An 'Un-Fun' Experience

I’ve recently been in ‘church shopping’ mode.   It was a strange experience for me as in all my previous 27 years walking this earth, I’d never ever done it before.  But after finishing up at my church as the Youth Pastor in order to study fulltime, we decided it was the best idea.

Leading up to the experience I thought it would be fun. I thought I’d enjoy the process. Going to different churches, checking them out, critiquing, thinking about what I liked and didn’t like.  But pretty soon I found the process frustrating, saddening, not all it was cracked up to be. 

This has taught me two things.

Humans need humans.

Christians need Christians. 

We are built for relationships.  We cannot survive in this world on our own.  After about two months of being without a church to call home I began to feel lonely.  Sure, I had friends from my old church, and family around still.  But I didn’t have a home. 

The bible tells us in Hebrews that we should, 'consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another...' I'd always known that it was important to go to church, but it wasn't until I was without a home, that I realised just how important it is. In fact I know now that I'd rather be in a church that frustrated me than be in no church at all. 

So because relationships matter, churches must be friendly.  We ended up choosing the friendliest church.  Not the one with best music, or best preaching, or slickest services.  No, we chose the church where multiple people said hello, who invited us out for lunch afterwards; and backed up its friendliness on our second and third visit.  Many of the churches we visited struggled.  Sometimes we sat in the foyer alone for 15 minutes drinking a cup of tea by ourselves.  On another occasion the only people who talked to us were the ones who were supposed to (minister/person with a name tag that said welcomer on it).

Christians need Christians.  We need the different parts of the body to bless and encourage us, and we need to use our gifts to bless and encourage the body (1 Corinthians 12).  So I need church and church needs me.  You need church and church needs you.  I believe that if we worked hard on making our churches places of love and openness, which were quick to welcome and show hospitality to strangers (aka newcomers), then we would see many more people darken the doors of church and begin a journey following in the footsteps of Jesus.

Chris Bowditch

Theology Student

www.youthministryandme.com

William Ury: A Yes Man Says No

The co-author of Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In (1981), William Ury knows a few things about mediation. For 30 years, he has served as a negotiation adviser and mediator in conflicts around corporate mergers, wildcat strikes in a Kentucky coal mine, ethnic wars in the Middle East, the Balkans, and the former Soviet Union, and even family disputes. With former President Jimmy Carter, he co-founded the International Negotiation Network, an organization dedicated to ending civil wars around the world. Along the way, he has taught negotiation skills to thousands of corporate executives, diplomats, labor leaders, and military officers helping organizations reach mutually beneficial agreements. 

Getting to YES focused on finding acceptable solutions through “principled negotiation.” 

But after nearly 25 years of getting to yes, this yes man said no. As the father of a baby with serious medical problems, he realized that in order to make positive choices about her health, he would have to oppose new medical procedures that he felt were inappropriate.

In The Power of Positive No: How to Say No & Still Get to Yes, Ury offers the following tips:

1. Uncover your deeper YES (a core interest, need, or value), express it to the other person, and stay true to your yes.
2. Deliver a respectful NO. Keep your tone neutral and matter-of-fact and empower your NO with a Plan B.
3. Negotiate to a healthy YES. A healthy YES yields a positive outcome. Follow your NO with a positive proposal and facilitate a wise agreement.
“In order to say yes to what’s truly important, you first need to say no to other things,” says Ury. “No is the new Yes,” he says. “And the “positive no” may be the most valuable life skill you’ll ever learn.”  

reposted from http://www.wcablog.com

 

Meet Patrick Lencioni

Advantage: Lencioni
To lead your organization, church, or team to long-term sustainable success, you need an advantage. And Patrick Lencioni knows what it is. In his newest book, The Advantage: Why Organizational Health Trumps Everything Else in Business, he makes the case that organizational health will surpass all other disciplines in business as the greatest opportunity for improvement and competitive advantage. Lencioni is bursting with high energy leadership wisdom and we’re thrilled to have him back at the Summit to train and encourage you right where you’re leading today.

Messy, Imperfect, and…Healthy
An organization is healthy when it is whole, consistent, and complete; when its management operations and culture are unified. Healthy organizations are free of politics and confusion, and provide an environment where star performers never want to leave.

In The Advantage, Lencioni takes a holistic, comprehensive approach to improving organizational health. And how does he define a healthy organization? Healthy companies are messy and imperfect. They argue, make mistakes, and try things that don’t work. But they know who they are, what they believe in, and what they’re trying to accomplish Employees want to work there, they have loyal consumers, and extremely humble leaders who know why they are there and what the organization is all about.

Fable: Business and management meet the fictional narrative

Lencioni has become the king of dealing with management issues within the context of a fable. “I thought readers would be able to relate to the characters and issues they were facing in their businesses if I wrote the books as fables,” he says. And writing fiction came easily for him. As an amateur screenwriter, he knew how to bring ideas to life by using characters and dialogue.

In The Advantage, however, Lencioni takes a U-turn from styles of his other management books. “The nature of the subject matter is too broad to fit within the context of one story,” he says. Previous books focused on more limited issues—teamwork, meetings, employee engagement.

The Vulnerable Leader
What is the first thing people can do to improve the organizational health of the company where they work? According to Lencioni, it starts with the individual and their team. “Leaders need to understand what it is to be vulnerable. Vulnerability inspires trust on the leadership team and that trust is the foundation for teamwork—one of the cornerstones of organizational health.” The concept of vulnerability has a trickle-down effect. If a leader refuses to be vulnerable, refuses to admit mistakes, shortcomings, or weaknesses, others will follow suit. “When that happens,” says Lencioni,” organizational health is impossible.”

Lencioni, a business consultant with a diverse base of clients including a mix of Fortune 500 companies, churches, the military, professional sports organizations, non-profits, and universities, speaks to thousands of leaders each year, including the Willow Creek Association’s Global Leadership Summit. His most recent books are Getting Naked: A Business Fable About Shedding the Tree Fears That Sabotage Client Loyalty (2010), The Three Big Questions for a Frantic Family (2008), and The Advantage (2012).

reposted from http://www.wcablog.com

Show the World How You See the Summit

reposted from http://www.wcablog.com/

 

Summit 2011 Concept

Since 1995, we’ve heard stories and seen creative artwork that depicts your experience with The Global Leadership Summit. So as we celebrate another great season, we’re intentionally inviting you to submit your creativity through our first international t-shirt design contest.

Based on a recommendation from Summit faculty alum, Blake Mycoskie, founder of Toms Shoes, we are hosting a crowd-sourcing design contest with 99designs, Tuesday October 18th – Friday, October 28th . 

Use your creativity—visuals or words—to help depict what the Summit has meant to you. What image comes to mind when you think of this worldwide movement? Is there one visual or a collage of photos? