Powertrip

Headlines like these are all over national and local media news. It happened here in Dallas, so both the public reaction and local commentary have been strong. For a couple of opinionated articles, click here or here. The video clips are there. Simple recap: A young police officer chases down Ryan Moats, NFL player who ran a red light with his emergency flashers on to get to the hospital. His wife and other family members were in the car, and they were making a visit in haste to see Moat’s wife’s mother, who was moments from her death. The police officer, on some sort of powertrip, refused to acknowledge his humanity and decided to stick to the letter of the law. He made Mr. Moats wait outside, arguing him into submission, while he wrote him a traffic violation and caused him to miss the passing of his mother-in-law. Talk about heartless. Here’s a transcript of the high points in the conversation:

One of the saddest moments of this whole story is that this young police officer didn’t believe he did anything wrong after being forced to watch the video replay with his superiors. He didn’t see a problem with his actions.

Which begs the question: what is the purpose of the police force?

this is why I’m a failure

The following is a picture I took in the hallway of our seminary building. Every day, someone gets paid to change these signs. It’s a part of their job responsibility to make sure that the classroom assignments are posted clearly, not just on this one sign but on several boards near entryways around the facility. Observe:

It’s Wednesday. We started classes a week ago. We’ve been in this same classroom since Monday (we changed classes halfway through), and we knew that we’d be here everyday. There was no doubt in anyone’s mind in our class that we would be in Room 260 for the duration.

I say: Then why is the sign still up?

And that is the perfect metaphor for why I suck at ministry.

Now, I don’t really want to think I suck at ministry, but I’m saying that there are some things I don’t do as well as others. Caring about the professional nature of things like signs is something I regularly neglect. 

Not sure why, I guess it’s just not the way I’m wired. I would have, 100% without question, have stopped putting that sign up after day 1. 

But someone gets paid to put that sign up. And someone, or multiple someones, cares deeply that the signs are all hung correctly and in a timely manner. 

And part of me really, really wants to say “who cares about the sign?” But the sign may be important. Communication is important because it can facilitate belonging. It can help people connect much more seamlessly than if there was no sign. 

I want to confess that I’m trying. I want to be better at remembering the details, at doing all things well (big & small). Truth be told, the more I thought about that sign the more it reminded me about what I’m passionate about vs. what I’m not passionate about.

I’m passionate about learning and about people and about growth, but not always about details. But details are important, and someone has to take care of them. The beautiful thing is that the team I work with is structured to help us lead from our strengths and help each other cover our weaknesses. This is why I love my job, my team, and ministry. 

Thank you, friends, for helping a failure succeed.

Change the Culture?

This morning I took part in a classroom chat for one of our spring classes, “Culture & Systems Change.” 

We were joined by our professor, Joseph Myers (Organic Community and The Search to Belong), and had some good conversations about Growth, Leadership, and Organization. On the ride home from Starbucks, where I parked myself for the duration of the 1-hour chat, I had some thoughts concerning culture and systems change in churches and ministries. 

• Can a specific ministry (like an age-based ministry) within a larger, multi-generational church have its own distinct culture? Or perhaps it may be more helpful to ask if an age-related ministry that sits within a broader church context can stray more than a certain degree from the culture & character of the larger church? Simply speaking, I’m asking if (for example) an entire church can be defined by a few things (traditional, liberal theology, top-down leadership, whatever) and then (let’s say) the college ministry be defined by completely different things (über-trendy, conservative theology, organic approach)? 
• Are we naive? A lot of my ministry colleagues (and, to be fair, me too) are spending a lot of time reading and discussing the concepts of Organic leadership (as opposed to top-down leadership). But in the church dichotomy of paid staff and lay leaders, are we expecting too much from lay people? Are our heads in the sand and we’re dreaming of ministry where every lay person thinks like a full-time church staff does?
• I want our young adults to be empowered. I want them to think and live missionally. I want them to be creative, to lead, and to experiment with being like Jesus. This is what we’re working towards. But do they, sometimes, just want to come and belong? And is that ok? Does creating a “come and belong” mentality betray the “missional living” mentality?

Much to think about. I intentionally didn’t answer the questions…because I don’t have the answers. We had a good conversation interspersed with some lively jabs. I liked it. And even though we never brought up the topic of “Culture & Systems Change,” I hope you can clearly see that it’s exactly what we explored.

a vision of failure & hope

Yesterday I wore a hat to a Sunday morning church service.

