Monthly Archives: October 2007

Old Boards & New Faces

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Its that time of year when old fat guys drag out their mals and hit the water again. (Actually I often surf in winter, but this year it just hasn’t happened.) I had a piece of good advice from a mate yesterday – ‘go have a surf because the world looks different after a surf’.

It has been six months since my last surf – way too long – and almost long enough for me to consider myself an ‘ex-surfer’. I wonder when you become an ex-surfer?…

But with a beautiful sunny day and light offshores I thought I’d give it a shake again and headed to The Spot

in Yanchep. I have been here a few times but never been really impressed with the place. The wave is really good, but its the aggro local scene that puts me off. I don’t enjoy sharing the water with people who want to pick fights and shoot obscenities at everyone else because they don’t live there. Its not the reason I go surfing…

Today began with Mr Aggro local (think of a pitbull with a goatie) ‘f’ing everybody in sight because they were his ‘f’ing waves… Not a good start… But with clean small waves and Mr pitbull out of the way it turned into a decent surf after all.

I’m at that point whereI wonder, ‘do I give surfing away?’ or do I really get back into it? Its probably the one sport that has always made me feel very alive, but that is partly because of the crazy adrenaline rush that comes from putting yourself in crazy positions. I’m not sure I’m up for that any more. I wish I were, but fitness is against me!

We’ll see what develops…

What Do You Call That?…

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This morning we ran our first Brighton Markets down at the local school. There was a pretty good roll up for a first up effort. The deal is that all proceeds from entry go to the developing world and that is clearly stated all around the place.

So what do you call a person who asks if he can have his gold coin back if he doesn’t buy anything?…

I have a few thoughts, but I’m sure you can imagine them. Fortunately he didn’t ask me that question.

The Global Leadership Summit – Day 2

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Yesterday was the final day of the Summit and again there was some excellent content.

The first session with John Ortberg was sensational – probably the best of the whole event. Ortberg preached narratively thru the book of Esther and in the process focussed on a leaders’ greatest fear – and the ‘shadow side’ of our leadership. It was powerful and compelling as well as being personally relevant for probably everyone there. Ortberg is quite brilliant and it was amazing preaching.

At morning tea time I was able to catch up with John, the CEO of Willow Creek Australia and discuss my reflections on the conference. We spent the whole 30 minutes or so in conversation, a valuable time for listening to each other and understanding each other’s points of view. John was very open in sharing with me the costs of the conference and the overall cost Australia-wide. He divulged some significant information in relation to where the money goes and how things are costed. I appreciated his openess and his willingness to listen. To the cynics out there, I don’t believe I was being conned or ‘bought’. He struck me as a person of integrity and someone who genuinely wanted the best result possible.

However my conclusion is that the place where we part company is on values.

WCA hold the value of excellence up very very high, so everything needs to be done at a 10/10 level. This obviously costs more money and because of this value they both spend and charge the money to see that value realised.

In discussion with a friend I suggested I may value ‘simplicity’ over excellence and would be content to run the conference at cheaper sites, using cheaper data projectors and with cheaper handouts/booklets. We also use predominantly email marketing and very rarely use hard copy brochures. I realise the value of these things – and we do use them as needed – but they cost a heap and that cost must be accounted for.

John shared how much one of the speakers had cost WCA and I nearly fell over. I don’t feel I have the right to offer that info anywhere (so don’t ask 🙂 ) but it was a huge amount of money. It may well be ‘market value’ in the business world, but I was stunned at this. Again – we hold different values and I would almost always choose the ‘save money’ route on this one too. There are many brilliant people out there who do not charge the earth.

The other value that came thru the was the highly business/corporate aspect and while I recognise the need for organisation I don’t believe the church is firstly a business. (There are business elements – because this is the world we live in.)

At the end of the conversation I have to say that I was satisfied that (within their value system) WCA are doing everything they can to minimise cost. We just don’t share common values… hence the conflict. I’m not going soft on them here, because I want to be quite honest about what I experienced. I just don’t think they can see any ways to cut costs without cutting ‘quality’.

