I am a fan of Toyota.  I own one currently and have owned another one in the past.  They make great cars.

So it hurts me to see how they are responding to what is emerging as the greatest crisis Toyota has faced.  I want them to do better.  I want them to sell more cars.  But right now, I’m not sure they’re helping themselves.

Most of us non-caver dwellers have by now heard that Toyota has halted sales on eight models (representing over 50% of its sales) and recalled millions of vehicles because of gas pedals that stick.   As this piece points out, Toyota’s not saying much.   They haven’t apologized – really.  And while every defective vehicle will likely be fully repaired, somehow their handling of the situation has been less than optimal.

Here’s what great companies and leaders do when facing crisis:

• The top leader are involved.  Sending the VP of marketing (or associate pastor) out to do your dirty work is a failure of leadership.
• Great leaders name the problem honestly.  Any “probably most of you won’t die from this so it’s not that serious” talk from the CEO is not helpful.  Tell people it’s a serious situation and tell them you are aware of the consequences.
• Top leaders take full responsibility.  This is not the time to point fingers, assign blame or play they “it really isn’t my fault” card.  People who take responsibility inspire confidence in followers.
• Great leaders fix the problem.  Honestly admitting you have a problem is different than doing everything in your power to make it right.  Even if you are not sure how to fix it, publicly announcing that you will do everything you can do to find a solution is helpful.

I know that as a leader, it’s hard to do these things.  There’s something inside all of us that wants to turtle when crisis hits.  We’d love to cover up, underplay it and hope it would go away.   But that undermines confidence among your followers.  Doing the hard thing and owning it, assuming full responsibility and fixing the issue inspires confidence.  This has been one of my key learnings over the last number of years.  The more I do this, the better I (and the rest of our team) lead.

But I’m learning over time that the very best response I can have to bad news is to get on top of it and accept full responsibility.

What do you think?  What are some practices you’ve seen in crisis that either inspire or diminish confidence?

“The crowd listened until Paul said that word. Then they all began to shout…”He isn’t fit to live!”(Acts 22.22).

What did he say?  You’d think he dropped some profanity.  Nope.

You’d think he denounced Jesus.  Not that either.

What did he say?  The word was “Gentiles”.  He simply announced that he was going to work with people outside the boundaries of the existing church.  He was taking the Gospel to outsiders.  To the Gentiles, people who had never had access to Jesus before.

That made the insiders furious. They saw it as scandalous that Paul would actually work with people who didn’t fit their category of righteousness.  The text electrified me when I read it earlier this month because I’m not that sure it’s different today.

What do you think? I believe if you are going to reach outsider, you’re going to offend insiders.  Not that you would set out to offend them.  But if you’re really doing meaningful ministry, you will.

Sometimes the very idea of inviting outsiders in is scandalous (what are people with that kind of past doing in church?) Sometimes the methods are scandalous (why would you play that music in church, preach in that manner, or not cater just to my wants as a Christian?).  But bottom line, it is and likely will be scandalous.

Could it be that if you are not offending insiders from time to time, you’re likely not actually reaching outsiders?  Could it be that if you are not offending insiders, you’ve lost your mission?

What do you think?  What’s your experience and what’s your perspective?

We’re all watching and responding to what’s happening in Haiti.  We don’t know the full extent of what the damage is or how many have lost their lives. But we’re praying for them and responding to them.  And we should.  And we will. It’s incredibly sad.  I think it’s only appropriate that our attention, hearts and response are focused on Haiti and helping as much as we can.

But what if we continue to miss something even more pressing than what’s happening now?

Whenever there’s a disaster that strikes, I think about Jesus’ teaching in Luke 13: 1-5.  Two tragedies were in the headlines in that moment two thousand years ago.  The government had killed some citizens and a tower had collapsed killing eighteen.   Jesus addressed the meaning of their death by pointing people to the meaning of their life.  Naturally, just like today, people were asking the why question (why did these people have to die?).  Jesus skirted it and said to those still alive – everyone’s going to perish, and our lives will have no meaning unless we all turn to God, confess our sins and repent.  For Jesus, that was the big issue – not just the tragedy of sudden death, but the tragedy of missing the point of life.

I think about that every time there’s a tragedy. We need to respond to Haiti.  We will.  But what if it’s not the biggest issue facing the people of Haiti or the people of Canada, the US or any other country globally?

What if we prayed as hard for people in peacetime as in war time?  What if we worked as hard for life change in the absence of disaster as in a moment of disaster?  You and I tend to turn to God in seasons of despair and tragedy.  What if we just turned to him that way and lived our lives out differently every day?  Love doesn’t just respond to crisis, it responds to people.

