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4 qualities of churches or organizations that have IT

Laser focus:
Jim Collins “What can you be the best at?”
In order to reach those that no one are reaching you have to do what no one else is doing. Life Church’s 5 focuses are weekend worship, small groups, kids ministry, student ministry, and missions. They don’t do many of the things others do so that they can do things no one else is doing like 2nd life campus, u-version.
What are you doing that need to stop doing?

See opportunities where others see obstacles:
You have everything you need to do everything God wants you to do.
He often guides by what he doesn’t provide.

Willing to fail:
Failure is a necessity.
The failure of opening 2 campuses at the same time in Phoenix gave them learnings and opportunities that they wouldn’t have otherwise.
“Shake if off and step up.”
What is God calling you to do that you are afraid to attempt? When are you going to do it?

Organizations who have IT are led by people who have IT:
God showed me I had become a full time pastor and part time follower of Christ. “I lost it.”
If you don’t have it what are you going to do to get it?
Closed with a Franciscan blessing “May God bless you with discomfort…”

Drucker “Leadership is responsibility not money, fame, and power.”

Leaders of the 21st century you will be able to…
Align. Around people around mission and values.
Empower. Unleash their power.
Serve. Leaders are there to serve not be served.
Collaboration. The world’s problems are too big to be solved by ourselves.

6 Steps to becoming an empowering leader
Understand purpose of your leadership.
Gain self awareness. Get out and do it, get feedback, go through period self reflection.
Find your values.
Follow your motivations and capabilities.
Build support team around you.
Live an integrated life. Be the same person in all environments.

Follow your heart not your clock.
At the end of the your life what will you tell your grandkids what when they aske “What did you do to make a difference?”

I appreciate the way George acknowledges the fact that there are many different personality types that become great leaders. It really is refreshing to me as I have been exposed to for example much of Jack Welch’s books which seem to portray a very narrow profile of the kind of personality mix that is takes to be a leader.

Here are a few of my take aways for this session.

Haugen

• How do you reward best performers and get rid of those who aren’t? There is no distinction between what is not good for the mission and what is not good for the person.
• Where do you take the pain of not being able to rescue them all? There is a harsh reality of helping people. You have to celebrate the victories.
• He told a great story about returning home because he wife really needed him when he was supposed to defend someone in Burundi who was set to be executed. He later found out the man was freed and felt like it taught him that God was inviting him to partner but doesn’t need him and he won’t have to trash his family to partner with God in justice.
• In choosing what you should do. Is there a need? Is someone else not doing it? Can add value? Everything else is just becomes perseverance over hardships.
• I love how he answered the question about “What do you say to the church that is not involved with social justice?” He could have slammed everyone in the audience but simply said that it makes him sad because they are missing out just as they are if there is no evangelism, etc. Haugen is genius.
• The irony is that Haugen probably used more axioms that Hybels and answered most of the questions in a very profound and succinct way.

Hybels

• Natural progression of a church is a start with evangelism and discipleship and then adding a work of compassion which then leads to a work of social justice.
• I close my messages with “Don’t stand in long lines to ask me what you should do with this message.”

• “At an early age I saw leadership that mattered.” Referring to the work of leaders in South Africa in 1985. We all want our leadership to matter.
• “Just because I am leading and people are following doesn’t mean that I am leading in the things that matter to God.”
• Are Jesus and I really interested in the same things?
• God loves the world and has a passion for Justice. Justice in the Bible is the abuse of power (Not the guy in front of you in the express line with 13 items instead of 10)
• How are people in slavery, in prison and not convicted, in forced prostitution, etc. supposed to believe that God it good?
• The question everyone is asking is if God loves people and is so passionate about justice why isn’t he doing something about it?
• We are the plan and he doesn’t have another. Mica 6:8, Isaiah 1:17

If you want your leadership to matter lead in the things that matter to God.
How do we lead when the task seems hopeless? We lead by re-centering the basis of our hope. Disciples offered all they had and God did the work. If God is passionate about getting it done he is responsible for getting it done.

How do we lead when the task seems scary? We lead by reminding people that Jesus did not come to make us safe but brave. We can go on the journey with Jesus but miss the adventure.