From here it was back to listen to Michael Porter of Harvard Business School who was speaking about how we maximise the investments we make in our local communities. He wasn’t rivetting, but he did say some good stuff. He also made a few feaux paxs that didn’t endear him to an Aussie audience. I left to go to the toilet about half way thru and didn’t make it back in… A few good conversations won me over.

Lunch time… hanging out…

Colin Powell… many people were looking forward to this session, but I found it quite dull. Hybels interviewed Powell and while he said some useful stuff it was very much leadership 101 with few real gems. I wouldn’t bother hearing it again.

The final session was Hybels on the power of inspiration. He spoke about self leadership stuff and keeping yourself inspired. Useful, helpful and practical, but I left before the end to get home in time.

Truthfully, I found the two days really valuable both for content and for connections. In my role with Forge I intentionally place myself in these environments so that I can engage with other Christian leaders and make useful connections that will assist our own work. I also find it helpful to keep reminding people that we are not in opposition to one another and while we may be working with different (sometimes vastly) imaginations of church we are seeking many common objectives.

As Andrew commented in the previous post, this is not the expression of leadership and church I am seeking to grow in, but there is still much to be learnt and plenty of inspiration to be had.

What would I actually

pay for an event like this?…

Its probably hard to say. The original costs of speakers etc would need to be factored in as well as the local venue costs, but I reckon if ‘simplicity’ was elevated as a value then we may be able to save a heap.

Wednesdays with Gandhi

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Its been great to see the interesting discussion that Jarrod has developed over the few weeks of writing on here!

He is away today mountain bike riding, but suggested I could post an article he wrote recently which you might be interested in.

Rather than repost it here I’ll simply give you the link and you can shoot across and dig into it.

So what does it stir in you?…

Why You Should Love Your Neighbour

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Apparently this is true… but could well be an urban myth (I haven’t checked). Either way its funny!

A city councilman in Utah, Mark Easton, had a beautiful view of the east mountains, until a new neighbour purchased the lot below his house and built a new home.

The new home was 18 inches higher than the ordinances would allow, so Mark Easton, mad about his lost view, went to the city to make sure they enforced the lower roof line ordinance. The new neighbour had to drop the roof line, at great expense.

Recently, Mark Easton called the city, and informed them that his new neighbour had installed some vents on the side of his home. Mark didn’t like the look of these vents and asked the city to investigate. Whenthey went to Mark’s home to see the vent view, this is what they found… equilibrium divx

I like that neighbour!! (Although it is an ugly house)

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The Global Leadership Summit – Day 1

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logo.gif This was an inspiring day of presentations from some brilliant people!

Unlike last year where I simply vented my frustration online at WCA’s choice to charge people money to watch DVDs, this time I emailed the CEO and asked him about this policy.

I still couldn’t get it… $179.00 per person to watch DVDs… He advised me that every cost was accounted for and that they may even lose money. He kindly told me I could have a free ticket to assess the worth of the conference and then speak with him later about how WCA could do better if I didn’t feel it was worth the money.

You can’t get any fairer than that, so I took him up on it.

So here are some random reflections from day 1:

– With the trains out of action the freeway was likely going to be horrible. And fully expecting half an hour of singing I aimed to arrive at 9.20 and miss it. I got there at 9.15 and missed the most of it.

– Riverview’s chairs are very comfy.

– Maybe 800 present?…

– Paul Morrison is a huge asset for any church. I knew Paul when he was the quiet shy bloke from Pingelly who could sing with passion like nobody else. With Mark Cullen moving on from Riverview he seems to have become the ‘front man’. He is as earthy and authentic an Aussie bloke as you will find anywhere. His marriage man clips are pretty darn funny too.

– Mark Wilson was our ‘facilitator’ or more accurately compere for the day. He asked us to ‘welcome’ the speakers, to applaud them and to generally do as we were told. I’m afraid I struggle to welcome someone via DVD. If that isn’t weird… The WCA CEO told me they need to fly the facilitators to the USA to train them… Mark and a million other pastors could have done what he did today standing on their heads! I think I figured out one way to save a heap of money.

