Christian Christmas Gluttony

Read more! People are worried about everything right now: the economy, their job, unemployment rates, the president-elect, terrorists, the war...the list goes on and on. As Christians, we have the only hope in what seems like a very dark time. We have the gospel. Soon we will celebrate Jesus’ coming to earth as a baby. This is one of the top events in history. It’s second only to his resurrection following the crucifixion… 

So what do we do with this information? Do we turn it into an elaborate musical in the form of a singing Christmas tree? Do we modify a timeless piece of literature into Christian form and present it as theater? Are we targeting Christians and their families or are we giving hope to the world? Are we stuffing our proverbial Christian mouths with banquets of Christian-served messages or serving up fresh bread for the lost in our community? What are we doing for “them?” As hundreds or thousands of additional people pour into churches across this nation this holiday season, are we doing the best we can to be a light in this dark world? Ask yourself, are we internally- or externally-focused?

So Pastor, are you happy that your attendance spiked for a few Sunday mornings? Are you satisfied that you got a couple of dozen salvation cards filled out? Does it excite you that triple-your-normal-attendance attended a Christmas musical/cantata/play? While I’m sure it was great and several people gushed over how great it was, the question you need to ask is this…what else could you have done with those resources to impact your community. The very community that is worried, worried, worried.

Perhaps it’s too late to do something this year. Next year will be just as bad, if not worse. While we need to continue to help the current attending Christians to mature in their walk, the need for the church across the nation outside of its walls has never been greater. People are begging for answers…and we have them. In a resource-constrained environment, there isn’t reserve for self-serving actions and events. Too many are worrying about what’s going to happen in 2009 and we have the answer.

You decide the future

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It's a new day.  What's done is done.  The only important thing is what we do today for tomorrow.  Erase traditions.  Erase expectations.  Erase history.  Every morning we all have a new slate.  We get up with a new attitude, a new to-do list, a new opportunity to do the right thing.  But how many fall right into the past and start repeating what they've done day after day after day?  How many are happy with that?  How many expect something different?  Unless we do something different, things will stay the same.  As a matter of fact, the world is continually changing around us.  If we perform the same this year as we did last year our relative performance is less as people around us have improved.

What would the world’s best person in your field do today if he moved into your position?  Why?  What’s keeping you from doing the same?

“It’s complicated.” 

“You don’t understand.”

“It’s not that easy.”

“It just doesn’t work that way.”

I know. I’ve heard it all.  But truthfully, under the surface it’s just an excuse to not do what’s right.

However, the people that I have seen stand out are the ones make a difference despite the excuse list. Consequently, they are the ones that are rewarded—more opportunities, expanded roles, greater impact.  Tomorrow morning you get up with a fresh page in life.  Are you going to make the right choices and increase your impact or make the wrong choices and fade into nothingness?  It’s your choice.

Barack Obama – Our Next President

Read more! I grabbed my title directly from barackobama.net. Conservatives are enraged about the possibility of Obama being elected as the next President of the United States. This liberal, special-interest-group supporter has been called the anti-Christ, an Arab, a terrorist and more. Will he be elected? Most likely. Will Christians be shocked and appalled? Certainly. Are we headed to hell as a nation? Maybe. I can hear it now. “It’s terrible!” “I can’t believe it!” “I won’t accept it.” “We’re doomed!” Maybe we are. Maybe we’re awakening the sleeping giant of the church. I didn't vote for him.  But others will.  Who should we blame when he is inaugurated in January?… 

Who has allowed themselves to be a non-player in the culture by separating and distancing themselves from all immoral issues with demonstrations, marches, picketing and boycotts? Who has single-handedly deleted the most important attribute of all—love—from their vocabulary and instead replaced it with judgment? Who has either watched silently from the sidelines or grossly protested when people didn’t care.

We call ourselves a Christian nation, but there is very little about us that remains true to the biblical standards of Christianity. Are we perfect? No. Are we trying to “be like Christ?” When John McCain and his right-wing VP candidate and fellow A/Ger Sarah Palin lose next Tues, it’s not going to be the government that turns this nation around. The responsibility lies squarely with us. Don’t point fingers at those who voted for Obama. Let’s look squarely in the mirror and reflect at what we could have done and should still do.  

Americans want change. The last eight years have been very hard on us. We need change. We want hope. We need hope. We have the answer. It’s not Obama or McCain, it’s the gospel message of Jesus Christ—his deep love for us that guided him to die for our sins. It’s that love that we need to take to others—others that are hurting and scared. Global recession. Epidemics. Natural disasters. Where can they find hope except in God? The next four to eight years will require an even stronger church to battle the footholds the devil will try to construct and build on. 

