Live a Better Story

I am embarassed that I have not updated my blog in six months, but I have made a resolution to update it on a regular basis ... whatever regular means.

I came across Donald Miller's new book, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years a few weeks ago and thought it was great. I've enjoyed his other books, but this one challenged me in a way the others didn't.

The book is Donald's reflection's on his journey as they make a movie out of his book, his life, Blue Like Jazz. He learns the elements of a good story and sees that his life on screen isn't a movie many would go see ... and sets out to live a better story.

It has really challenged me to think about my story ... is it purposeful, adventureous, connected to the overall God Story in a way that makes life, come to life? Or is it a story that in the end, "the guy gets the Volvo".

I am working to live a better story this year, and to lead my family to live a better story ... I hope you join us.

New Ideas or Better Execution

When something is not working well, a program, process, plan, what is the first thing we should do? I know in our experience the thing that we default to, is creating a new idea. Logically if something is not working, then the idea is wrong. Small groups not working ... new model, growth classes not working ... new curriculum, people not connecting ... new communication. Now don't get me wrong we need to continue to change as a church or we become institutionalized. But if you wait until something is broken, it's usually too late.

What if it is not the model, or curriculum, or communication? What if it is more of how we execute those plans. I have a friend who is a top tier consultant who has given me a phrase I think about often, "An 80% correct strategy well executed, is better than a 100% correct strategy poorly executed."

When something is not working as we would like, the first place we need to look is in the execution ... have we given this idea 100% execution -- resourcing, energy, visibility, and the hard work of following through with details, that go unseen if things are going well.

Too many times we jump to new ideas, that will lead us to exactly where we already are, because the issue isn't the idea, it is the execution.

Thoughts?

Leadership Development on the Back Burner

We all know that the most limited resource a church has is good, healthy leadership. Yet almost without exception when you look at what hasn't gotten accomplished for a quarter or for the year ... the objective you will see under the, "not completed" category is leadership development. We are struggling with this too and it makes me ask myself why is leadership development such a roller coaster ride. Here are a few of my observations on this topic:

• It is easier to develop programs than people. We move people into classes, etc. which can be helpful, but somewhere along the journey leaders develop other leaders. Who are you currently investing in?
  

• We treat leadership development as an event than an ongoing process. When it isn't urgent, we let it go, and then when we see a crisis up ahead, it becomes urgent again. Unfortunately when leadership development is only done when there are needs, people will feel more used than developed. We have to help us and those we are developing understand that leadership development is a spiritual issue ... for many their next and best step of spiritual growth.
  

• One person can't do it, it has to be in the culture. For any staff person or leader in your church one part of their job description / responsibilities needs to be leadership development and the process of replacing themselves. Expectations for developing others need to be clear, specific, and accountable. This is something we are addressing right now with a process called I3 Leadership.

• Leadership Development isn't a big splash kind of ministry. It is a slow process, it is a relationally intensive process, and it's returns are not usually immediate ... but long term are so much more significant. We can't let the tyranny of the urgent squeeze out the time it takes to develop others.

Our challenge this year is to develop 100 new leaders and to accomplish this it will take a team effort, a culture of development, and opportunities for investment. But we cannot afford to keep leadership development on the back burner anymore.

Leadership Development ideas that have worked for you? I would love to know.

Values or Sentiments?

The Spring for us is the planning, budgeting, calendaring process. We have a good process from strategic planning retreats, to innovation days, lots of templates, etc. It is an important process and an opportunity to do a strategic audit of our church. When I think of a strategic audit I think of six or seven questions to ask about where the church is headed. The first question to ask is ...

• Are the Vision and Values clear?

Clear not just on paper or in the senior leadership meetings, but in plans, budgets, and calendars. Do what we say and what we create align? If they don't what you have our sentiments, not values. Sentiments are things that make us feel good. Things that are fun to talk about, things we have aspirations of doing sometime, maybe, but not things that orient the way you do ministry.

Values are things that direct decisions, direct resources, things that you make sacrifices for. Once you operationalize a sentiment, once you orient your ministry around a set of core distinctions ... that is when a sentiment becomes a value.

One of our values is Bridge-building ... making a difference. For a number of years, it was really a sentiment ... we talked about it, did a little here and there, but most of the ongoing ministry didn't change. At a point in time it did become a value because we operationalized it. We said no to a lot of good things to simplify ministry, so people would have time to be bridge-builders. We re-aligned our staff, we re-engineered our small groups, so if you are a group at Chase Oaks now, you build a bridge together on a consistent basis. Once our sentiment was reflected in our staffing, resourcing, and ministry model, it became a value.

One thing during the planning season to ask is: Are the Vision and Values being operationalized or just talked about. Look for other audit questions in upcoming post.

Missional Community

Last weekend we held Sharefest at the church, it is my favorite day of the year. This is a day when we get all of our small groups out in the community serving with, "no strings attached." It is always a great day to help people and see new stories begin to develop by what happens on that day. What has really surprised us is the community in builds inside our groups. It is a principle that we are trying to build upon ...Focus on the mission, you will get Community. When we focus on community, good things happen, but we don't get mission. This shouldn't surprise us, as Jesus tells us if we really want to find true life, than give ours away. When we stay on mission, God stays very interested in community, when we get off mission, God gets uninterested and over time so do those who are in that community.