– “Turn to someone and greet them.” Seriously, if I had a dollar for every person who has told me they find this practice revolting I could feed a small country. This is something we need to lose in churches. It lacks authenticity and people feel pushed. Lets just admit it was a bad idea and if people want to say ‘g’day’ they are quite capable on their own. It reminds me of a marriage seminar I went to where as I entered the first session I was ‘given’ a rose to give to my wife. It was as dicky a concept as I have ever come across! ‘Here honey! That man gave me this rose to give to you to show you I love you…’ (I told him ‘my wife doesn’t like roses’)

– Bill Hybels did a talk on vision. (No really!) He spoke about the importance of getting buy in from the people – not just the leader having a great idea. As he admitted this has been a big move forward for him, from simply getting the vision from on high to engaging due process. He asked us to consider whether we had a vision we would go the wall for, or whether we just had a warm fuzzy feeling that we weren’t sold on.

Hybels is always good and this was no exception. (He is looking older! But then so am I…) I found this talk helpful as I reflected on my own place in life at the moment. I found myself wondering if I am sold out to the dream God has placed in my heart or if I am just interested in it. I have never been one for half heartedness but in the last few days I have been struggling with some personal stuff and this talk was good medicine for me. There’s no question that Hybels was seeing a larger corporate expression of church as he spoke, but the core idea is reasonably transferrable to more simple organic structures.

– Morning tea – a chance to catch up with some friends who seemed to wonder what the heck I am doing there. Some folks seem to hold the view that if I work for Forge then maybe I am ‘sleeping with the enemy’. My objections to this conference had less to do with content, and more to do with the expense.

– Karen Wilson told us that over 100 000 people had participated in the Summit worldwide. I did a quick calculation… 100 000 x $100.00 ( a conservative figure) = quite a lot of money… $10 000 000.00 (10 million) to be precise. Did it really cost that much to run?… I am yet to be convinced on this issue. (Honestly – I am astonished…)

– The second session saw Hybels interview Carly Fiorina an ex CEO of HP who was fired unexpectedly. She shared her story of learning how to overcome personal fears and lead well. She was excellent value and threw out a few gems along the way. She was one of the non-Christian presenters in the whole event and at the risk of being cynical it reinforced yet again that much of leadership in churches today is not based so much on biblical principles as on best practice business management technique.

– Lunch – great opportunity to catch a few friends

– Marcus Buckingham of ‘Gallup’ was next and this bloke was brilliant. He spoke about putting your strengths to work and focussing on developing them rather than worrying about weaknesses. He seemed to have been a stand up comedian in a past life and regularly had people laughing. His presentation was excellent and insightful as he helped each of us consider what it was that were our real strengths – as opposed to simply the things that we were good at. I could rave on about this session, but I’d suggest you get the DVD and use it with any team you are leading. Fantastic stuff!

– And after afternoon tea Richard Curtis was interviewed by Bill Hybels. Curtis was the script writer behind 4 Weddings and a Funeral and Mr Bean amongst others. Hybels was doing a ‘Parkinson’ and trying to swing things towards leadership, but while it was interesting it was not gripping. Compared to the 3 previous sessions this was a little lacklustre. I left at 4pm to beat the traffic home… but didn’t beat the traffic home…

– I left feeling inspired and encouraged having enjoyed the day. I have to say I am grateful for the opportunity to be there and I did find it very helpful.

However I still cannot see the need to charge people that kind of money to watch a DVD. Hopefully tomorrow I will be able to catch the WCA CEO to discuss it with him more. I don’t want to simply be a grumpy bugger. I believe there is a real issue here and hopefully my thoughts on it will contribute to a price reduction next year.

– An interesting observation is that I don’t think any speaker used the Bible as their source text at any time. This is not an exaggeration – watch the DVDs and check for yourself. There were one or two occasional references to scripture but these were ‘in passing’ and by the ‘non-christians’. I don’t get overly pedantic about this kind of thing, (because occasionally this critique gets thrown at Forge) but it did stand out to me. It seemed to reinforce yet again the model of church as business and pastor as CEO. Funnily enough, despite recognising the need for organisation, this is not a concept I gel with all that well. I am sure all of us in Christian ministry would be somewhat concerned at attending a conference on Christian leadership and not engaging at all with scriptures… true?