We have to love and pray. Fasting and prayer stimulates Holy Spirit activity. We can’t isolate ourselves from the community, from the government, from the culture. We have to be involved. We have to serve others. We have to love the unlovable. It’s what Obama’s doing. Surely we can do it.  And if he isn't elected, that doesn't mean we don't have to change.

The Bariatric Church

Read more! Bariatric in the medical community refers to weight loss, but frequently includes the informal definition of large patients. I would argue that we have a bariatric church. We're fat and lazy and not doing the "exercise" we should.  For some have been called to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists and some pastors and teachers. Go and make disciples. The head of the church is Christ. The evidence the Spirit in your life is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, faithfulness, goodness & self-control. The church is the body of Christ.

I ask this question…does the church look like this... Operate like this? Perhaps in some instances bits and pieces exist in various locations but not near anything on a state or national scale. I know there are exceptions and excuses. I’m sure they’re very similar to the ones I hear from business leaders of billion dollar businesses that are struggling but they’re too proud to admit they need help or that something’s wrong.

The pastoral gift was never to “lead” the church yet I have pastors frequently tell me that anyone who is not a pastor should never tell a pastor what to do. Many “pastors” don’t have the call to be a shepherd, they are evangelists itinerating in one location in one community. Apostles are virtually non-existent and prophets are rarely taken seriously. Discipleship happens in an annoying boring, repetitively scheduled 9 am Sunday school classroom and worship service sanctuary with material that is often old and stale and is open to all who happen to visit. Love is usually saved for those who fit the mold. Self-control? How many overweight, out-of-shape pastors are out there that brag about how much they love food? Joy and gentleness? Rare.

The body of Christ needs a Biggest Loser, Nip/Tuck overhaul. The current body is sadly unhealthy. Will the current one continue? Sure. Should it? Probably. But the effective church of tomorrow will look extremely different than today’s. But, I’m not just complaining. I am dedicating my life to the discovery and implementation of that new model. Do you want to be a part of it?

Poor Shepherding

Read more! Synergy. Paradigm. Innovative. Blah, blah, blah or real words used with success or failure? It depends on where you stand. If you lack synergy, it’s most likely a failure. If you shifted paradigms, it’s probably positive. If you were innovative but lacked a market, you may have bombed.
Based on the conversations I had last week concerning various pastors, I would make this statement. Due to its lack of innovative processes and its failure to capitalize on the inherent synergies in the fellowship, the A/G lacked the ability to shift paradigms from the church of yesterday to the church of today and are therefore becoming an irrelevant force in culture today…at least in the district I had the conversations with. Why? In Zechariah 11:16-17, God tells the prophet that “…a shepherd who will not care for those who are dying, nor look after the young, nor heal the injured, nor feed the healthy. Instead, this shepherd will eat the meat of the fattest sheep and tear off their hooves. ‘What sorrow awaits this worthless shepherd who abandons the flock! The sword will cut his arm and pierce his right eye. His arm will become useless, and his right eye completely blind’.”
I heard multiple examples of the sheer independency, the spirit of self-righteousness and a general feeling of “I know what’s right” at the expense of church attendees and moral “failees.” Pastor means shepherd…these pastors are just like the ones mentioned in the verse above.
I must speak on this. If I ever felt a Pharisitical spirit presence in the church, I feel it in the fellowship now. When the time comes that every pastor thinks he knows more about leading a church than anyone else, when he thinks he is above reproach and when there is no development of leaders in his church, something is seriously wrong. You may have a M-Div, but if you’re proud and jealous, who cares what you learned. I’ll take an 8-year-old inner city boy who shares Jesus with his friends at the playground over someone with a degree from a seminary who behaves like that.
If we are ever to make an impact in today’s culture, we can’t run around with our own agendas and methods, disregarding all else as trash. We have to leverage each other’s best practices. The best continue to learn, not push away.
Check your spirit and ask yourself which describes you. You may need to repent and start fresh. For the broken sheep, you need to. God’s counting on it.

His, Not Ours

Read more! Many times we have proudly proclaimed “Everything we own is God’s.” It’s his house, his car, his talents…his church. But do our actions really reflect it? What do we do when our car door gets a ding in the parking lot or when a houseguest spills grape juice on our new living room carpet? Similarly with our church, we have a tendency to be defensive regarding traditions, methods and style. It’s easy to think that we’re unique and there is a standard solution. More often than not, it’s that we think it’s our church and we’ll do things because that’s the way we like it. When that happens, is it really God’s... church?

