We have officially landed in Texas (for now). Given God's history with me and my wife we may not be staying here long, but we are looking forward to laying down some roots even if they end up being temporary. One of the nice things about roots is that they can often endure location moves, especially in the Internet age.
As my physical life becomes more settled it is time for this blog to get a little more controversial. I mean what I say at the top of the page; I want to be part of a movement that changes the way we do and define church in America. That will most likely require some change... and as it is working out in my mind some big change. I do not mean change in the style of our services or the structure of our churches (necessarily). I believe there is a deep sickness in our system, the structure that we have developed to practice and propagate churches in this country. I grew up a Southern Baptist so when I say "we" I generally am referring to my group of churches. As it turns out we don't look that different from the Church in general in America these days, so I think it is safe to assume that what is affecting us is affecting most church organizations.
In the coming weeks I will begin diving into these issues. I am sure others have already discussed many of the things I will cover, and if you know of writing on the topics I would love to read it. In a nutshell I will be analysing the system by which we Call, Train, and Support pastors in America. If 80% of our churches are dead and dying (which is what most of the national research shows) then we have a System problem. This is not something that started 5 years ago or even 15. This is the expected result of a System that is broken.
The amazing thing is that the owner of our Organization is working to make change. I am constantly being reminded that God owns His Church, and He is actively working to make her healthy again. I feel honored to play any role at all in this process, and I look forward with great anticipation to see what will come in the next decades as He accomplishes His plan.
Monday, June 29, 2009
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Forget Evangelism Training...
Bring on the "How to make a friend" training. I really believe that there is a large and much over-looked reality in the church today. Many people are making the assumption that because 90% of all Christians will not share their faith this next year that:
- They don't care about lost people, or
- They don't know how to present the gospel (insert "feel confident", etc.)
I think a much larger reason that modern day Christians do not share the gospel is that they do not have any non-Christian friends. And, even more interesting is that the modern church system is getting exactly the results that it was designed to get. I will use my parents as a prime example.
There is something that happens in a parent-child relationship as the child moves on into adulthood. I think it was shortly after my first son was born and I turned 30 that I began hearing stories about who my parents were before I was around. I did not fully believe most of those stories as they described people completely different from my CPA dad and Kindergarten teaching mom. You see, my parents came to Christ late in life. Before their conversion they were a part of a good sized social network and attended events with these people both in their own home and other homes. These events would not be sanctioned by your average baptist church. In fact, they were strongly encouraged to break off ties with their former way of life, including the people who could "drag them down" into sinful ways. So, they obediently began breaking ties with their social circle and forming a new social circle... one comprised of friends from church, who just so happened to be Christians.
Fast forward thirty years and you have me, a Christian who has been raised in the way of the church, which is a way almost exclusively filled with Christian socials, Christian retreats, Christian sports, and so on. I believe we have an entire generation, and possibly two, of Christians who have been taught how to separate themselves from non-Christians and have lost the ability to make friends with them.
What strikes me is that as I read the New Testament and the life of Jesus I imagine that He would have had a much different response to my parent's situation some 30+ years ago. Instead of asking them to remove themselves from their social circle and make a completely new one, He most likely would have asked to join them at their next party (even though it may have had the evil alcohol in attendance!). Sure some of the friends might have decided that partying with Jesus was not their thing... but others most likely would have been intrigued. Regardless my parents would have maintained the skill of being friends with people who do not think, act, and dress exactly like they do.
That is the Evangelism Class we need today... "How to make a friend with a non-Christian 101". You might say to yourself, "But they work with non-Christians, their kids go to school with non-Christians, and they have neighbors who are not Christians!" All of those things may be true, but none of those mean that they would feel comfortable asking any of those people over to dinner just to hang out on a Friday night. And, if you can't see yourself asking someone to come eat burgers on a Friday night... how exactly are you supposed to see yourself talking to them about eternity?
Monday, June 15, 2009
The Future of the SBC
I spent a long week in Sacramento, California with the Healthy Church Group from the CSBC (California Southern Baptist Convention for all those who are not down with the lingo). It was a great week of training and networking. I also believe I got a little glimpse of the future of the Southern Baptist Convention.
One word that is being tossed around quite a bit lately is "relevance". Relevance is about meeting felt needs within a particular population group. Relevance is at the root of the currently popular question, "If your church disappeared would your community notice or care?" Relevance also plays a role in the current happenings within the Southern Baptist Convention.
I have not spent much one-on-one time around Convention people, but almost every time I do they are surprised to hear that I know nothing of SBC politics and procedure. I don't know the names of the presidents of my state convention or even our national convention. (Sure I could google them, but they most certainly do not come up in daily or even monthly conversation.) I don't attend association meals or budget/planning meetings or anything else. In fact, outside of a little line item on our yearly budget I am not sure my church is very connected to the SBC at all. When they ask, "Why?" our conversation inevitably moves to the issue of Relevance.
