There have been a few, but I really want to find one that resonates.

Sooo....

1. What's been a game changer for you personally, spiritually, in ministry or in life?  What defining moment do you look back on and say "that pretty much changed everything?"
2. For those of you who know our ministry or me, what do you think a key game changer for us has been?  Sometimes the best person to judge that kind of thing is someone slightly outside an organization. So what do you think?
3. A third angle:  if you could pick any game changer to speak on, which one would you choose?

Love to hear your thoughts....over to you!

A few times every year I see a passage that I swear someone added to the Bible since the last time I read it.  It just pops out...I just missed it before.  Had one of those experiences this morning.  I hope it encourages you.

From childhood we have watched
as everything our ancestors worked for—
their flocks and herds, their sons and daughters—
was squandered on a delusion. - Jeremiah 3:24

It's as clear a picture  as any of what happens when people live life without God at the center - everything we work toward ends up squandered on a delusion.   Wow.  (You might read the whole chapter.  It's fascinating.)

I'm not saying God might not be calling you out of ministry (that does happen), I'm just saying if you are called, keep at it.  Giving up your Sundays year after year is worth it.  That criticism you took for a wise decision you made was worth it.  Overcoming your sadness and pushing through was worth it.  The extra prayer and extra sacrifice financially was worth it.  That relational risk you took inviting your friend to church was worth it.   That extra static that seems to visit your home because you're in ministry is worth it.

Because everything else is well, a delusion in the end.  Christ is who it's all about.

One day we'll all look back and wonder why we ever thought it wasn't worth it.  But in the meantime, we need to remind each other it is.

It is.  It's worth it.  Keep going.  The mission is not in vain.

]]> http://careynieuwhof.com/2010/07/its-worth-it.html/feed 1 http://careynieuwhof.com/2010/06/where-are-the-leaders.html http://careynieuwhof.com/2010/06/where-are-the-leaders.html#comments Thu, 24 Jun 2010 13:12:19 +0000 Carey http://careynieuwhof.com/?p=1034 Where are the great leaders in this generation of church?

I'm not talking about the handful we twitter about, follow, admire or whose books we read and conferences we attend.  I'm talking about what happened to great leaders leading in churches in every province, state, city, town and even village?

Maybe it's just nostalgia, but it seems to me there was a day when the best and the brightest got into ministry.  When leadership in the kingdom was serious work and people with true hearts and skillful hands were regularly in leadership.

I'm pretty sure a lot of the smartest and most capable teens and college students sitting in church today (if they are in church at all) are not even seriously toying with ministry.  They're going elsewhere.  And, sadly, sometimes people who might not have the gifting and perhaps only think they have the calling end up leading ministries.  (I know you're wincing...so am I...I'm just sayin'.)

Is there a dearth of great leadership in the church? Do we live in an age when the most gifted leaders using their God-given talents to help corporations make better sugar water, squeeze out a better bottom line,  make music, create art or spawn design that in the end, helps people buy new mini-vans or ends up as just another voice in pop-culture?

What would need to be true to get our best, brightest, and most gifted people who also have authentic hearts and solid character moving into ministry?  Yes, I know....I've read 1 Corinthians 1 and I know God chooses the weak of the world...but the Apostle Paul brought an incredible mind, heart and skill to ministry that led to the explosion of the early church.  Moses was no sap either. God will surprise us and use people we never expected to do great things...but being a capable leader and having a supple heart are not mutually exclusive.

I'll come back with some ideas in a few days, but in the meantime...What do you think?  Are we seeing the best head into leadership?  If not, why not?  And what would you do about it?

That's impressive.

What amazes me about Apple is how it produces products that dazzle many of us over and over again.  When I picked up my iPhone 3Gs last summer I thought - I don't know how the phone could get any better.  But Apple wasn't thinking that at all...they were already working on the iPhone4 (and likely now are reimagining far beyond that).  iPad lovers - be sure the iPad2 is already in development.

What generates innovation?  The threat of decline and extinction can. Dying organizations often try to innovate...but frequently they fail.  Why?  Because a desperate grasping at straws rarely works.  Secondly, a dying organization's goal is often self-preservation.  It isn't truly about innovating or doing something that benefits others.

How do you create a culture where innovation thrives, where no one is satisfied with the status quo?   I love these four principles Mark Federman outlines:

See what isn’t there. • Think what no one else can think. • Do what no one else dares to do. • Multiply your mind by giving it away.