I’ll offer some thoughts on day 2 tomorrow night.

Essential Components of a Missionary Community

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Here’s a dot point summary of a talk I did over the weekend for anyone who is interested. It is a simple reflection on the desires, knowledge and actions that a missionary community requires.

I’d be interested in your reflections and what you would add to the lists.

Missionary Desires rush hour 3 dvdrip

1. For people to know Jesus and experience his salvation in its fullness – kinda obvious?…

2. For the kingdom of God to take root in an area – to seek the welfare of the city as Jeremiah 29 puts it.

3. For people’s dignity to be upheld in the middle of the process – we are not conquerors and colonisers.

Missionary Knowledge

You need to help people learn these things

1. ‘Sentness’ is everything – we are sent by God, so we go where he leads and we stay till he says ‘move’. No exceptions.

2. Orientation is everything – outward and downward (missional incarnational) rather than inward and extractional.

3. Initiative is everything – no one is going to walk across the road to your house and ask you to tell them about Jesus. Its pretty obvious…

4. Context is everything – the way mission happens in Hobart will be very different to the way it happens in Brighton or even across town. We must pay attention to the communities we live in.

5. Our own authentic connection to Jesus is everything – otherwise it will be dry labour and lack integrity. Too much missionary endeavour is done because we ‘have to’.

6. Everything is everything – we will function in accordance with the degree to which these things are present in us.

What Missionaries do

Knowledge is useless if we don’t act on it

1. Discover & learn about a context – we must exegete our culture as well as our Bibles. Hang out – listen – tune in – ask questions

2. Create space in life – busyness is the death of mission. Miss this and we miss the point.

3. Indigenize ecclesiology rather than importing & franchising – think for yourself and let church flow from mission. We are not in the franchise business.

4. Theologise carefully – Hold core stuff tightly and non core loosely and are able to tell the difference between the two. Don’t be shy to take risks. You can always come back from the edge if you fall off.

5. A missionary community demonstrates an alternative way to live. Its the ‘Upstream’ concept we speak of.

6. Work patiently and trust God – God makes things grow

More ‘non-rocket-science’ stuff, but still enough to keep us going for a lifetime…

In Defense of New Ways of Doing Church by Mark Edwards

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I had an email over the weekend from Mark Edwards, friend and regular commenter on here. He was concerned that his comments on here may have appeared to convey the wrong message in terms of how he feels about different expressions of church.

He sent this to me and told me I could post it.

Thanks Mark!

As I said to Mark, I never mind some disagreement and while we might come at things from different angles I’d rather have the open discussion and the thoughts of those who don’t agree with me than the simple hum of the choir drumming in your ears 24/7. So here you have some thoughts from Mark:

mark.jpgThere has been over the past few years a lot of discussion of the so called ‘emerging church’. The very name causes much angst among both its protagonists, and antagonists, with neither agreeing exactly what it means.

For a pragmatist such as myself, the question I am always asking is, what do you do, and what are you producing. For the evangelist in me, I am asking, what fruit in terms of peoples lives are you seeing changed?

I am in regular contact with one such leader, Andrew Hamilton, and regularly receive updates on his work, ‘Upstream Ministries’. There are plenty of people who are critical of what he does, and the decisions he has made. I am not here to defend him, or the ministry he is involved in, but I do want to encourage and state what is good about his ministry.

He cares about people, passionately. This is evident through the various community activities he and his team are involved in. From backyard renovations to building veggie patches, he is actually doing something, instead of just talking about it.

The other thing I love about Hamo is his willingness to dialogue and work with those he does not necessarily line up with theologically. He talks to Lutherans, Anglicans and atheists. Hamo has also not rejected the established church, in fact he still is involved at a more traditional Baptist Church, and finds meaning and purpose there. In contrast to some Emerging Church guys, he does not appear to have a axe to grind, chip on shoulder or barrow to push, unless its his neighbours.

In the midst of discussion about methods of church, lets not forget that those of us who call on the name of Christ, and who are encouraging others to do the same, are on the same side.

I pray for God’s richest blessing and joy on Andrew and all the crew working with him in Brighton.