At first glance this seems like a case of local churches asking, "What does the convention to for me?" In reality I find that most of the people I talk to are asking the question, "What is the convention doing for the Kingdom?" Let me state here that I have been quite impressed with both the intelligence and the compassion of every Convention person I have met. These are people who care deeply about the local church and the lost. They also have brilliant ideas about how to reach the former and support the latter. What I have come to realize is that there is a great divide between what goes on at the State Conventions (and NAMB for that matter) and the local church. It does not matter how much you care and how brilliant you are if the people you are trying to reach and serve do not know about it. That is where the issue of relevance comes to play.
For decades conventions have attempted to bridge the great divide with conferences, seminars, and yearly associational meetings. If there ever was a day in which those strategies worked... it is long gone. If the State and National conventions are going to bridge the gap and become relevant to the local church then it is going to take a personal touch. That is exactly what the Healthy Church Group in California has begun doing. They transformed their traditional structure which was separate divisions for each function of the church broken up by age groups. Instead of being eight people who consulted with each other on the off chance that their specializations mixed they are now an eight-person consulting group that meets with local churches and works together to present unique solutions for church health and growth to each church. In the last five years they have consulted some 400 local churches in the California area, and now they are launching the second step of their plan... training DoM's (Director of Missions) to become consultants as well.
What they are finding is that instead of spending their time calling churches and convincing them to come to yearly training and retreats they are spending their time receiving phone calls and prioritizing which churches they can and will consult. The results that churches are receiving is creating an ever-growing demand for their services... something that many state conventions would love to say I am sure.
Perhaps the end system will look somewhat different than what is happening out in California, but I have confidence that they are on the right track. I hope we will see other states making similar changes in the years to come.
One word that is being tossed around quite a bit lately is "relevance". Relevance is about meeting felt needs within a particular population group. Relevance is at the root of the currently popular question, "If your church disappeared would your community notice or care?" Relevance also plays a role in the current happenings within the Southern Baptist Convention.
I have not spent much one-on-one time around Convention people, but almost every time I do they are surprised to hear that I know nothing of SBC politics and procedure. I don't know the names of the presidents of my state convention or even our national convention. (Sure I could google them, but they most certainly do not come up in daily or even monthly conversation.) I don't attend association meals or budget/planning meetings or anything else. In fact, outside of a little line item on our yearly budget I am not sure my church is very connected to the SBC at all. When they ask, "Why?" our conversation inevitably moves to the issue of Relevance.
At first glance this seems like a case of local churches asking, "What does the convention to for me?" In reality I find that most of the people I talk to are asking the question, "What is the convention doing for the Kingdom?" Let me state here that I have been quite impressed with both the intelligence and the compassion of every Convention person I have met. These are people who care deeply about the local church and the lost. They also have brilliant ideas about how to reach the former and support the latter. What I have come to realize is that there is a great divide between what goes on at the State Conventions (and NAMB for that matter) and the local church. It does not matter how much you care and how brilliant you are if the people you are trying to reach and serve do not know about it. That is where the issue of relevance comes to play.
For decades conventions have attempted to bridge the great divide with conferences, seminars, and yearly associational meetings. If there ever was a day in which those strategies worked... it is long gone. If the State and National conventions are going to bridge the gap and become relevant to the local church then it is going to take a personal touch. That is exactly what the Healthy Church Group in California has begun doing. They transformed their traditional structure which was separate divisions for each function of the church broken up by age groups. Instead of being eight people who consulted with each other on the off chance that their specializations mixed they are now an eight-person consulting group that meets with local churches and works together to present unique solutions for church health and growth to each church. In the last five years they have consulted some 400 local churches in the California area, and now they are launching the second step of their plan... training DoM's (Director of Missions) to become consultants as well.
What they are finding is that instead of spending their time calling churches and convincing them to come to yearly training and retreats they are spending their time receiving phone calls and prioritizing which churches they can and will consult. The results that churches are receiving is creating an ever-growing demand for their services... something that many state conventions would love to say I am sure.
Perhaps the end system will look somewhat different than what is happening out in California, but I have confidence that they are on the right track. I hope we will see other states making similar changes in the years to come.
Monday, June 8, 2009
Avoiding the Conflict Cycle - Part 3
I became a youth pastor of a large ministry when I was fairly young. I was 21 years old and found myself responsible for 200 youth and 50 adult workers. I still remember the first time I learned the lesson of early confrontation. (I say the first because this is a lesson I have had to re-learn many times, and honestly it gets tested on a continual basis to this day.) I had a particular adult worker who was not performing up to par. My wife told me there was an issue and that I needed to go to the worker and have a direct, serious conversation. I told her that I was aware of the issue and that the person was going to try harder and do better. I felt sure that given time and space the issue would resolve itself without the need for a messy, confrontational conversation. As it turns out there was a messy conversation, dozens of them in fact, and I was not a part of most of them. The issue did not resolve itself, instead if festered until it became an oozing sore. All of a sudden an issue that once involved one person was now affecting an entire division. Conversations were going on behind the scenes, and though I was often at the center of them (or my lack of leadership to more specific) I was not actually involved in most of them.
Confrontation is not easy, especially if you do it correctly, but it is easier than complacency or procrastination. When I spoke about Regular Evaluation I used the well known analogy of beginning a trip and moving 1 degree off course. The fix might be painful, because there is a reason you are off course. However, when we combine Regular Evaluation with Early Confrontation we save Future Pain and Suffering.
There is a formula in which Course Error * Time = (Messier Issues + Deeper Hurt + Wider Conflict + More Difficult Fix).
I have found that the longer I let bad behavior or attitudes go unchecked and confronted the harder it is to confront them in truth and love. What happens is that instead of focusing on one example I have to deal with multiple examples. The more examples I have to use, the harder it is to separate the issue from the person. The confrontation gets messy. My goal in any confrontation is to deal with behaviors and attitudes that hurt both the organization and the employee. That is much easier to do when I only have to discuss one behavior or attitude instead of a whole list of them that cover months of time and multiple projects or interactions.
Messy issues lead to deeper hurts. When people begin to feel like you are confronting their personality, their desires, their abilities, or their worth they tend to get very defensive. That is understandable, because I do the same thing. When I wait to confront I open the door to cause real hurt and pain in the person I am confronting.
Messy issues that lead to deep hurts rarely stay contained. They have a way of spilling out and affecting more and more people. They become a festering sore, or boil that has split open. It may be a nasty word picture, but the effect of a bad behavior and attitude that has been left alone for a long period of time is even worse. We have a horrible ability to downplay the spiritual, emotional, and relational damage that is being done while we find reasons to not confront.
My son has helped me learn this lesson many times. I now know that when he says, “Daddy I need to go potty!” it does not mean that I should think about finding a place in the next 30-60 minutes. It means I need to stop whatever I am doing and get to a bathroom NOW. That lesson became extremely clear when we were at the large, downtown public library. Somehow I thought it would be a good idea to take my two kids to the library by myself and check out 6 huge books. After spending some fun time looking around most of the 4-story facility we were ready to leave. I had all of my books in one arm, my daughter in the other, and was using one hand to try to hang on to Jared. He started saying he needed to go potty, but the thought of setting everything down and finding a bathroom just seemed too difficult… it could wait a few minutes right? Next thing I know I am in the main floor checking out and my son runs up to the desk informing us all that he has peed. Not that he needs to pee, mind you, but that he has already done so… in the lobby. I recently donated several dozen books to the library. Hopefully they will renew my library card now.
The last benefit that Early Confrontation gives is that it leads to easier fixes. Just like it is easier to fix a course correction after 5 feet than 500 miles, it is easier to correct a behavior after 1 week than after 1 year. I am currently doing some coaching for church planters in my area. So far it seems to be going well, and my mentor says that I am doing a good job. He also told me this last meeting that I need to continually seek training and resources that will help me evaluate my coaching style and confront issues. There is a danger that I will incorporate bad habits into my style early on, and if they are not caught and corrected in the beginning they will be much harder to fix later on. What we often forget is that people affect other people. If I have a volunteer or employee who has behavior and attitude issues, then they are affecting everyone that they come in contact with. That means that if I do not confront those issues for 6-12 months then I have now multiplied my problems by the number of people that have been affected over that time period. The real kicker is that the secondary people affect others in their own circles of influence, and before I know it I find myself wishing I had dealt with that “difficult” situation 6-12 months ago, because it certainly does not seem so difficult now in light of the problem I face.
Confrontation is not easy, especially if you do it correctly, but it is easier than complacency or procrastination. When I spoke about Regular Evaluation I used the well known analogy of beginning a trip and moving 1 degree off course. The fix might be painful, because there is a reason you are off course. However, when we combine Regular Evaluation with Early Confrontation we save Future Pain and Suffering.
There is a formula in which Course Error * Time = (Messier Issues + Deeper Hurt + Wider Conflict + More Difficult Fix).
I have found that the longer I let bad behavior or attitudes go unchecked and confronted the harder it is to confront them in truth and love. What happens is that instead of focusing on one example I have to deal with multiple examples. The more examples I have to use, the harder it is to separate the issue from the person. The confrontation gets messy. My goal in any confrontation is to deal with behaviors and attitudes that hurt both the organization and the employee. That is much easier to do when I only have to discuss one behavior or attitude instead of a whole list of them that cover months of time and multiple projects or interactions.