How do we lead when the task is hard?
1.    Choosing not to be safe. A place where we need God. Do we need prayer every 30 minutes in what we are doing?
2.    Choosing deep spiritual health. On the more demanding climb your devotional life has a desperate purpose to it. Is your
3.    Choosing to pursue excellence. In other eras communities turned to Christians to fix problems and be inspired. We have lost rigor of thought and the discipline of execution. “We have spiritualized mediocrity.” There is a link between love and execution. “At IJM execution it is a matter of life and death.”
4.    Choosing Joy.

I am wondering what is my part in fighting injustice in the world?

Over time a leaders can master the art of decision making.
Best book on decision book he has read Judgment by Tichy and Bennnis.
Do you have a framework to make decisions?
Traditionally Christian leaders ask:
1.    Does the Bible say anything about this?
2.    What do my leaders or advisors say?
3.    Pain, Gain, and Experience. Chronicle your decision making process so you can come back and learn from it.
4.    Is the Spirit prompting me?

Sometimes you should make a trial decision and then walk around with it and see if brings life and peace.
Leaders can’t be decision adverse. They also have to be able to take responsibility for it.
If a decision turns out well thank God. If it doesn’t don’t blame others, take responsibility.

Leaders can distill and test their learning’s into short mantras or axioms that can be easily distilled throughout the organization.
Abraham Lincolns “The best way to deal with those who have harmed me it to turn them into my friend.” “Create motion for motions sake.”
Colin Powel Principals “Check your ego at the door.” “Promote a clash of ideas.” “Reward your best performers, get rid of non-performers.”
Do you reflect often enough that you are operating out of the leadership axioms you have created from your learning?

Hybels Axioms.
Vision leaks
Get the right people around the table
Facts are your friend – Reveal study
When something feels funky – engage. Story of small groups meetings.
Leaders call fouls (on others or ourselves).
Take a flyer. Global poverty awareness plan.
This is church. Not meetings and strategy planning sessions but community,  funerals, ministry to special needs kids.

Man I love to hear his guy talk about his passion for the local church.

What a great weekend at Watermark. Kyle Thompson pegged everyone between the eyes in our North Dallas audience as he talked about, amoung other things, how joy doesn’t come from financial security or a ruthless self discipline which helps you achieve your goals. He shared a great story about hearing a sermon in Goma, Congo where the pastor spoke on materialism from 2 Corinthians 8 and took his people to task because some in the congregation were so materialistic they had 2 pairs of sandals! Kyle didn’t have to belabor the point because everyone listening was painfully convicted by the depths of their own materialism.

There was another great moment at raise the mark that night when a family shared about how their son was going to be recieving a kidney this week that they had been praying for. While they shared Todd brought up Angela who has lost her eyesight because of kidney failure. Angela looked to the family and reminded them (and all of us) that God is good, not because he is coming through with this kidney, but because he is God. There was a moment of powerful silence after that sentence. There was a funny moment as Todd asked what other organs Angela was still waiting on. When she shared that she still needed a pancreas Todd said “Well we will just have to get you a pancreas.” As if to say we could swing into Target and pick one out that would be just her size and color.

Todd closed the time by giving our people some good theology about prayer. Why does he answers some and not others and how faith is not some mystical force that obligates God to do our bidding. I thought having everyone up there at the same time in an unscripted way was a really bold move by Todd. It ended up being a really profound moment for the life of our body. It was a great day.

How do you continually remind your congregation that that they need to create seats during the full service at 11:00? Steve Vanderheide sent a quick email last week asking for volunteers for a shoot and this is what we showed on Sunday. I thought is was a really creative was to keep this in front of our people.

5:30 Service from Steve V on Vimeo.

On July 4th Sam Hodges did a story in the Dallas Morning news about the Two Together Marriage Initiative in Texas. This is a piece of legislation that was passed in an attempt to address the divorce rate in Texas by, among other things, providing premarried education and waiving the state marriage license fee for those that attend. Sam and I talked for a few minutes and I told him what I knew about it, why I was excited about it, and the ideas we were exploring as a church. This isthe quote that was printed:

“It’s in everybody’s best interest to have couples prepared for marriage, but we are probably not going to change anything we’re doing,” said John McGee, director of marriage ministries at Watermark Community Church in Dallas.

