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It's all about people

I have to keep reminding myself that ministry is all about people. I know that sounds horrible coming from someone in my position, but it's true, and sometimes it's not that easy to lose sight of.

I'm sitting here watching American Idol, and they just unveiled their new stage for the top 12. It's amazing. They have tons of lights and video, the band is up in a balcony behind the stage, it's insane. And the church is supposed to compete with that?!?!?

We can't! It's just not possible. They make millions and millions of dollars, so they have millions of dollars to spend on the set. And it's expected from them. Most churches don't even have hundreds of dollars to spend on a set that will only last a couple of months. I know we don't. At times, it's depressing because we want to be doing the latest and coolest things so that we're in touch with the culture around us, but we simply can't afford it.

That's yet another reason why ministry is all about the people. We can't replicate the experience they may have at a concert or watching TV, but we have something so much better, two things actually. The first thing, actually person, is obvious, Jesus Christ. We have the one person (not that Christ is a possession of our - you know what I mean). As hard as the world tries, they will never be able to replicate Jesus Christ. They will try, and try, and try to make themselves that figure in people's lives, but it's not possible. The second thing we have is community. This is something that cannot be obtained by watching a show.

If we can get people to connect with Christ and with other people, as long as our content is appealing and our approach relevant, our chances of reaching them for the Kingdom are so much better.

Ministry is all about the people.

Dangerous Leadership - Losing Money

At this very moment I'm sitting in a Christian bookstore that is owned by the church I used to work for. It's a rather large store, half of the store is a Christian bookstore, the other half is a coffee shop with free wifi (the only reason I'm here). This store moved here from another location a couple of years ago, they actually had two stored that were trimmed down to one really large store. The new store is in an old part of town, with very little foot traffic (the foot traffic is actually not the target customer for the store - they're the kind that actually need the church, not the store). This store has tons of knick knack paddy wack kind of stuff, that very few people by, and the coffee shop takes up as much retail space as the the store, thought there's almost never anyone in the coffee shop. The store is managed by a very nice, too nice lady. Not the kind of lady you want running a store if you want to make money.

Needless to say the store is losing money. It has been for many years. I know this for a fact because of my knowledge of the budget. Maybe this year it will make money, that I don't know.

I have a couple of questions. Why keep a store open that is losing the money. It's not costing the church any money at this point because the store has reserves of some sort, but when it runs out of those what will happen, will the church actually be paying to keep the store open. I'm not sure of all these details. I actually talked to the senior pastor about this subject, and he said the purpose of the store wasn't to make money (I thought that was the purpose of all stores) rather to be a resource to the community.

What would be the right thing to do? I have to solutions. Shut the store down. With the internet, most people probably by their Christian media and even knick knacks online, so business will probably never be good. The other solution, hire a store manager who's going to turn the store around and start making some hard decisions. Some people may have to be let go, others may need quite a bit of prodding. The store may need to shut down the coffee shop, or at least retake half of the space for the actual store where money could possibly be made, get rid of the knick knacks, (at least most of them) and do some research of what people are actually wanting to buy. The customer service is decent, small-townish, though there have been many times when I've had to wait quite a bit of time at the counter, with only two people in line in front of me, and three people at three cash registers.

The store is in a comfortable place, just like many churches. It's not losing a ton of money, but it's definitely not making money. It's not really moving backward, maybe a little - but it's a long way from moving forward. Too many churches are in this place, they're not losing too many people, but they're losing a few. Not enough to put the church out of business. They're definitely not reaching new people. They're not moving backward (though in business if you're not moving forward daily, you are moving backward) but they're far from moving forward.

What many churches need is some dangerous leadership. They need to hire someone who's going to come in and make some tough decisions. They need to focus once again on the customer, the new customer, not the residents. You may have to lose some people to gain more people, but if you're moving forward it will be worth it. If you're reaching more people for Christ it will be worth it. If people's lives are being changed it will be worth it.

Let's stop playing is safe and comfortable, and be in the business of Dangerous Leadership!

Spinning Plates.

There are days when I feel like all I do is keep plates spinning. I get one plate spinning well enough to spin for a little while, but then I notice that another plate is about to fall, so I've got to leave the plate I'm spinning to go keep the other plate from falling.

The unfortunate thing is that I don't have the ability to take a few plates out of my rotation. I'm not the top leader in the organization, so there have actually been some things that have been given to me against my will. It's a problem that probably everyone in the middle of an organization faces.

I don't have a great solution for this yet. I've read John Maxwell's book - 360 degree leader - and I like a lot of the principles he talks about, about leading up, across and down - but I'd like more information about how to keep the plates spinning all at the same time. I know this has to deal with time-management. But this isn't really the problem, because I'm pretty good at managing my own time. And the problem isn't that I can't say no, because I'm also pretty good at that. But other people take up my time, and I don't have the option to say no to the things that are taking my time because they've been assigned to me.

So, the point of this post. Find a way to keep em spinnin'

Time is tickin' away.

It's all about time. Almost everything in life is about time. We want more of it. We need more of it. The days are too short, the weeks are too short, the month, years and eventually our life-time is too short. We want more time with our family, more time at work, more time on vacation, more time, more time, more time.

Time is a big key to leadership. One of the keys to leading people is time. It's a great thing and an evil thing. In order to lead people you need to have influence in their lives, and in order to have influence in their lives you need to spend time with them. It doesn't just boil down to time, but time is the bottom factor. Without time with people, you will have no chance to influence them. Very few people are such good leaders that they're able to lead people without spending time with them.