To do that,  you need to create a culture of risk and make failure a distinct possibility.  Many people realize without risk there is no reward.  But fewer of us are fans of the truth that with risk comes the distinct possibility of failure.   You risk potential failure in at least two ways when you innovate:

• You risk failure publicly - the general consensus when the iPad was announced was that it was a dumb idea.  Critics called it big iPhone that doesn't fit in your pocket or make calls.  But selling 2 million units in less than 60 days shut many of them up.
• You embrace failure privately - the public only sees the ideas that get legs.  We can only imagine how many other ideas at Apple got tested and  knocked down before the iPad or iPhone emerged out of the mix.  To truly innovate, you need to embrace a multitude of ideas that don't work before you find the one that might.

I know as the leader of an organization I can be tempted to thwart creativity in favour of what's working.  Bad idea.  So this summer, we're adding a question to our mid-year and year-end reviews of our staff:  What did you try this year so far that failed? If the employee can't name something, we're going to ask them to risk more. You never get to true innovation without failure.

It's hard to actually live on that edge.  But you need to do it if you're going to see what isn't there, think what no one else can think and do what no one else dares to do.  It also means you need to start celebrating purposeful failure when it happens.

At the end of the day, Apple's only about iPhones and other cool things, but many of us have been entrusted with the kingdom of God.  I live in a community where 93% of the population won't be in church this weekend.  When it comes to reaching families, we can do so much better. I think the church should be leading innovation.  We don't need to change the message.  We just need to get so much better at living and sharing it.  Sometimes I think if the church ran Apple, we'd still be trying to build momentum around the first generation iPod we designed over ten years ago...watching the declining market share and blaming consumers for not being as excited as they were about them a decade ago.  We wouldn't have produced any new ideas in the last decade...we'd just have one approach we were counting on to work forever.  That's not innovation.

What do you do that helps you stay innovative?  How well do you embrace failure as a possibility?  What are some of the barriers you see to becoming more innovative? 

]]> http://careynieuwhof.com/2010/06/innovation.html/feed 0 http://careynieuwhof.com/2010/06/seven-questions.html http://careynieuwhof.com/2010/06/seven-questions.html#comments Wed, 16 Jun 2010 00:39:48 +0000 Carey http://careynieuwhof.com/?p=981 It's so easy to become culturally irrelevant.  I don't even need to try.  One day you're doing some awesome worship music, playing Modest Mouse and serving bold coffee, and the next minute it sounds like polka music to the next generation of kids.  It happens so fast.

At Connexus Church, we do a weekly service programming meeting where we plan out our weekend services.  We have a reputation for being 'edgy' as a church.  That's good in our books, because if you're really trying to reach people who don't go to church, using the culture to reach the culture can still be a very effective strategy. And using the culture (in music, messages, media and more) can help people engage what you're saying and apply the message to life far more easily.

Recently it occurred to me that we really haven't done much to specifically engage culture in the last month or two. We've done some songs right off the radio, but beyond that, not much.  That freaked me out.  How could we forget?  It's such a big part of who we are and what we do.

So I took out my computer and wrote down seven question I want us to start asking regularly as a team:

1. In what ways have we engaged our culture in the last 30 days?
2. What's current in our culture?
3. What's everyone talking about?
4. What's our target (in our case, a 30ish married couple with kids) talking about?  How would we know?
5. What's funny?
6. What's viral?
7. What's enduring (not trendy) that people still pay attention to?

I think of these questions as a way to ensure that we don't think we're engaging the culture around us when, frankly, we're not.  One hour of swirling around in these questions led to some great creative ideas for the coming months (which I probably shouldn't let out of the bag).

If you're in leadership, what do you do to stay current?  What do you think of the questions?  Got any better ones?

When I entered into Apple world three years ago, I assumed Apple would have exceptional reliability.  That's their reputation after all.  For sure, all my Apple products have better reliability than any PC I've owned (not to mention being way more fun to use). but after less than three years, my MacBook Pro died.  Apple tried to fix it more than once, but it died.

That could have been a deal breaker.  Try a product, it fails.  You grow disillusioned, cynical and move to another company, only to repeat the process.  But that didn't happen.  Not at all.

What shocked me is Apple's radical commitment to customer service.  They really tried to fix my old laptop.  In the last month, they put over $2000 of brand new parts into my three year old laptop last month.  When it didn't fix the problem, Apple decided to give me a brand new 15" MacBook Pro.  I didn't even ask for it.  A senior manager arranged a direct pick up at the Apple store in Toronto so I could just walk in and swap it out. In the end, they gave me an even better computer than my old one (I got the top of the line i7 processor) because it was the only model they had in store when I was there.  They could have told me to come back or that they would ship me a new one, but they didn't.  They gave me one worth much more than my dead one.  Unbelievable. 

And maybe that's the key.  On this side of eternity, everything breaks.  People are flawed.  Systems are flawed.  Even really cool products break down and die. 