What if there was an urgency to the mission of the church everyday as intense as it is in crisis? What if we gave like we’re giving now to the larger issue of changing the lives of people in Haiti, Canada, the US and beyond when there was no ‘crisis’ other than the one Jesus identified?  What if we cared last week like we cared now?

What if we acted like there is a crisis even if there wasn’t a crisis?  Can we even think this way?  Is it healthy?  Is that what Jesus was driving at? What do you think?

Some mornings my Bible reading stops me dead in my tracks.  This was the first verse I read this morning:

“Some time later, the Lord spoke to Abram in a vision and said to him, “Do not be afraid, Abram, for I will protect you, and your reward will be great.” Genesis 15:1 (NLT)

Could have stopped right there.  What if I lived like this was true?  What if I just believed that and operated like that was the case in my life?

Look at the claims of the verse.

First – no fear.  No fear of the obsctacles ahead, the conflict pending, the challenges or the battle.  No fear.

Second, a promise of God’s protection.  God would cover for us.  Doesn’t mean it won’t be difficult (read the rest of chapter 15) or dramatic.  It might be.  It’s just that God’s got our backs.  The worst the world can do is…kill us.  And I think Jesus covered that in the resurrection.

Third, the reward will be great.  Probably doesn’t mean we’ll be rich, but it does mean that our obedience will be worth something…it matters to God, and he’ll give us whatever we need and likely far more than we expect.

Think about it:  God promised Abram (and I think, all who follow him) the ability to move through our fear, God’s own protection and a reward.

What if I lived that way?  What would it do? What mediocrity would that eliminate? What ambivalence would that crush?  What fear would that resolve?  What obedience would that make possible?   For sure I think it would give me:

• More confidence
• More courage
• More determination
• More boldness
• More faith
• More faithfulness (doesn’t fear move you off course too?)
• More resolve

So that’s what I’m chewing on today.

If you knew God wanted you to navigate the fear, that he would protect you fully and give you a reward, how would your life change?  How might that move you more onto course.  What are you not doing now that you could start doing with this being true?

We had a great day at Connexus yesterday.  A record or near record crowd (I don’t see all the numbers Sunday)…great feedback.  Lots of new families.  As any lead pastor, staff member or volunteer might be, I was pumped as I drove home.

But then this irony struck me – hard.  We start setting up church before 6 a.m. on a Sunday morning.  Trust me, everyone but our volunteers and a handful of gas station clerks are asleep.  As I drove off of campus after lunch, the world is waking up, the parking lots at malls are filling up.  And we’re winding up, putting it all away.  It’s like we missed each other.

I’m not suggesting that we should move worship off Sundays or even off Sunday mornings (churches that have tried it rarely see great results).  If unchurched people are going to attend a service, it’s probably going to be on Sunday mornings. I’m not even saying we should be open 24/7.  That can often just mean the church becomes a cocoon – a retreat from our friends and neighbours.

What I’m thinking about this morning is that I hope there is plenty of evidence of our faith left on Mondays (and Wednesdays and Saturdays).  What a shame it is if as the world goes to sleep, the church wakes up and as the church goes to sleep, the world wakes up.

What do you think is the most effective way to personally and collectively lead people into a growing relationship with Jesus when the world is alive, awake and fully engaged?

So it’s Monday and everyone is wading back into the fray of life.  But one more venture into some New Year’s talk if we might before the ordinary swallows us whole.

A new year is about a starting new things, but what about finishing what’s been started before you just settle for ‘almost’.

One of my new year’s resolution is to lose the final ten pounds I’ve been carrying. Last year I joined a gym and I lost 15 pounds, but I’ve clung to the final ten like they are good friends. From everything I hear, the final ten is the hardest.

I’ve been thinking that might be true in life as well.  When we’re trying to make progress in an area and God is chipping away at us, making changes, it’s tempting to settle for some change without going for profound change.  Maybe God is working on your anger.  Or you are trying to make progress in being more compassionate.  Or you are almost out of debt. Or you have almost nailed a bad habit. See, I’ve lost enough weight to feel good about what’s happened, but not enough to really finish what I started. It’s that last 10 that takes so much more effort.

Some thoughts:

• You can lose the first ten with some change, but you can only lose the final ten with deep change.
• You might have made peace with the final ten because they’ve been part of you for so long.
• Your whole image of yourself might have to change because you are going from “a lot” to “some” to “none”.  None is a long way from “a lot”.