As well as I can remember, it was the first time ever.

I’m usually self-conscious about stuff like that. Not because I have a problem with hats in a church building, but rather because I don’t want to offend someone in our multi-generational congregation. Because the 5 services we have on Sunday morning bring a confluence of cultures, I’ve generally decided to play it “safe” and dress “Southern-church-boy-neutral,” which means nice pants (and perhaps, occasionally, nice jeans) and a button up or polo. 

So now you know. I’m done playing games. I’m not setting out to offend anybody, but I am going to be myself. And if that means wearing a trendy hat with my jeans and polo, that’s what it means. 

I’m done playing games. I’m done playing church. I thought I was done a few years ago, but I may have been lying to myself (and you). But no more. No more games, no more pandering, no more Pansy.

I want to love our people. 
I want to be passionate.
I want to be competitive. When I played sports, I took a challenge personally. Now I just get self-conscious.
I want to recommit to follow Jesus. Daily.

Here’s where my soul is changing:

-Our competition is not other churches. I’ve only been in Dallas 6 months and somehow I’ve allowed myself to fall prey to this Southern, “Christian” culture. I’ve spent 6 months stressing (not always overtly) about how we’re going to “beat” other churches in the area. It’s amazing how fast I stopped being myself and succumbed to this….crap…..

-We can’t be afraid of failure of conflict. I’m going to stop stressing over what I can’t control. We need to start seeking Jesus and working towards creating the future we need to become. We need the Holy Spirit’s power. There’s going to be conflict, and opposition, and hard times. Change is never easy. Change means going back down the mountain and fighting through the valley and working your butt off to go up another mountain. Securing our position on the same mountain or climbing higher will just lead to the same old stuff. I will stop backing down unnecessarily. 

-Change is coming. Amen? 
We need the power of the Holy Spirit. If we can give ourself to Jesus and let the Spirit guide us, then we’ll emerge & organize the right way: naturally & on our own (organically). We need to stop talking about how to “do ministry” better and start talking about how we can follow Jesus better (or live better lives). Structure must come later. We need to be better leaders who strengthen others and network better. We need more connections and even more, we need those connections to be growing in strength. 

Will you join me?

the (r)evolution of ministry: nontraditional & chaotic!

I’ve been reading Surfing the Edge of Chaos for GFES. Last night I had to write about some of the takeaways I have from this business book as it applies to leadership and organization within the body of Christ (ecclesia). 

Here’s my takeaways so far:

Chaos has undoubtedly been transformational. However, it’s also been very confusing…. and not confusing as in “this doesn’t make sense,” but confusing in the way that I’m struggling with how it applies to ministry. The beauty is in the “ah ha” moments that usually accompany a good illustration or metaphor. 

After reading “The Starfish & the Spider” this summer, I’ve been in a serious wrestling match with what decentralized ministry looks like. Even though Chaos isn’t about ministry, I think it’s given me some answers when thinking about how leadership works within the body of Christ.


First, the idea of a ‘strange attractor’ has to be present. There needs to be something oddly attractive and incredibly magnet about the endeavor we’re undertaking (and not just about “us”). It’s not about us being magnetic, it’s about the thing we’re passionate about. We have to be painting a picture that’s both urgently and practically present yet futuristically visional. 



Second, related to the first, is that we must vividly and accurately paint ‘the General’s intent.’ Borrowing from Patton, we have to be giving an ever clear picture of what it is we want people to do and teach them that we trust their abilities & ingenuity. In this age of technology, the Army is equipping soldiers to be stronger and smarter leaders and decision makers on the field of battle, able to adapt and react in realtime. 

Third, obviously related to the second, we must help people become better leaders and decision makers. This means we’re strengthening our nodes and multiplying our nodes. The nodes are all the connection points we have, and we need as many strong and useable connections as possible.

In short, we need our people to be better leaders and not just strive to fill better positions in ministry. We need to call them to something passionate and unattainable without the help of God. And more than just telling them we trust them to carry it out, we need to find tangible ways of showing them we trust them. If there is one problem with the majority of our churches, it’s that we preach “everyone a minister” or “everyone an evangelist” but haven’t found modes of church that convey that practically.

We can’t expect our people to be “like Jesus where they live, work, & play” (our mission statement for young adults) without strengthening them both in the way of Jesus and in their engagement where they live, work, & play. 

We must put values and leadership development before structure. Structure can and needs to happen, but it must follow and follow with integrity. The horse must precede the cart, and the horse must be that strong, passionate code of living and growth that we should be embodying as a fellowship of believers.

Struggling on the Inside

For those of you in ministry or deeply committed to church,

Do you ever feel this internal struggle between the path the church is on and the thing it needs to become to stay relevant and effective?

“Church as usual” is still the norm, especially here in good ol’ Dallas. For all the talk about “church is the people, not the building,” I feel like we’re often still talking about church primarily as an institution. 

When someone comes and says “the church should be providing a place for me to connect with other people like me,” or “the church should be helping me figure out finances,” what are they talking about? Who is this magical entity and how can I get on the gravy train? Right? Because if the church could provide the circumstances for me to win the lottery, I’m all over that…
Maybe we should all watch the King of the Hill episode where Hank Hill goes church shopping and lament over the times when we say or think about what the church should be doing for us.

It’s becoming clearer and clearer that to be able to connect (in a realistic way) with an apathetic and uninterested world we must learn to be the people of God among the world, completely selfless and giving. Not the people of God patting ourselves on the back or just in our buildings. The problem is that we constantly have to choose:

A. We’re going to pour our resources into getting our people on mission, and those who don’t want to get on mission will either have to check themselves or they’ll have to find somewhere else….; or
B. We’ll constantly be asking what we can do to keep those inside our walls coming back and happy.

One of those choices will lead to security–the other, not necessarily.  

In a lot of ways it means that we need to resource mission, not the system. Do people need help with their finances? Absolutely. But we, as brothers and sisters in Christ, should take that burden upon ourselves and not annex it to an institutional program. We have to learn this, no matter how painful it is–for every dollar and minute we sink into institutional programs in the 21st century, we’re hampering our ability to do mission. It may not have been true 20 or 40 years ago, but it is quickly becoming the reality we must face. 

This is a new day, a new culture, and a new challenge for the people of God. It will not be safe and secure, and it won’t always be pleasant. This evolving approach to ministry could cost me my job one day. If we evolve ministry to the place where church staff can be cut back and lay leaders truly empowered, I will gladly clean out my desk and start rearranging the future of my career.

What’s your Flywheel?

Do you know what this is?

It’s a Spinning Wheel. 

It’s also what my boss, Laura (the director of Young Adult ministry), brought in today as an illustration for our Young Adult Community/Ministry. Let me break it down for you, for it is GENIUS.

That really big wheel is called the Flywheel. It’s the major component of the Spinning wheel, the part that all other parts work hard to make work well. And when it works well, it produces fabric using thread. It has several working parts, most noticeably the foot-pedal at the bottom.

So check this:
-the working parts all contribute to the Flywheel’s successfulness.
-when working in harmony, the Flywheel is incredibly efficient at producing the proper product.
-the Spinning Wheel takes something raw and single, then it weaves it into something connected and beautiful.  

 The question on Laura’s mind: What’s our Flywheel?

What’s that one component to our ministry that’s most essential to helping us do our mission (being Jesus where we live, work, and play)? What’s that one component that all other components resource and move? What’s that component that the pedal (leadership: lay and paid) pours everything into making it work efficiently and successfully?

What’s your Flywheel?

The sermon is the sermon

In our “Missional Leadership” class I’ve been forced to deal this past week with how “the medium is the message” deals with Christendom + a fluid culture. We had to answer a question concerning which mediums speak loudest to the culture as they interact (even if it’s in a limited fashion) with your church. Our church is no different than most churches in Dallas, and that means two things: the sermon and the building. Here are some thoughts from my conversation:

What this forces me to evaluate, as a missional leader, is the role of the sermon. There are several sources (like Mars Hill Michigan and Mars Hill Seattle) who have missionally appropriate churches that really put their eggs in the sermon basket. Then there are communities who do great missional work that have abandoned the typical sermon experience (Solomon’s Porch, Missio Dei, ReImagine). I think we have to be quick not to throw the baby out with the bath water—Andy Sikora reminded me this week that he himself listens to sermons all the time on his Ipod, and countless others listen to podcasts, so the monologue obviously isn’t just to be abandoned in our culture. 



The struggle comes with setting the mediums of sermons and buildings in their proper place. I think we’re attempting to explore it in healthy ways in my current setting, but I won’t wax eloquent as if we have the solution to this stuff. Primarily I think we have to stop committing to the sermon and stop committing to the building.