Often we're tempted to make exaggerated claims about how great our product is.  We claim might even claim it will never break down.  In church world, I've been tempted to say "our church isn't like that' or 'we won't do that here.'  But the truth is, we're a divine organization populated by sinful people.  We will mess up.  We will let people down.  We will make mistakes.

Maybe the key isn't whether your product or community is flawed - maybe the key is what you do when things break down.  I've had far too many customer service people run away from their product when it broke down.  Apple didn't run away from their product or their customer; instead, they embraced both.  

Wonder if that's what people are looking for you and I to do.  The promise of the church isn't that we're a perfect organization.  Far from it.  When we stand up as leaders and tell people we're great, no one really believes us.  When we admit we're not perfect, absolutely no one is surprised (especially those closest to us).  Maybe we should just be more honest about who we really are.

I've taken to telling people who are new to our church that we will let them down, we will make mistakes, but where I hope the difference will be is that we'll look them in the eye and own it.  We'll journey with them through our mistakes and be as accountable as we can for our failures, working together to make it right.  

I haven't got it figured out by any stretch...all I know is this.  When a leader or organization makes a mistake, being honest about it, owning it and having them assume full responsibility for the consequence of the failure makes a world of difference. That's what Apple did.  And I'll be making many more purchases from them in the future (and telling others about them yet again).  I'm all evangelical about them, actually.  Maybe there's a lesson there. 

What do you think?  What are you looking for in your leaders?  What do you hope will be true of them?  

Never forgotten that.  And it's completely true. 

That free CD you got - somebody paid for it.  That free ticket to the show?  Somebody ponied up. That free replacement of your defective Blue Ray player?  The store or the company absorbed the cost. 

Realizing this made me much more grateful for every 'free' thing I received.  Someone paid.  It just wasn't me. 

Now, that's also true of grace.  We speak pretty loosely about grace being free.  We even talk about grace being limitless.

And that's true.  But it's only free to the recipient.  And it's only limitless because somebody is willing to pay the price.  So when we receive grace from God, it cost God something.

And today, grace might cost you.  If you are going to offer it, it will be expensive. Real grace (undeserved love) doesn't happen when there's a mis-understanding that gets cleared up.  Real grace doesn't happen when someone apologizes and makes the situation right.  Real grace is extended when someone wrongs you and you forgive them.  Real grace is extended when you decide not to engage the battle or treat wrong with wrong, but to love anyway.  And it hurts.  It will cost you something - you are giving of yourself something you'd rather not.  But you do it anyway.

Once I understood that, grace - real grace - ironically became easier to give. It was going to cost, but I just have to decide to pay the price on someone else's behalf.

So go give grace freely today.  Just remember it's expensive.  It will cost you something.  And when you receive it from God, remember it cost him something too. 

Because nothing is actually free. 

Here is one thing I've found that answers that question better than anything:

Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life. Proverbs 4:23 (NIV)

Face it, there are far more than seven things that won't fuel your passion. Life is full of events, people and situations that drain passion from us. Sometimes it happens instantly.  Sometimes it's a slow drain over time. 

In fact, we probably can't produce enough defence to ward off all the attacks on passion that will hit us over time.  As soon as we think we've got it figured out, something hits from an angle we hadn't anticipated. 

That's why a sustained offence might be all the defence we need. Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the well spring of life. 

Increasingly for me, remembering this is becoming a daily thing I pay attention to.  Staying passionate over the long haul is a life commitment for me.  I never want to retire (even if I one day retire).  I never want to hit 'cruise control' on my calling, spiritual walk, parenting, friendships or marriage.  I want to bring my best every day, add value to those around me, be a constant student of what I see, experience and hear, and for that, staying passionate is essential. 

That may not seem like an 'answer', but it's a principle that I think can guide anyone through various seasons of heart stagnation.  When I find my passion waning, I increasingly see it as a heart matter, and I start a conversation with God, often with Toni, and often with close friends about it. 

The longer I'm alive, the more intentional I need to become about it.  If you don't stay intentional about how you live, you'll hit a default mode that is far below the potential God sees in you.

How about you?  What do you do to guard your heart?  What do you do to stay passionate season after season?

When my heart is alive and elastic, it's because I'm paying attention to this principle.  When my heart is hardening or growing dead, it's because I'm ignoring it. 
 

Some things fuel passion in the short term, but they don't last.  Two things often fuel passion in leaders in the short term:

1. First.  When you're a young leader, doing something for the first time can feel like passion.  Your first team, first successes, first failures, first learnings, first accomplishments.
2. New.  Every time you start something new you get passionate.  That's why some leaders love change.  Sometimes leaders love change too much.  Sometimes we change not because the organization needs change, but because we got bored.