My last blog was proclaimed the end of the megachurch was coming. Instead, gigachurches would arise. I don’t mean that Big 10 stadiums that were filled with 100k+ painted college football fans on Saturday would be filled with the same number of screaming church attendees on Sunday. That would be nice, but highly unlikely. Even in the height of its movement, Promise Keepers couldn’t achieve that. Yes, churches of over 100,000 will rise, but it will be a product of networks.

I work for a conglomerate that has almost $200 billion in annual sales and employs over 300,000 employees around the globe. The “small” business unit I am in has $20B in annual revenue and over 40k employees. That business unit is split further into segments, ranging in size from $10 million to $2 billion. For instance, you could wrestle with how the engineering should be organized. Should each product line have it’s own engineering team? Should there be one massive engineering organization? For each to have it’s team results in duplication of skill sets and the loss of economies of scale. The one big unit means that small projects could be pushed aside. The answer lies somewhere in between.

When there are tiny pockets of control, you can’t leverage the latent knowledge of the entire organization. As a result, many solutions are developed for problems that have already been solved by someone else. It’s a complete waste of time and energy. You don’t have 20 Chief Financial Officers, 20 Chief Marketing Officers, 20 Chief Technology Officers and so on. You have one of each. The entire organization works together to deliver successful products, they focus on winning with the customer and the business wins.

What would a networked gigachurch look like? Not 20 different messages, 20 different worship services, 20 different boards and so on. Is it poly-site? Maybe. Is it multi-site? Maybe. One thing is for sure…the local staff focuses on the community and the church wins.

Is it your church or his church? If it’s his church, maybe not everything has to be your way or even have you involved in everything. There might even be some things you can partner with and do with others to remove duplicate efforts and money. Who knows? Maybe more lives will be changed.

The end of the megachurch era

Read more! Making disciples is what we should be about. Disciples are made at all levels—from new converts to mature ministry leaders. Our churches should reflect this in who is coming through. We must grow to continue to develop people at all levels. We can’t continue to be inward focused and expect Christian neophytes to pour in the door. The lost are outside and we need to be there for them. The question we need to ask is this, “Is the church in the community or for the community?” We must be for the community. The pastoral staff needs to be focused on caring for the community, not writing bills or prepping a room for service. Lay leaders will fill in by hosting small groups that foster relationships and grow with each other in their walk with God. We need a new model. The current one is broken. As such, I predict both the church and the megachurch trends are coming to an end…
According to Hartford Institute, the definition of a megachurch is “any Protestant congregation with a sustained average weekly attendance of 2000 persons or more in its worship services.” Despite having over 1,200 megachurches in the U.S., we will soon be ending the era of the megachurch. In its place will come something far more exciting—the gigachurch or the terachurch. The largest megachurch in America claims 40k+ attendees. Sure megachurches will continue to exist but gigachurches will become the most influential Christian organizations. This next era will have several churches with over 100,000 attendees—networked over large geographical areas and sharing many resources to leverage synergistic opportunities that prevent the reinvention of the wheel and allow the local “pastor” to focus on being a shepherd to the community.

What can you do to be a part of this next movement to make disciples? Let's take our influence to new levels. Forget mega, think giga!!! Do you want to be a part of it? You can. Stay tuned.

Time to start your personal revolution

Read more! Labor Day closes and four months remain in 2008. There will be an election. We will see several more hurricanes. Gas prices will fluctuate. But none of that matters 10,000 years from now. What does matter is how many new converts there will be.
If you were to design something to reach your community, ... what would it look like? Who would you involve? What would it feel like? School has started and 2009 is right around the corner. How can we wrap the year up with a big win for the church? Stop thinking the next Sunday school lesson and let’s think of the next metamorphosis of your city.
Spend some time with like-minded leaders and dream of something big. Let God talk to you during your quiet time. He’ll tell you what to do…and most likely he’ll confirm it through someone else. Don’t take baby steps. God rewards faith. God rewards preparation. God rewards authenticity. God rewards those who do what he says no matter what obstacles man has put in front of them. Forget the mistakes of the past. Forget the times you’ve failed. Forget the hurts from those who have let you down and those who have stabbed you in the back. Let God speak and work powerfully through you.
You know what’s in your heart. You know what God has called you to do. Don’t let the years of pressure and disappointment get to you. Decide now to start fresh and make a real difference. Spend some serious time seeking his face. Fast and pray. Spend quality time in the word letting God speak to you through his love letter to us.
I know this is the most spiritual of my entries. There isn’t a big strategic intent. There is an assembly of talent or a massive display of transformation. It starts with you…and God. Read your Bible, pray every day and you’ll grow, grow, grow. He wants change and he wants you to lead it, but you have to listen to what he’s saying. Set aside time this week or next week to discover or rekindle what it is.
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Donkey of Change

