my experience, that rarely, if ever, happens.

But Godin takes it a step further and says that not only should we not listen to your critics, we should also not listen to our "fans."

Godin continues…

"Your fans don’t want you to change, your fans want you to maintain the essence of what you bring them but add a laundry list of features. Your fans want lower prices and more contributions, bigger portions and more frequent deliveries."

So, who should we listen to?

According to Godin, and this is his term, we should listen to our "sneezers."

We should listen to the people who tell the most people about us. Listen to the people who thrive on sharing your good works with others. If you delight these people, you grow.

I Slipped Up...

I did something the other night that I haven’t done in nearly twenty-nine years of marriage. I've been proud that I've never done it before. I'd heard about other men doing it and thought, "Wow, I'm glad I'm not that foolish and insensitive." I've seen how women react to a man who's thoughtlessly acted in this way, and I've witnessed the pain and distrust that it causes.

Men, I want to pause and ask that all of us make a serious commitment to not do this anymore. Susan has forgiven me… and I have promised to never let it happen again. But...

What's sad is that most couples never talk about this issue until after it happens... and by then it's too late because the damage has been done.

I've overheard women talking about the shame caused by men who slip up and do this despicable thing. Frankly, I'm afraid of what women are going to say about me now that I've done it.

I feel so ashamed. I was so careful for so long… but one careless moment, one self-centered second… and it can happen to you. And the pain can be devastating.

I'm so thankful that Susan has forgiven me… and I have promised her that it will never happen again.

By the way, I probably should tell you what my failure was… I left the toilet seat up.

Susan got up to go to the restroom about 2 a.m. and nearly took a plunge! (My sweetie said only her quick reflexes saved her from a swim.) I'm fairly confident her not falling in probably saved my life.

Men, we've got to put the toilet seat down! There’s no excuse for anything less than giving that little extra effort to the ones we love the most.

Happy April Fool's Day...

From Golf Team To Football Team...

Yesterday's post contained an excerpt from an interesting book I've been reading-- Church Unique by Will Mancini. This selection from Church Unique completes the thought I posted yesterday:

What the church really needs is a strategy that helps them function more like a football team than a golf team. A football team shares one score based on the coordination of highly diverse functions—there may be forty-six individuals with forty-six performance indicators, but there are not forty-six different goals. The singular goal is to get the ball into the end zone.

A strategic plan can easily divide a team by giving each player a different goalpost.

How exactly does this happen? Here is why a strategic plan with multiple goals inhibits synergy:

* Too many goals threaten to make any one goal unclear. Would we rather have 46 goals that no one remembers or one goal that forms the ever-present gauge on you “dashboard of ministry?”

* Too many goals weaken the connection between the goals and the larger vision. Do we want workers who are excited about the big picture as they go about their daily ‘bite-sized” tasks? Imagine your volunteers as brick makers. Do you want every brick maker focused on “bricks-per-hour efficiency,” brick yield loss, brick compression strength, mortar viscosity, etc., at the risk of not envisioning the beautiful cathedral they are building?

* Too many goals make it harder for people to have shared goals. How can our leaders all point in the same direction on cue, as we navigate ministry together (like the choreography of a school of fish darting through the water)? How do our goals inadvertently create competition for the same limited resources?

* Too many goals inhibit good decision-making on the front line of ministry. Do we have a lot of goals because we are trying to compensate for a lack of trust and communication? Are we releasing competent people on the front line of ministry, or are we dictating decisions from the leaders' conference room?

Time and time again, I see more goals equaling more confusion. Well-intentioned church leaders think they are building a ladder to greater achievement. What they really are building is a chute that flushes synergy down the drain.

The Silo Builder...

I've been reading Church Unique by Will Mancini. I've found it to be one of those books that substantially stretches my thinking. Here's an excerpt from Church Unique that I heavily highlighted:

Church leaders know what organizational silos look like. What defines success for staff members? The answer is, “Butts in seats in my ministry area!” Many churches use nickels and noses as the only measure for success. This primary measure of worship service attendance gets translated down into the ministry departments. The result is a golf team mentality where team success is measured by adding up individual scores at the end of the day. Quiet competition simmers underneath the calm surface of most staff meetings with individual ministries trying to “out-drive” the others.

When a strategic planning process is introduced into an environment where real teamwork is already challenged, the plan itself becomes a silo builder that reinforces the concrete walls between ministry areas. This is the second fallacy of strategic planning: the “Fallacy of Accountability.” As multiple goals are developed for each separate ministry area, the expectation is that staff and volunteers will experience better coordination, with clearer responsibilities. The false assumption behind this practice is that more goals will help people work better together. Exactly the opposite is true. More goals typically create a more fragmented approach as each leader focuses solely on their responsibilities and outcomes. In an effort to provide positive steps of accountability within ministry areas, the church misses out on synergy between all ministry areas.

Leaping Lizard...

The local news anchor in this clip has a melt-down as a result of his encounter with a leaping lizard. Warning: I watched this while drinking a Diet Coke with vanilla from Sonic and almost spewed through the nose.



Too funny!

Sitcom Map...

Some industrious person with lots of time on their hands went to the trouble of mapping the fictional location of most of America's sitcoms. See if your favorite sitcom made it to the map.