There is a sense, if you are an achiever and hard working,  that to achieve the mission you can’t afford to have much personal margin.  You need to keep pushing evening and weekends and even plow through vacation.

The last couple of months have been intense.  With a full plate at Connexus where I serve as lead pastor, a potential building campaign and capital campaign, special projects, and even writing a book, there haven’t been a ton of free hours.

My mistake this time around in writing my latest book, Leading Change Without Losing It, (due out next month) was that I tried to work on it almost every weekend and evening that was free.  So I was never really “off” and also less effective on most things.  While I’m really thrilled how the book turned out, I’m not as thrilled with how I turned out.  I didn’t ‘lose it”, but man, I got tired.

Fortunately, this is just a season, a season I can learn from.

The problem, of course, is if you consistently fail to build margin into your life, you kill the mission.

Over time, leaders who constantly sacrifice margin discover this: There is no mission without margin.

I mean you can try to keep pushing ahead relentlessly (and some of you are tempted to do that), but eventually, you’ll end up both exhausted and ineffective.  The more tired you get, the less productive you become.  The more exhausted you become, the more likely it is that you will stop working – even for a season – like a laptop that drained its battery completely.

Sometimes those of us driven types see margin as an enemy. But margin is not an enemy:  it is our friend.  Without margin, there is no mission.

Laziness is resting when you’re not tired.  Sabbath is resting because you have laboured six days.  God opposes laziness, but he loves well-deserved rest.

Next time I run through a busy season, I’m going to better block out time:  one night a week and one day a week (one of my weekend days)  for ‘extra’ work and a greater time window for completion.  I think it will result in greater balance and ensure both the book and the writer come out the other side better.

What are you learning about margin and mission these days?  What helps you?

Now that you’re home and back into settling back into a routine after the Orange Conference, it’s tempting to rush into implementing the ideas you garnered.  We’ll have more on engineering the change you want to see next week. But before we get to that, a question.

What did God do in you at Orange (or Exponential…or any other conference you recently attended) that you haven’t felt in a long time?

Usually at a conference God does something in you.  Maybe:

You worshipped like you haven’t worshipped in a long time.

You dreamed again.

Scripture seemed alive.

You felt God’s presence.

You realized you were more tired than you thought you were and sensed God telling you to rest.

You felt things you haven’t felt in a long time.

A simple piece of advice:  pursue that.

Spend some time over the next seven days talking to God about what He did in you or what you felt that you’d missed for a long time.

If you can somehow make that part of your every day reality, you will have recaptured something that is so easily lost in ministry.

If you felt your heart beat again, get all over that.  If you can make moments like that part of your rhythm, it will once again be part of your reality.

This week we’re talking about conferences and how to get the most out of them.  Along with about 5000 others, I’m in Atlanta for the Orange Conference, an amazing gathering of world class leaders to talk leadership, family and church.

In addition to figuring out how to apply what you’ve learned (we talked about this yesterday), conference provide another challenge and opportunity: the other 5000 people in the room with you.  If you are like me, you instinctively duck crowds, and you intuitively gravitate to the people you know best.  I love investing in our team and connecting with leaders I know, but in the midst of this it’s easy to miss one of the best opportunities a conference like Orange provides: meeting other great leaders.

Here are five lessons about networking that have helped me:

1. Be willing to learn from everyone. Let’s face it, the ‘food chain’ shows up everywhere in life. And well known, influential people show up at conferences. Don’t just try to meet people further up the career/status ladder than you are. I have learned a ton over the years from people in smaller churches who are not ‘famous’. And there was a day when the people giving keynotes on the mainstage were young leaders no one had heard of sitting in a back row like the rest of us. I have learned a ton of great lessons from ‘ordinary’ conversations over the years. Treasure those.

2. Don’t lead with your numbers. Why is it we feel we need to disclose our attendance and budget in the first five minutes of a conversation? Maybe we feel we have something to prove. Maybe we feel superior or inadequate. This is something God is beating out of me. But when I try to show how ‘big’ my church is (it’s not that huge, actually) or how much money we’ve raised, I build a wall between me and the person I’m talking to. It turns your first few minutes of conversation into a comparison game where someone wins and someone loses. Sometimes it is good to talk numbers, but usually only after a relationship has been established, and with a view to gaining insight, not gaining advantage. Humility doesn’t seek to impress.