The difference between losing the final ten and keeping it is surrender.  Maybe it means giving up making peace with the enemy and actually deciding he has to go.  As it is with the body, so it is with our character and spiritual life.  I’m sure God would love to get at the final ten of so much inside of us.  I wonder how different we would be.

What do you find when you’re trying to lose the final ten in any area?  In which area do you need to lose the final ten?  What’s hardest about it?  What scares you most?  What has helped you most?

Happy New Year!  If I had one thing I could wish for you this year in terms of your personal growth, it would be to get into the Bible in a fresh way.

If you do that:

• Your prayer life will grow
• The status quo will get shaken up
• You’ll develop a fresh heart for people who don’t know Christ
• You will begin to apply what you now know to your life in new ways
• You’ll know God more intimately
• You’ll better understand what you believe
• You can test what people tell you (including church leaders) for yourself
• You’ll get more passionate about sharing your faith with people who don’t know Jesus

Here’s my current favourite way to read the Bible:  YouVersion. As you start 2010, you can access one of 20 daily reading plans here.  Pick the one that suits you best.  Some will take you through the entire Bible in a year…others through parts of the Bible.  What I love is that this gives people an easy way to make the Bible part of every day life.  If you’ve never read the Bible before, this could be an easy and do-able first step.

Best yet, you can access YouVersion off your desktop or your smartphone.  My daily bible reading has been off my phone for the last year and I love it.

Hope you find this to be a great new way to encounter God’s Word in a fresh way.

PS.  I’m doing the M’Cheyne reading plan this year.

So January is almost here.  You’ve got resolutions…so do I.  How do you handle it?  I used to make a list and forget about most of them by March.

Over the last few years, here are some changes I’ve made to how I think about personal change that I thought I’d share.  So far, I’m finding this approach bears more fruit.  Here’s what I’ve been doing:

• Reflect constantly. Self-awareness is key to understanding.  Over the last year, I’ve sought feedback from my wife, my kids, our leadership team, staff, elders, mentors and others.  I’m always seeking to grow and learn.  I also am integrating personal growth into my prayer life.   Keeping a running tab of the issues you are working on can help select a few focal points.  Who do you have in your life that is giving you honest feedback on strengths and weaknesses?
• Start early. Our leadership team did a complete strategic plan for 2010 back in October/November 09.  I’ve been in ‘what can I do differently/better’ mode for a few months now.    It isn’t January first yet.  Take a few days to reflect, pray, consult and identify a few areas.
• Get a system. Life is busy.  I have a lot of inboxes and some days get more messages than I think I can handle.  When that happens, I live out of ‘reactive’ mode.  The urgent always wins out over the important.  As soon as that starts to happen, I start the slow slide to dropping balls. Two weeks ago on a flight (airplanes are great workspace), I completely reprogrammed my Things app, which I use as a project management/to do list.   I organized my life into areas of responsibility and projects, and entered every imaginable task and issue I’m facing into a series of neatly organized, time sensitive task list.  I’m two weeks into this system and love it.  Way fewer dropped balls.  Far ahead of where I would have been without it.  Whatever system you use is up to you.  I just know I need a system.
• Narrow the focus. I can’t get better at everything, but here are five areas I want to make progress in during 2010:
  • Focused Family Time.  Between my lap top and iPhone, I can be working far too much.  I’m going to shut it down more often at night and be fully focused on my family.  Work when I work.  Play when I play.  I thought I was doing better than I was at this, so a change is needed.
  • Clearer Messages. I preach over 35 messages per year and do conferences and other talks on top of that.  The best path to clarity for me is to spend time planning a message weeks or months before I give it.  Clarity is hard work.  I want to be in front of series, talks and messages than I ever have been.
  • Lose the Last 10 Pounds. I joined a gym to kick off 09 and lost 15 pounds this year, but I’m still at least 10-15 pounds above where I need to be.  For me that means diet.  Self control, self control, self control.  (That’s a spiritual discipline, isn’t it?)  This will no doubt be the hardest goal in 2010, because I haven’t been under 200 pounds since I was in college.  Here we go.
  • Become a Better Manager I have no trouble leading an organization and am passionate about casting vision for our mission, but I struggle in management.  I want to stay focused on my strengths, but the reality is I will serve the people I work with much better if I develop stronger follow up and better attention to organizational detail.  Reorganizing my Things app was a first step in the right direction. I’ll be looking for constant improvement and constant feedback on this in 2010.
  • Deepen My Prayer Life. Scripture reading was a major focus for 2009, and the passion in my Bible reading is probably at an all time high.  I want to see a deeper, more intimate prayer life emerge.  Not sure how to accomplish this, but God has a way of partnering with you when you seek Him more deeply.  So I’ll keep at it.
• Keep your goals in sight all year. If you’re only working on a few things (I’ve got five), you can make progress more easily than if you were trying to do 10.  Because there are only five, I can keep them on my dashboard all year long.