Read more! The feedback for this blog has returned in droves. I would like to share my comments after reading them. I see two types of pastors: those who are growing and those who dying. The dying have politely, and sometimes not so politely, rejected the call for change. I have been called a bigot, a disgruntled attendee and been referred to as an outsider who has no “business giving advice to a pastor.” While I hurt for the dying pastors who have turned a deaf ear, I cannot placate them by changing the burning within me that calls for a revolution in the church and a radical changing of methods to reach our communities. I will focus my energies on those who have responded with liking it, being inspired by it and for those who said “I resonate with your heart.” More... I have a crystal-clear vision for the readers of this blog and it’s not to pacify the dying. It’s to feed the growing. For those that return regularly, I love that you are here, week after week, checking in on the latest. This is not an easy message to hear, nor is it an easy one to execute. Change is difficult. Leading change is more difficult. Positively growing through change is the most difficult. This blog is for you leaders who are willing to take the challenge to lead transformation at your church—to be an example for the rest of America on how effective churches can operate. You are the growing. You are the leaders God will smile on when he welcomes his “good and faithful servants” into heaven.

I get nothing from this blog. I am not paid. I don’t receive royalties. I don’t have to write. I do it because I’m passionate about changing the church. I understand that I am an unknown right now and there is no human reason to listen to me for advice. For those I humbly ask you to let the Spirit be your check. We know God couldn’t get Balaam to listen so he used a donkey. Moses got a burning bush. Gideon needed confirmation from a fleece…twice. I’m not a pastor but I have been called to be a voice to pastors.

We who represent the growth people know that the church is not doing an effective job. You can defy that and redefine impact. You can separate from the mire of mediocre performance and shine as an example to other leaders. You exist to be a leader for the spiritual growth in your community, not an internally focused, salaried, Sunday-morning preacher.

My message may seem tough but it’s to help, not to hurt. I’m here for more than blogging. I am willing to brainstorm solutions with you and/or your leadership team. I can coach you through the changes as you implement them. I offer situational guidance for those who want it. Let’s lead positive change because we continue to become more ineffective without it.

1000 things pulling your time?

Read more! “I have no time.” In today’s culture, we all say this. Since we are unable to get more time, how do we get more done with what we have? The answer is actually very simple. Of course, the transfer to execution is a little more difficult. To help you to be more effective with your time, I want to share with you practical steps that have allowed me to transition from a crazed, frenzied state to tranquility while not sacrificing anything in output...

Only do what is important
It’s not your job to do everything. You can’t do everything. God doesn’t expect you to do everything. Just as Moses’ father-in-law Jethro counseled him to have others do the smaller tasks, you must delegate the smaller activities to others. This is the single biggest thing you can do to free up your time. Stop doing things that others can do. Find someone who can do something at least 80% as good as you and give them the tasks. If you can’t find anyone, you probably have control issues. Trust me, they do exist. Find them.

Keep a calendar
Whether you use a PDA or smart phone, an Excel spreadsheet, MS Outlook or a simple paper-based planner—write down everything you have to do. Prioritize your quiet time with God first, your family time next, follow with your physical activity and your services and regular meetings. Fill in the rest with other scheduled meetings. Pencil in large blocks of thinking time.

Schedule reflection time
This is so critical! You need time to think so you can reflect, plan and strategize. If you’re running 100 mph, you need time alone time. This should be a continuation of your quiet time with God but not necessarily a full prayer time. Meditate on your upcoming activities and your performance on past activities.

Prioritize
Don’t work on the small stuff when you have the big stuff still looming over your head. Do the important things first and fill in with the smaller, less important activities. That way if something comes up, nothing big will fall through the cracks. Stop quitting what you’re working on to check email, contact the secretary or take a call. Spend solid chunks of time without interruptions, starting with the most important.

Communicate to others
Let others know you are committed to cleaning up your time schedule. Tell them what activities you won’t be doing in the future. Let them know what to expect concerning the number of emails and phone calls you will read or answer. Make sure those that have been given additional responsibility have what they need to succeed.

One hundred sixty-eight hours a week. That’s all we get. If you feel like you’re drowning, you probably are. Free up your time with some of these proven principles. Decide now what you can do to help yourself and ultimately help others.
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