Messy issues lead to deeper hurts. When people begin to feel like you are confronting their personality, their desires, their abilities, or their worth they tend to get very defensive. That is understandable, because I do the same thing. When I wait to confront I open the door to cause real hurt and pain in the person I am confronting.
Messy issues that lead to deep hurts rarely stay contained. They have a way of spilling out and affecting more and more people. They become a festering sore, or boil that has split open. It may be a nasty word picture, but the effect of a bad behavior and attitude that has been left alone for a long period of time is even worse. We have a horrible ability to downplay the spiritual, emotional, and relational damage that is being done while we find reasons to not confront.
My son has helped me learn this lesson many times. I now know that when he says, “Daddy I need to go potty!” it does not mean that I should think about finding a place in the next 30-60 minutes. It means I need to stop whatever I am doing and get to a bathroom NOW. That lesson became extremely clear when we were at the large, downtown public library. Somehow I thought it would be a good idea to take my two kids to the library by myself and check out 6 huge books. After spending some fun time looking around most of the 4-story facility we were ready to leave. I had all of my books in one arm, my daughter in the other, and was using one hand to try to hang on to Jared. He started saying he needed to go potty, but the thought of setting everything down and finding a bathroom just seemed too difficult… it could wait a few minutes right? Next thing I know I am in the main floor checking out and my son runs up to the desk informing us all that he has peed. Not that he needs to pee, mind you, but that he has already done so… in the lobby. I recently donated several dozen books to the library. Hopefully they will renew my library card now.
The last benefit that Early Confrontation gives is that it leads to easier fixes. Just like it is easier to fix a course correction after 5 feet than 500 miles, it is easier to correct a behavior after 1 week than after 1 year. I am currently doing some coaching for church planters in my area. So far it seems to be going well, and my mentor says that I am doing a good job. He also told me this last meeting that I need to continually seek training and resources that will help me evaluate my coaching style and confront issues. There is a danger that I will incorporate bad habits into my style early on, and if they are not caught and corrected in the beginning they will be much harder to fix later on. What we often forget is that people affect other people. If I have a volunteer or employee who has behavior and attitude issues, then they are affecting everyone that they come in contact with. That means that if I do not confront those issues for 6-12 months then I have now multiplied my problems by the number of people that have been affected over that time period. The real kicker is that the secondary people affect others in their own circles of influence, and before I know it I find myself wishing I had dealt with that “difficult” situation 6-12 months ago, because it certainly does not seem so difficult now in light of the problem I face.
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
Moving Can Be Fun
Or so I hear...
Though I hate making excuses about blogging silence, if there was a good excuse then perhaps moving out of our house and into a friend's place might be it. That is something that was physically draining and too lots of time when I was single. It is even more interesting now that I am married with two kids... and my friend is married with three kids. We talk all the time about the church being like a "family", but I don't think many people get to experience that reality. I definitely have and it is a great testimony to the life change that God brings about. The crazy thing is that the family we are living with is only one of several who offered to help.
I will get back to the series on Conflict, hopefully without any real world examples from this week with our friends :). We are officially out of our house now... as long as you don't count the garage as part of the house (which after three days of moving I don't because I need to be able to say that I am out of the house! :)). As it turns out our closing has been pushed back for at least a week... but my June gets crazy starting Sunday (travel galore with some consulting tossed in between the trips), so I needed to get out of the house this week regardless.
So far our kids are doing amazingly well with this whole thing. Our son (the social one) is looooooving it since he now has three extra siblings (who actually enjoy playing with him). Our daughter has pretty much managed to keep to herself... which is a large feat in a house with 9 people living in it. But, the random screaming and throwing of things helps her keep a nice buffer.
Though I hate making excuses about blogging silence, if there was a good excuse then perhaps moving out of our house and into a friend's place might be it. That is something that was physically draining and too lots of time when I was single. It is even more interesting now that I am married with two kids... and my friend is married with three kids. We talk all the time about the church being like a "family", but I don't think many people get to experience that reality. I definitely have and it is a great testimony to the life change that God brings about. The crazy thing is that the family we are living with is only one of several who offered to help.
I will get back to the series on Conflict, hopefully without any real world examples from this week with our friends :). We are officially out of our house now... as long as you don't count the garage as part of the house (which after three days of moving I don't because I need to be able to say that I am out of the house! :)). As it turns out our closing has been pushed back for at least a week... but my June gets crazy starting Sunday (travel galore with some consulting tossed in between the trips), so I needed to get out of the house this week regardless.
So far our kids are doing amazingly well with this whole thing. Our son (the social one) is looooooving it since he now has three extra siblings (who actually enjoy playing with him). Our daughter has pretty much managed to keep to herself... which is a large feat in a house with 9 people living in it. But, the random screaming and throwing of things helps her keep a nice buffer.
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