 What I mean is that these things are valuable; however, if we’re going to change their “roles” in our churches then we, as church leaders, have to have greater commitments to things we actually want to see become the center. We can still use buildings (here I had a good conversation with Faith Carter about their mega-church’s building) and sermons to support our mission. The problem has ultimately been that the building and the sermon have become ends unto themselves. We must change this.

Community and Connection Revisited

It’s enjoyable for me to write about Community, because it allows me to process my thoughts on something that I’m responsible for as a professional. It’s different for me to write about Community than, say, sports, because I have no professional relationship with the sports world and no one’s expecting productivity out of me when it comes to sports (except possibly my flag football team, Shiner Time). 

As I’ve been in and out of meetings with our Young Adult staff, various gatherings of other ministries and staffs within our church, and just hanging out with young adults, I get the feeling that Community is a very ubiquitous yet elusive term.

I don’t have a lot of depth or an amazing arsenal of words; nor have I come up with a great method of working up to my main thought, so I’ll just say it:

There’s a difference between community and connection. Often when we say ‘community’ in churches what we’re really talking about is ‘connection.’ We can absolutely (and should) program connection. I’m not convinced we can program community. 

Community, especially in our cultural context, may be something we have to disciple into our young adults the way we’d attempt to “disciple in” a missionary mindset or compassion for the least of these. The problem with this is, of course, the problem with a lot of supposed discipleship–how can I instill something I don’t have? I’ve got to start exploring the concepts of community through dependency, forgiveness, time, and proximity.

Dependency: We have to learn to lose ourselves. We have to let go of stuff and let others invade our space, the way God invaded (sorry for the crass terminology) Creation in the form of Jesus. If we can’t learn to depend on others, we’ll never experience Community.

Forgiveness: This is a natural follow up to Dependency. Why? Because people will let you down. Forgiveness isn’t easy, exactly for the reason we must do it. Forgiveness betrays our sin-nature, and we must learn that our value is found in our Creator and how he loves us first and foremost. By learning to forgive others we open ourselves up to a whole new realm of accepting God’s forgiveness and community.
 
Time: My Twitter starts to send messages to my cell phone at 7:00 a.m. That’s just under 2 and 1/2 hours ago. And I’ve already found out what’s going on in the lives of 6 of my good friends, none of which are involved in any sort of “community group,” small group, or accountability cell. Am I experiencing Community or Connectivity through Twitter? Obviously I’m experiencing Connection, but am I experiencing Community? I would say yes. Here’s why: Connection is a natural door to Community. However, without Time, that door will be shut quickly. I actually experience a sense of Community through Twitter because of the time I have invested in those connections. On the other hand, I haven’t spent nearly as much time invested into those I’m supposed to be attempting Community with. Interesting…

Proximity: Here’s where social environments can fail us, though I’d be open to an argument that they don’t fail us here. There’s something about sharing life together which requires that we eat in each others tables, take walks together, and enjoy a pint while talking about sports and marriage and life face-to-face. Maybe I’m just a purist? But seriously, Proximity is Time’s natural complement. They go hand and hand, and without the Web 2.0 we wouldn’t even have to separate them.

We absolutely need community, not just to grow our churches or spread the Gospel, but because it recovers something vital about what it means to be human, what it means to Live well. 

I love a good dreamer…

Like I mentioned previously, Tuesday night I got to work through some creative processes with our Community Group @ HPPC. One of the sections to the 1 page evaluation (front and back) was a blank area that said “other dreams/hopes.” It was the last section after a time of talking about the Missio Dei, working through personal passions and where they intersect the Kingdom work in practical ways, and thinking through what’s most valuable in a weekly community-formation type meeting.

I wanted to share with you a quote off the back of one of our evaluations, from the “other dreams/hopes” section:

I long, personally, for young adults to be engaged in, aware of, and actively pursuing what God is doing…that we would be discontent knowing that there is so much injustice, poverty (of all kinds), and pain in the world–that we, as God’s people, would have to intercede. Living a ho-hum life wouldn’t be an option; trite, easy, superficial things would fall away and be unsatisfying…we would dream large, our passions would be exponentially greater, our love & grace for the world more evident, and redemption would be reality.

This blew me away. Especially since, at the same time, I was writing…

…that young adults would start to hold a common vision for seeing Dallas and the world reconciled…people would dream big and dream freely, and they wouldn’t be satisfied until they see the Kingdom breaking through…