In 2011, more than half of all of Apple’s revenue will come from products that did not exist four years ago.

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? 

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?

So I like Apple.  True confession.  (And no surprise to anyone who knows me.)  Last week they taught me a key lesson in customer service I’m going to share, but first, the back story. 

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?  

Years ago, one of my best friends told me "Nothing is actually free."  We were talking about a free lunch I won.  He said, "Sure, it’s free to you. But somebody paid for it."

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. 

Earlier this week we had a look at seven things that won’t fuel your passion, which leaves this lurking question:  what will fuel your passion?

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. 
 

The longer you’re in leadership, the more aware you become of what really fuels passion over the long haul.  The question that drives me (a lot) these days is this:  How do you stay passionate over a long period of time?

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?

The longer I’m in leadership, the more I realize so much hangs on the ability to say no.  

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?

 "But not with my servant Moses.  Of all my house, he is the one I trust."  (Numbers 12.7).

That’s God speaking , by the way.

Most of us spend a lot of time trying to figure out whether we think God is trustworthy. But this verse changes the game significantly.  Maybe the only question isn’t whether we can trust God.  Maybe the question for those who want to live a life alive in God is this:  Can God trust you? 

Trust is dependability – a deep confidence in someone.  We tend to trust people who are reliable, who are consistent and who don’t change with the season or the wind direction.  Ever think that maybe God is looking for people He can trust? 

Many Christian I know say their faith varies daily. And mine has seasons too.  But what if our faith was strong enough and we became solid enough that God felt he could trust us?

Trust killers include:

• Losing faith in God the minute circumstances don’t go our way.
• Putting ourselves at the center of our relationship with God, rather than God at the center. (What can I do for God, rather than what can God do for me?)
• Keeping God at the periphery of our lives, not at the center.

What I love about Moses is that he was gut-level honest with God.  He got upset, but God heard about it first.  He went straight to God.  He believed God against all odds (like trusting that somehow God would make a way across the water even if it looked impossible). 

I first got challenged with the trust-reversal idea when Reggie Joiner and I were writing our parenting book together.  In one of the drafts he introduce this idea that parents might stop thinking in terms of simply being able to trust their kids and start asking a different question: do we live in a way that our kids trust us? Are we consistent?  Do we inspire confidence?

I love that thought.  It’s challenging me.  And it’s a great thought to kick off a new week. 

Have you ever thought that God might be looking to trust you?   If so, how would you live different as a result? 

So it’s tempting as we head into the weekend to say things like "so stoked about Sunday" or "so pumped about our next (fill in the blank for the service or event here). 

But why are we stoked?

Are we excited:

• because we’re speaking?
• because we organized the event?
• because we’re trying to get or we have momentum?
• because we’re trying something new?
• because we did a killer job planning it?
• because we just like the things we create?

I know that’s a tad cynical, but honesty is a good policy.  Many of us who have led ministries or events have had some of those thoughts (or all of the above). Personally, I think I’ve been guilty of all of the above.  

There is one reason to be stoked about Sunday: because Jesus Christ is risen and interacting with people He loves.  

You can phrase it differently, or maybe even better.  But the bottom line is the same. He is the one who draws people to Himself. 

Now I’m still excited about a great band, some intriguing video, and a message that I hope inspires and helps people. There’s nothing wrong with that. 

But Jesus is the deal.  The only deal.  The only One worth doing this (or anything) for. 

The more I keep that front and centre, the more there’s actually something to be stoked about. 

Most of us want to be good at what we do. Most of us would love a little more than that – we’d love to be great at what we do.

Think about this math.  If you’re going to get top 10% results, you’re probably not going to get them using the same methods that 90% of other people use.  The methods the 90% used generated the results that 90% of people get. 

We often want results that are disproportionate to our effort or methods.  But the people who got top 10% results used different methods than most others.  They did something, or a (more likely) a combination of things that moved them ahead of others in whatever they were doing.  The people who get top 1% results are doing things differently than 99% of everyone else.  If you’re playing on the first line of the winning team in the Stanley Cup finals, it’s not because you simply skate with the boys from 6 – 7 a.m. before work every Tuesday.  

• If you want an excellent marriage, you have to have different patterns and habits than most others couples.
• If you want your business to be the best in its field, your methods will be different than most of your competitors and colleagues.
• If you want your ministry to reach more than people than you’re currently reaching, your methods are going to be different than 95% of other churches (less than 5% of Canadian churches have an attendance of 350 or more on a Sunday).  
• Most of us have a reasonable level of dissatisfaction with some aspects of our lives.  Jesus invites us into a radically different methodology (love your enemies).  Most of us really don’t want his methods; we just want his results. 

If you want different results, you have to work and live differently. And the change that represents to most of us is steep enough that we’ll keep living and working like the 90%, hoping to be like the 10%.  Not wise, but real. 

What different patterns have worked for you?  What’s helped you overcome obstacles or helped you make a break through in what you do?