So, every chance we get, we need to be spending time with people in some way shape or form. It doesn't have to be hours on end with each person you lead, but some time needs to be spent with them. If you want people to trust you as a leader, spend time with them.

For What It Is

I'm sitting here on my day off watching playhouse disney with my daughter. And one of the things that I just can't stand about playhouse disney just happened. In between their 20 minute shows they run different spots, some are educational, and there's one that's supposed to be a game, in-fact it's called "Go go gametime." The problem is that it's not really a game. The segment is about a minute long, and I'd say about 50 seconds of this spot is an advertisment for something that they're just releasing (some sort of disney product, usually on DVD) and then the last 10 seconds is a very sorry excuse for a game. Instead of calling it "go go gametime" they should call it "go go ad-time." Let's call a horse a horse. Just because you put a clown nose on a horse doesn't make it a clown.

I feel like we do the same thing sometimes with our churches. There are some cases where we advertise ourselves in our community as being a hip, relelvant church when in actuality we are not. We should not advertise a church that doesn't exist. Some churches advertise that they'll be dealing with a certain topic, usually hoping that it's relevant, but when people come, the church spends only a few minutes dealing with the topic (if at all - it's amazing how sometimes a pastor thinks he's delt with a topic, but never actually mentions it), when the actual point of a message are verses 2 & 3 of the third chapter. Some churches advertise a contemporary service, but when people come they find their definition of contemporary is very different than the churches.

Let's call a spade a spade. It would be far better if the reverse was true. Wouldn't it be far better if people came to our churches and found something far better than what was advertised? When you're looking at advertising in the near future, advertise your event for what it is.

It's been a while since I posted and a lot has changed. Thankfully God moved me on to a church where I do respect the leadership. It's been such a blessing to work there and to know that we're doing everything we can to reach people. No church is perfect, and I don't expect this church to be perfect, but I know that God is working in the lives of people and lives are being impacted and changed for eternity.

Andy Stanley says this phrase all the time, "Are you more concerned with reaching people or keeping people." As Andy is so good at, he takes a very complicated problem and turns it into a short phrase that can change the way you think.

The problem is complicated because of the implications of keeping people. Keeping people means our church will bend over backwards to keep the people we already have attending happy. It means we will do whatever it takes to not lose one member of our congregation, even if that member causes all kinds of problems and even causes others to leave. Isn't it ironic that we'll do everything to keep people, but don't realize that if we asked just one person to leave, we'd keep possibly large groups of other people from leaving. It means that to keep the people we have, we'll ignore the needs of the people we want to reach. It means that we'll do church in the style the people we already have enjoy and not change they style so that we can reach new people.

I was reminded of the importance of this principle so clearly in a coversation I had yesterday. There was a person at a church I worked at several years ago who controlled so much in the church that they intrinsically had control over the direction of the church. This isn't always a bad thing, leadership is influence after all. But in this case it was a very bad thing. Many people over the years this family was at the church left because of the family, but because they had so much control over the church they stuck around. Finally a couple of years ago a situation drove at least part of the family to leave the church. In this converation I was having, it was interesting to hear the contrast in the environment at the church now that this person is gone. Before, the church didn't feel like a living, breathing entity, but a cold and lifeless institution. Now that the person is gone, life is coming back to the body, and vibrancy is living again.

If only someone would have had the guts to ask the person to leave years ago, how many people could have been reached? Church Leaders, don't be afraid to ask people to leave your churches. It needs to be handled with care, and caution, and we must be sure that we are doing so for the good of the entire body, not individual conflict or dislike, but there are times when it needs to be done. If you have the guts to do it, God can do great things through you.

Os Guiness said something to the effect of this - never has the church tried harder to be relevant and never has the church been more irrelevant. What an amazing statement. For centruies the church has been a major influence on culture, and now the church has very little influence on culture. In-fact, culture may have more of an influence on church than vice versa.

Let's be more concerned with reaching people than keeping people. Let's be like Jesus and be willing to leave the 99 to go after the one. Let's do our best to be relevant so that people come to church and see that our churches are different than the irrelevant churches they've known in the past. If we do this maybe the church will get back to the place where it has influence on culture once again.

Over-explaining things

How many times should I have to explain the reasons behind something? Many times, about many different things, I've explained something. Then a period of time passes, and nothing happens and I bring the subject back up and I have to re-explain whatever it is again. And then nothing happens and a period of time passes, I bring up the subject again and still have to re-explain everything again. I go through all the reasons why something needs to be done and get agreement on the subject, but then nothing gets done and I have to fight for the thing again later.

In my mind, if someone talks to me about something, and I make a decision about it, that's it. I don't forget about it and not do anything, I remember the decision and I take an action. That doesn't seem to be the case here.

There are many instances I could explain, but won't. The main issue is that I'm getting sick of the lack of follow through and re-explaining things. I feel that I should be able to have one discussion with someone, and when we come to a conclusion on a given topic, that should be the solution and it should be put into place. I shouldn't have to go through the difficult discussion several time to get to the same conclusion.

So, what do I learn from this. Be a man of my word. If I say I'm going to do something do it. If I don't really intend to do it, then say that. Once I have a discussion with someone about a topic, I need to be able to remember what we decided on and take some kind of action on it.