Yesterday I couldn’t get into my gmail account even though I knew there was mail that I needed to handle there.  Now I know why:

Official Gmail Blog: More on today’s Gmail issue.

Here are some things google did right:

Capable and empowered staff on hand to deal with the issue immediately.

Flexible infrastructure that allowed them to correct the problem without having to create a plan, purchase hardware or put together an inadequate solution.

FULL DISCLOSURE.  Not only did they handle everything, they told their patrons EVERYTHING that happened, why it happened, what they did and what they are doing.  It creates trust among those who are invested to know that they are so on top of what is going on.

I can thing of a few organizations and, er… denominations… er… task forces… that could learn something from google here.

Just sayin’.

Interesting what this evangelical pastor has to say about the church’s involvement in the political process.  All three videos = just over 20 mins…

You know that I think we need to transition American church culture into a something far more effective in engaging the world around us.

The problem most often faced in the attempt to accomplish this goal is an adherence to individual preferences by those not wishing to change.

The attitude of those desiring to be agents of change, when confronted with this obstacle, is that of disdain, convinced of our own accuracy.

It is common among those pursuing change to decry the attachments to these biases as selfish and sinful when they stand in the way of our goals.

The hypocrisy of it is that many times we are pursuing our own preferences rather than that which will be best received by those to whom we are sent; for whom we claim to lobby.

When moving a church, we need to be honest about our own preferences and be as willing to lay them aside as we expect others to be when it comes to their comforts.

What matters is what communicates.  We can’t use one mindset’s failure to communicate as leverage to replace it with another mindset that is equally unable.

It is disingenuous.  The result will be a spiralling loss of relevance that makes our current failures look tame in comparison.

While preaching last Sunday I found myself in a moment of exuberance and great love for my church. Arriving at the moment with great passion, I spouted out the statement, “The Lord willing, I intend to pastor here until I die.”

I was intending to show my affection and commitment to Skelly Drive.

Later that day a church member told me I shouldn’t say that anymore because it wasn’t safe.

“Not safe?” I inquired.

Turns out she was afraid the statement might motivate someone to hire a hit man. ;)

It would almost seem obligatory that I would post on the recent confession of moral failure by a reasonably high profile pastor.  Gary Lamb confessed to such and resigned his position this last Sunday.

I won’t write about what we should do to avoid becoming such an example.  Others have done so and I commend them to you:  Marty Duren, Geoff Surratt.

I’m not even going to comment on Gary’s situation, though I join the chorus asking for the body to pray for all involved.

I simply desire to express how vulnerable I feel at the news.  I have known for a couple of decades now that anyone is capable of anything.  Seeing this happen scares me to death.

It ought to scare us all.

We should not view such things from the position of security and, therefore, pity.  We should view such things as from the precipice and realize that we are far from secure.

Should we fail to recognize how vulnerable we are, we may likely find ourselves looking at the situation from a position that is entirely too uncomfortable.

Reframing Success: Redefining Success in Evangelism

Are we interested in sharing Christ for the sake of the other person or for ourselves?

Great question.

As reggie McNeal says, if we want to change the way we do church, we have to change the way we measure success.

Well, Skelly has officially started podcasting our sermons.  Right now we are beginning a series that will lay the foundations of transitioning from an Institutional Church to a Missional one.

In fact, though all four of the sermons currently online relate, the sermon from yesterday was called “The Missional Church” and it signified the begining of our big move that will take place over the next year.  We have been talking about why we need to change, but we are beginning to talk about what we need to do to change.

If you are interested, you can catch it on iTunes or just hit the mp3 files.

Special thanks to Aaron Steele for initiating and carrying out the technical stuff.  You’re awesome, Aaron.  Thanks.

Our responsibility as a church can be boiled down to its most simple form in this statement, “We must reach to those separated from God and disciple those for whom we are responsible.”

When we substitute similar sounding, but errant, goals, we start doing things that aren’t healthy.  For example, when we make our goal into something like, “We must grow our church,” we start doing things to get people in the building.  Not all things that get people in the building are healthy or conform to our real goal, but so many churches are built on the attractional model of “ministry” that they continue to turn out shallow disciples year after year.

When getting people in the building, in the program, in the church is our goal, we would never tell someone that they wouldn’t be happy in our church and that they should look elsewhere, but we often should.

Last year I got an email from a man moving to Tulsa from another city and was looking for a church.  He’d found our website and wanted to know about our ministry to Youth because he was an active Youth worker in his current church and was looking to get involved.

Sounds like a dream come true, right?

I emailed him back and asked him what his spiritual convictions were about worship and how a church relates to the culture of America, stating that if we weren’t a fit, I’d help him find a church that did fit his convictions.

He responded that he was a firm believer in singing hymns only and reading the King James Version only and that all other kinds of churches were just chasing culture – along with a few other things.

I thanked him for responding so candidly and explained that we were in disagreement on several issues and was confident that our church was not for him.

I had, however, done some research and found a church that seemed to agree with him on the issues he brought up and referred him to it in hopes it would meet his need.

I never heard from him again.

The point is that knowing what our actual goal is allows us to do what is healthy in terms of meeting that goal, rather than doing unhealthy things that push us toward something that is not our goal.

If you are going to be transitioning an organization, you will have at least three subgroups within that organization.  I identify them as: Inflexible, Need Driven, and Fast Movers.  Probably could come up with better names, but hey, this thing’s free, so you’ll have to live with it. ;)

The Inflexible don’t want to change.  They are happy in their current processes, whether those processes are effective or not, and they would rather keep what is familiar than to improve efficiency, even if it means the ultimate failure of the organization.

The Needs Driven are willing to go where you lead, but have legitimate needs in order for them to go.  They need to be equipped with principles, understanding of processes, motivation to experience discomfort as a price to be willingly paid for the success of the organization.

The Fast Movers are the counterpart  to the Inflexible.  They want change so badly, they are willing to force it through before the organization is ready; before anyone is equipped or motivated.  The ultimate failure of the organization is just as assured if these people are the driving force as if the Inflexible are the driving force.

The responsible leader will not allow the agenda or pace to be governed by either extreme (Inflexible or Fast Movers), even if it means alienating or losing them.  In fact, it is the epitome of naievitae to expect that everyone will come with you through a massive restructuring process.

On the other hand, you can never take lightly the committment of organizational members.  In many ways, the organization will exist because of the sacrifices made by some who are not ready for change.

It is the responsibility of leadership to help as many as possible understand that the organization will exist in the future because of sacrifices being made now by the current members. They must encourage as many as are willing to pay the price of discomfort for the future, whether the discomfort come from changing in ways they don’t completely endorse or from changing at a pace that is healthy for the whole group.

It is not that the leadership should attempt to keep the organization unified, but should recognize that it already isn’t and guide it to become so.

I had a great question asked of me yesterday concerning leadership:

Do you know the difference between Leadership and Management?

Leaders are in front setting the agenda and people are following them.  Managers are in the middle trying to hold everything together.