3. Be fully present. This is such a learned behaviour for me. When I start a conversation, I’m rarely thinking only about that conversation. My mind is racing. Even if I’m not thinking about something else, I’m thinking about how not to mess up this conversation or what I’ll say next. That’s never good. Increasingly, I’m focusing on looking the person in the eye, really hearing their story and asking questions. Guess what? The more I do this, the more meaningful these connections become.

4. Follow them and friend them. While you can’t follow everyone you meet, there are a few for sure you’ll want to track. Take your phone out and follow them on twitter or friend them on Facebook…either during or after the conversation (if during, tell them you’re looking for them!). One of the reasons I love social networking is it allows me to track with hundreds of people I couldn’t track with otherwise. I’ve developed some great friendships with people I rarely get a chance to see.

5. Ask yourself some good questions. Increasingly when I’m in conversations with new people (pretty much every day), I walk into those encounters with two questions:
a. What can I learn?
b. How can I serve?
It doesn’t matter who I’m talking to, I can always learn something. Also, I decided a while back that I would try to serve everyone I meet. I know it sounds a bit cheesey, but we are servants after all. Sometimes it’s a word of encouragement. Sometimes it’s a piece of information they are looking for. Sometimes it’s something tangible. It’s not that I have anything to offer nearly as much as it is that Jesus commands us to serve others.

These are five things that help me become a better networker. I can honestly say I’ve loved the connections God has allowed me to make over the years.

What have you learned about networking?
 

So this is Orange Conference 2012 week!  I love conferences and have had the privilege of attending (and even teaching) at every Orange Conference so far.  I love it!  And this year I’m even more excited than before (don’t know why, just am…).

So I thought I’d share some reflections on this whole art of attending conferences and talk about some of the pitfalls and opportunities a lot of us run into at conference.  Today, let’s start with what I see as the biggest pitfall most of us (including me) run into at conferences.

Over-learning and under-applying.

We can’t really help the over-learning part.  Being at a great conference is like drinking from a fire hose.  Having spent good money on the registration, hotels, flights and meals, you would hope there would be more than a few insights. And there will be.  Ironically, most of them will be lost if you don’t know how to capture them.

So here are some ideas to help you apply what you’re learning:

1. Capture notes in a way YOU will use them. Conference books and handout sheets aren’t for everyone.  I tend to come home, park them, and forget them.  I do a better job when I enter the notes in something I will use.  Like Evernote, or even the note application on your phone or iPad.  Or if you love analogue, bring your favourite note book and use it.  Just make sure that you capture them in a way you will use them.
2. Capture ONE main takeaway from every talk. Not every insight is created equal.  Just because you have yellow highlights all over a set of notes doesn’t mean it will help you.  Before you leave the room, circle what you think your main, do-able point is – the one thing you don’t want to forget.  Better yet, rewrite it at the bottom of your notes.  When you rewrite it, you remember it.
3. Process with your TEAM. We’ll have a dozen people at Orange from Connexus.  At night, we’ll process big take aways with the whole team.  This helps, and gets us ready for step four.  And if you don’t have a team, make one up.  Find a friend and go have lunch and dinner with them and process together.  The more you talk about things, the more they will sink in.
4. Write a REPORT. I am so not an admin guy, but I have to admit the value of something our Director of Operations put in place a few years ago.  If you go on a church-funded trip, you need to write your top insights down on paper when you get back.   Make this your summary – capture your best insights with practical action steps you will take over the next weeks and months.
5. CALENDAR Your Action Steps. Make some appointments with yourself in your calendar or to-do list and review your insights and action steps to stay on course.

The conference will still be tons of fun, but you won’t just walk away with memories of great experiences, amazing conversations, inspired talks and powerful worship – you’ll actually be a better leader and your ministry will be stronger.

What have you learned about applying what you’ve learned at a conference?  What would you add to this list?

PS. Tomorrow we’ll talk about networking at conferences.