That's all good, but you get to a point after a few years where you realize life isn't a series of firsts or a series of new.  What then?  Sometimes, leaders try to find substitutes for authentic passion.  Here are five more things that won't fuel your passion long term: 

1. Caffeine.   If you haven't got much deep down passion, caffeine is a cheap substitute. Whether it's Red Bull, Starbucks or some monster energy, getting the juices flowing just feels so good.  It can make you feel excited even if you're not. 
2. Overscheduling.   If a leader isn't excited about anything big (no big challenge on the radar), one temptation is to fill life up with too many little things.  So we overbook, overwork and over commit hoping to rekindle some energy and momentum.
3. Hype.  Feeling a lack of passion deep down, we'll try to convince ourselves and everyone else that what we're doing is the BEST THING EVER, even when we're not sure it is. 
4. Time off.  If you're not engaged deep down, leaders will sometimes just wander away, spending less and less time engaging in what they've been called to do.
5. Find a New (Side) Passion.  If you're not passionate about the main thing, you'll find something else to be passionate about - whether that's building the biggest deck in history in your backyard or starting a new ministry on the side.

All of it's sad, because you're not really doing the thing God called you to do. Because you don't have the passion for it anymore.  And the things that you thought fueled passion weren't really doing it.  

It also avoids the hard soul work that actually fuels long term passion.  Later this week, I'll come back with some thoughts on how to stay passionate over the long haul doing the same thing you were called to do in the first place.

Until then - what are you learning about passion?  What sidelines your passion? What did you think might work that didn't work?

I don't like saying no.  It's hard to say no to your kids, to people you like.  Honestly, it's even hard to say no to the people you may not be as fond of.  

As a leader, it's hard to say no to opportunities and to possibilities.  It's hard to say no to just about anything. 

When you start out in leadership, there tend to be few opportunities, so it's easy to jump at whatever comes your way. I had time to respond to everyone who wanted a visit, needed advice or wanted a slice of my time.

And I loved studying ministry models and ideas.  When you have no plan, every idea sounds like it could get you somewhere.  

But most of us reach a point where the opportunities outweigh the time available:

• Your ministry grows, and suddenly where there were 100 people hoping for your help before, there are now 500.
• More outside leaders are asking questions and engaging in conversation.
• At home, multiple kids with multiple activities pull you in all kinds of directions.
• More ideas present themselves than you have time to implement, and not all of them will take you down a a consistent or helpful path. 

And that leaves a lot of us feeling paralyzed.  As a result, a lot of us just get stuck. We try to care for 500 people with the same methods and schedule as when we had 100 people.  But we get too busy, and they are increasingly disappointed. We're working harder than ever before but making less progress.  It's frustrating for everyone.  

It also creates a barrier to further progress and development.  You'll never have enough time to perfect or become excellent at anything because you're trying to do everything.  And- ironically- you will disappoint a growing people because you're trying to please everybody. 

What if saying no is the best way to resolve this pattern? As hard as it is for me, I've had to learn to cut out so much of what I used to do so I can focus on the few things I need to do and do best. When the staff and elders have discussed the way I best contribute to Connexus, the feedback seems to be that I'm best at communicating, casting vision and leading a team. I'm going to try to spend 80% of my time doing that. Which means I'm cutting out a lot of what I used to do even four years ago.

Moving to a small group structure and to outside counselling referrals allows us to care for over 1000 regular attenders at Connexus and frees people up to be counselled by someone who's, well, good at it.  Releasing our staff to care for their teams means more people get cared for.  Me saying no to doing it myself results in a bigger yes for everyone. 

This week is the first week in a new experiment for me.  I'm spending Mondays and Wednesday working at home - very few interruptions.  I'm trying to get ahead on message series, message writing, blogging and spend time preparing for meetings.  Two days a week I'll be in the office, mostly meeting with staff, elders and other leaders. I'm also trying to squeeze a full day off into the mix - which will honestly be new for me.  Wish it wasn't, but it is. 

The net result is that I'm saying no more than I ever have before. It means I can't meet with everyone I'd like to meet with or do everything that comes my way.  But, ironically, but saying no to some things will mean I can say a bigger yes to the things I'm best at.  It means instead of simply relying on a natural gifting in some areas (communication and vision casting come fairly naturally), I can actually develop those gifts to a greater potential.  It means when I'm present with the staff, leaders and elders, I'll be more focused, more prepared and hopefully have a far more meaningful exchange.  It hopefully means we'll all get better.  That's how no leads to a much greater yes.

There's no rocket science in this post - I know we all know this.  But what amazes me is how hard it is to actually do.

Do you find that?  Tell me about your journey?  How has saying no helped you say yes?  Why do you find it difficult or easy to say no?