Those are thoughts on how I plan for the new year.  How do you do it?  What are some best practices that have helped you?

So we rolled with our Christmas Eve services and I think our Service Programming team (the sweet team that creates our services) did a great job straddling the tension between giving people what they want and delivering what people need.  As last week’s post pointed out, Christmas is an especially tough service to plan.

So what did we do (many of you were asking)?

• We opened the service with Led Zeppelin’s Rock and Roll.  The band did a great job, and people hung in the tension of liking what they were hearing but realizing this really wasn’t Christmas music.
• We had a ‘producer’ interrupt the band two minutes in the song and tell them they couldn’t play it because people had come for Christmas.
• The band then regrouped, and starting playing Rock and Roll again, only this time subbing in Christmas lyrics.
• I got up, cut them off and told them they had to play real Christmas music (at one of the services, people started calling out for more Zeppelin)…welcomed everyone and launched into some Christmas tunes.
• Musically, we then did some rearranged Christmas carols (like Chris Tomlin’s version of Angels We Have Heard on High).  We brought out some dancers who did a couple of kid versions of some Christmas songs to actions, and closed the service with Robbie Seay Band’s Go Outside and O Holy Night.
• The message was simple and fairly short (20 minutes).  Everyone got an invitation that was handwritten by someone at Connexus.  It simply said “My name is _______ and I want you to know that you are invited to have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ”.  My message was simply that Christmas is the greatest interruption in human history accompanied by the greatest invitation in human history.  We invited people to respond to the invitation.

What I loved about the service this year was how the opener surprised people, caught them off guard and got them engaged in the first few minutes.  It was a bridge for people with little church background, and in many ways, modeled the message.  We interrupted the song…God interrupted history… we handed out a personal invitation…so did God.  We hoped it would work, but as usual, you don’t know until it’s all happening live.  I loved the kids’ dance too because it helped the kids stay engaged and gave the younger kids music they loved.  Plus it helped families see that we sink some significant time and resources into families.

I was so thrilled with our community…we asked people to invite friends and family and they did.  Being a portable church is hard and when you can’t even meet where you normally meet for Christmas services, it makes it even more difficult for a crowd to find you Christmas eve.  But our Christmas eve attendance has doubled in the last two years and was up 50% from last year alone – all because people told their friends.  We’ll plan for over 1000 attenders next year.

So that was Christmas.  If you were at Connexus, what did you think?  If you weren’t, please share some thoughts or share what your church did.  We’re always learning and would love to hear.

Christmas is an unusual holiday for Christians and church leaders.  It’s actually the only time of year in our communities where what happens in culture and what happens in church line up (even sort of). December is the only month you can hear songs about Jesus playing in malls.  Sure, there are more ‘happy holidays’ and ‘seasons greetings’  than in the past, but come on, when else do you hear “Christ is born today” at Walmart?

That creates an interesting problem for those of who plan church services.  Let me explain.  Almost everyone kind of knows the Christmas story, and almost everyone expects to hear it at Christmas at church.  And herein lies the dilemma. If you merely tell the Christmas story and play into people’s expectations, my feeling is the power of the story gets lost.  But if you don’t play into expectations (sing some familiar carols and tell at least some aspect of the Christmas story), people disconnect from what you are doing.

We have this phrase that we use when planning our services:  discerning what people want, delivery what people need.  It’s hardest to fulfill that intention at Christmas.

Put simply:  there are certain things most church leaders feel like we have to do to make it a Christmas service, but if we do them, Christmas may lose it’s punch. If all the service is is a few songs people want to sing and a familiar message, people walk away completely unchanged.   Does that make sense?

Our team struggles every year to present Christmas in a powerful, meaningful, relevant way.  We try to tell the story without losing the power of the story.  How do you help people get over what they want so they can get what they need?

If you are a fan of Christmas services, how do you manage that tension?

We do a few things.  We try to use surprise as an element in the service (wait till you hear the Christmas Eve opener on Thursday).  If we catch people off guard, they listen better.  When we do use traditional songs, we rock them up (a lot).  I try to find an angle on the Christmas message that is a little less common but still gets to the essence of Christmas.

What are some things you’ve done, thought about, or seen that are great ways to cut through this dilemma?