If you’re a leader, you’re the lid.

The group and organization you lead, over time, will rarely grow past where you’ve grown. If you stop growing in an area, people who want to grow past that point will simply find another leader to follow.

When I think about it, it makes me nervous.  I realize that, as a leader, I set limits that impact others.  It challenges me to get better every time I realize I might set the lid on our organization’s:

Spiritual maturity

Emotional health

Relational depth

Financial balance

Cultural vibrancy

And so much more.

So what do you do about it?

1. Get healthy.  Spend time with Christ.  Go see a counselor.  Get the help you need.

2. Become more self-aware.  Seeing your limits is one of the best ways to begin to address them.  Self-deception is one of the worst kinds of deception around.  Healthy leaders don’t gravitate toward people who lack self-awareness.

3.  Recruit people who are better than you. One of the keys to creating a better organization is to recruit around your weaknesses.  You will never be the best at everything.  Focusing on what you do best but finding people who are far better than you are at most things can help you create a community that excels at far more than you do.

Knowing I’m the lid challenges me to get better in every area, even while realizing that others will be better than I am.  One of the things I’ve done to help with this is to get feedback on my strengths and weaknesses.  Other people see you far more clearly than you do…and if you’re willing to come to terms with what they see, it will really accelerate your growth.  Not to mention the health and growth of your community.

What are you doing about your lid today?

A year ago, Sarah, who I have the privilege of working with at Connexus, decided to go on a personal spending fast.  For twelve months, she decided to buy nothing new for an entire year.  You can read about her journey here and her conclusions after a year of not buying anything new here.

I’ll just be completely honest.  As much as I admire Sarah (she works as my assistant and leads an incredible life as a Christ follower), when she first announced it there was something inside me that really resisted the idea of a spending fast.   I thought “good for her, but not applicable to me.”

But as her year drew to a close this week and I watched her reflect on what she’d learned, I got drawn in. We had a great conversation the other day about it, and over the last few days, I think I heard God speaking to me.  This is not something you have to do, but this would be so good for you.

So after thinking about it all week and discussing it with my wife, today marks the first day I’m buying nothing new for me personally for the next year.

Why?

1. I want to root out entitlement. There’s been a lot said about entitlement lately, but I want to root the idea that I deserve anything right out of my system.  I’m not entitled to anything. I don’t have a right to anything. No one owes me anything.
2. I want to be more grateful. I feel incredibly privileged and blessed most days.  But I realize that my gratitude could be higher.  Probably much higher.
3. I want to give more away. I’m not sure what this fast will do to our family budget, but I’d like to give more to others and more to the Kingdom with the money we save.
4. I have enough. I really do. Far more than enough.
5. Money impacts the heart. I’ve always taught that if there’s going to be an idol in our lives in Western culture, the number one candidate is money.  I have a premonition that this is going to be as much (or more) of a spiritual journey as a financial journey.  Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

Where will this hit me most?  Technology for sure.  It’s an addiction and passion for me.  I know the iPhone 5 is coming out.  I was going to buy one this fall.  I don’t have a 4S.  I only have a 4.  Did you hear how ridiculous that last statement was?  I only have a 4? That’s more than 99% of the planet.  It works wonderfully.  It’s amazing.  It’s an iPhone for crying out loud!  I don’t need a new one.  And I won’t get one for at least a year. Or maybe more.

Also…and this will be trickier, no new apps…unless they are free.  And no new music, unless it’s free (I don’t do pirated music, so it will probably mean a lot of listening online…).

It will also hit me on clothing and biking (I love biking).  But again…I’m not exactly lacking in these areas.

Here are some rules I’ve set for myself:

1. I won’t buy any new clothes, only second hand clothes, and even then, only if I absolutely need it.
2. Zero in technology, new or used, unless something breaks and I actually can’t work without it.
3. No new personal items at all (things you like to have but don’t need).
4. Because I’m married and have kids, I will buy for my family…whether that’s a vacation or dinner out or for home or car repair etc.  But not if it’s just for me.  Nothing personal in the mix that’s just for me.
5. I will buy one new suit.  My oldest son is getting married and that’s the exception.
6. Gift cards can be used for personal shopping, but any cash gifts (Christmas etc) can’t be. They will be used for experiences shared with others.  (That will teach me to appreciate how others contribute to my life more).

So there we go.  It’s a new year so to speak.  I’ll be excited to see what God does in my heart.  In fact, I can’t wait.

Have you ever done a spending fast?  What did you learn?

This past weekend at Connexus we told a story in our message about inviting friends that will likely stick with me the rest of my life.

In the video Jessie, a woman in her early twenties who attends one of our campuses, explains how she and her husband Russ invited a friend who didn’t go to church to come with them.  The story is worth watching and it’s near the end of the message called “Invite”.  You can watch it here on our website or get the video podcast on iTunes.

Jessie and Russ’ invitation led to their friends inviting some friends, who invited a friend, who in turn invited friends.  That single invitation just a year or two later has resulted in 12 formerly unchurched people now attending church, and the process, and some have surrendered their lives to Christ.  Powerful.

But the line that stuck out with me was when Jessie simply said “30 seconds of you being uncomfortable could change someone’s eternity.”

I think she nailed it.  One of the main reasons we don’t invite people into a something that can change their lives is our personal discomfort.  And we she named that, I realized I have to get so much more uncomfortable if I want to make a difference.

I’m going to get uncomfortable in the next few weeks and extend some invitations.

But I won’t stop there.

How much transformation have you put off because you fear a little bit of discomfort?

If you were to spend some time getting over 30 seconds of discomfort five times today, what would happen?

You might:

• pick up the phone and apologize, mending a friendship.
• talk through a tough issue, slaying the elephant in the room that’s been lingering for months.
• actually do the most important work you could do today, pushing past your procrastination.
• not spend the money you were going to, and pay down some debt instead.
• invite that friend you’ve been praying for to church
• go for a run…the one you’ve put off for a day/month/week/decade.
• read to the end of the chapter of the bible you’re in…and let God speak to you
• put away the ice cream and drop a pound in the next week.

30 seconds of you being uncomfortable could change someone’s eternity.  So so true!

It might even change much more.

Why don’t you spend some time being uncomfortable today?

I was at the mall last night. There were a grand total of 100 people in it. And apparently I knew a quarter of them. Or maybe more accurately, they knew me. I didn’t recognize most of the people who said hi to me last night, although more than a few called me by name. I couldn’t reciprocate.

Gulp. I’m a pastor. Aren’t we supposed to care about everyone we meet?

We are. But we’re also human — my memory just isn’t that good. Those exchanges can be, well, so awkward.

Here’s the issue: I’ve simply met thousands of people over the years. I believe my memory bank hold about 2000 names. Then it starts auto-deleting. Or it scrambles names and faces. Or it just freezes.

People always say I have a great memory for names, but I’m not sure that’s really that true. I’ve forgotten far more names than I’ve remembered. And unlike many people, I can’t claim I never forget a face. I totally forget faces. If I saw them in a police line up, I would swear I never met them before, only to learn later that they attended our church for two years. Or they’re my third cousin.

This isn’t just a ministry thing. I’m sure retail workers face it. So do physicians and lawyers. Almost anyone with a public interface deals with it. And in church world, dark theaters, multiple services, multiple campuses and 16 years of ministry in one area makes it a recurring phenomenon.

What do you do? I’ve learned a few things I’d love to share and would love to hear how you handle it.

Let’s start with some bad strategies:

1. Ask them directly for their names. This worked at first, but I soon found myself asking the same person five times. I know because they started telling me this was the fifth round of me asking their names. Cue crawling under a rock.

2. Ask them how to spell their name. I would say something like “Oh, and remind me how to spell your name again?” Once you hear them say “Joe” “J-O-E”, you realize the strategy has its limits.

3. Substitute a word for a name. “Buddy”, Hey You” or “Hey Man” gets old fast. Plus, what do you say to a woman? Dude doesn’t quite make the cut. It doesn’t take long for people to sense you’re clueless.