I am not really frustrated with Sam. He seemed like a nice enough guy was was probably thrown a story he knew nothing about and given a deadline to make. However, I felt misquoted and do believe this is a great opportunity for churches. The story seems to quote pastors who either didn’t know about it or were not going to do anything with it. I hope the story was not meant to insinuate the legislation is irrelevant or that churches won’t take advantage of it or use this as an opportunity to think creatively about how they can serve their community.

We will continue to offer our premarried classes to the community just as we have these last 6 years. We will also have our program approved so these couples can qualify for the marriage license discount. However we will not be taking any state funds because we still want to base our teaching on the Scriptures. This fact has not seemed to deter those from outside the church from coming to our classes. In fact in our current class, we have at least 5 people who have told us specifically that they are not Christians and yet they continue to come week in and week out. We open the Bible each night and tell them that even if they don’t acknowledge the God of the scriptures, the ideas and concepts will save their marriage. We have some amazing facilitators that do a great job building relationships with these couples and help them process all that they are learning. I am also continually impressed with the way our facilitators are bold enough to tell couples to put on the brakes if they still have issues that they haven’t dealt with.

So we will continue to offer our classes and meet with couples one on one after the class. I am really excited about the waiving of the fee because it gives couples yet another reason to get premarital education.

I hope that the church is at the forefront of some kind of marriage movement or even revival. The very fact that our state is spending 16 million dollars to try and do something about divorce is great, but it should be seen as a slap in the face to the church. Statistically, Christian marriages are not that different from those who that are not. Got created marriage but his followers haven’t done a very good job modeling to the world his intended design.

I really appreciate the way younger evangelicals have talked about not only the means of Gospel but also its implications. This has led to a great resurgence in social justice, care for the poor, etc. Surely one of the implications of the Gospel is that Christians should be about preserving and restoring relationships with each other following the model of Christ restoring our relationship with God. I’ve been hearing some bright and passionate younger Christian leaders talking about the responsibilities of Christians in a global society and I hope they will speak about the need for God honoring relationships with the same vigor in the coming years.

I hope Watermark can be that kind of church. Through Scott Kedersha and Rob Barry’s leadership we are closing in on seeing 200 couples a year come through our Premarried classes. There are roughly 25,000 marriages in Dallas county each year and our BHAG is to help 2500 a year prepare for marriage. Scott is also doing a great job helping newly weds transition into their first year of marriage by placing 5 of them with a mentor couple in an 18 month small group. The result of these Foundation groups has been a shocking low rate of divorce and perhaps even more surprisingly is the wisdom and health some of these young couples that seems to be beyond their years. Chip Dickens, Joy Kupp and their team are working hard to get Re-Engage ready for this fall which will be our new ministry to strengthen marriages and support those who are distressed. Not to mention the fact the Wes Butler and his team continue to help those going through divorce with Divorce Care where we continually see stories of marriages that turnaround and move towards reconciliation.

If every church is going to live out the God’s heart for relationships and do everything it can prepare and support marriages then that means Watermark will have to do so as well. Hopefully some day the state legislature will look at divorce rates that have fallen off a cliff because of what the church has done and they can allocate those funds for something else. Until then we are not indifferent about this new legislation and hope we can find creative ways to leverage it and do all we can to support those who are trying to turn the tide. The churches in this city have not done a good job working together in the past. Maybe in a couple of years Sam will write a follow up piece and talk about all the ways Churches are preparing couples as a result of the legislation. I’ll still be mad that the government had to be the catalyst, but I’d rejoice in the outcome that I’ve been praying for these last few years.

So we are in our weekly all staff meeting this morning and a member named Jason is sitting in. Todd looks at Jason and says “Pick a number 1 through 6.” Jason picks 4 and Todd asks him to recite Galations chapter 4 (apparently he had told Todd a few weeks ago that he had memorized the book of Galatians while we were working our way through it on Sunday). Jason didn’t miss a beat and recited it cold with perfect voice inflection. I really was blessed as I heard the chapter spoken out loud, not to mention convicted like crazy…