So what works? Love to hear what you’ve learned, but here’s what’s helped me:

1. Make the exchange about them, not your discomfort. I found that I would hit panic mode when I couldn’t remember someone’s name, and I would ruin or taint our conversation because all I could think about was that I didn’t know their name. I’ve learned to relax, realize that running into people whose name I can’t remember is actually normal, and just listen to them. It makes for a much better exchange. Strangely, my fear and panic ended up being selfish and made the moment awkward for everyone. I can care about them whether I remember their name or not.

2. Try a ‘side’ introduction. If I realize this is someone I should get to know better but can’t recall their name, I look for someone I know nearby. I make an introduction. “Have you met my wife Toni?” At that point I shut up. Toni (or my assistant or a friend or staff member) naturally extends a hand with “Hi, I’m ______” and the nameless person responds with “Great to meet you. I”m __________”. Works almost all the time and no one feels awkward. You just have to listen carefully so you remember their names this time.

3. Ask someone nearby. If I can’t use the introduction tactic but I want to know the person’s name, and there are people I know well nearby, here’s what I do. I finish the name-less conversation and pull up to a friend nearby. I quietly ask them whether they might know the name of the person I was talking to. I do this as the person I was speaking with is still in sight so they can see who I was speaking with. Works some of the time. And if they don’t know, they’ll often hunt down someone who does.

4. Ask, once you are deep in conversation. If this is someone I know I am going to track with moving forward, and none of the above strategies will work, I usually just come clean. I’ll say “You know, I’ve loved this conversation and I really want to track with you moving forward, but I’m embarrassed to say your name has slipped my mind.” Usually by that point we’ve had such a good conversation that they are really happy to share it. I only do this if I am going to track with the person moving forward. Otherwise, it was just a healthy, nameless conversation. That actually still has value.

So that’s my little awkwardness-reduction primer. What have you learned?

Short of keeping a stack of name tags and a Sharpie in your pocket wherever you go, how do you tackle this?

For years I’ve kept a file I simply call “encouragement”.

Back in the day it used to be an old school filing cabinet file folder.  Now it’s a a gmail folder.  One day it will be something else.  It matters far less how it’s done than it does that I do it.

The rule is simple. Every time someone sends me something that encourages me (an email, a blog comment, a DM, a card, a note), I put it in that file.   Often it’s a thank you for something I said or did, a short message of encouragement, and sometimes it’s a life-change story (love those!).

Here’s why I keep it (hang on, my reasoning is complicated): I get discouraged.

That’s it.  I just get discouraged.

The one email of complaint out of 99 ordinary emails gets to me.  The one “that message didn’t really connect with me” deflates me faster than a bullet through a balloon.  The “he’s such a great speaker…oh, and we appreciate you too” gets to me.  So does the “why do you….[fill in the blank]?” and the “I can’t believe you….“.  Sometimes it doesn’t even take a comment from anyone.  I can discourage myself in no time flat.

Now just to put this in perspective, I get at least a 10:1 positive stream coming my way.  Actually it’s probably something more like 100:1 or even 1000:1.  I know my skin should be thicker.  I know I shouldn’t be so sensitive. And I’m getting better at it, but that stuff still gets me.

As I’m sure, it does you.

I keep the file because I want it to be there fore me on the days I get discouraged and even think about throwing in the towel.

I only end up going into the encouragement file once or twice a year at the most.  Sometimes I just look at it and realize there are 20 new notes from the last month, and that alone is enough.

I just need to be reminded that God has a reason for me doing this, and that the good outweighs the bad. I am convinced that one of the leading factors in the lackluster state of the church and in many areas of life is that people quit long before they break through because the discouragement got to them.

So I keep an encouragement file.

What do you do to get you through your bad days?

I did something this morning I haven’t done before in my life:  I went on a five km winter run.  I’ve run before, but never outside in winter with the temperature below zero.

It’s not that I couldn’t do it before, it’s just that I didn’t.

And that reveals a tension: the tension between can’t and don’t.  There are actually very few things you can’t do.  It’s mostly just that you don’t do them.

Be honest: how many things in your life are there (really) that you can’t do?  Exactly.  Very few.  It’s not that you can’t.  It’s just that you don’t.

And if you admit that, you might begin to do far more.

Once you do that, your dreams might be far more attainable than you think.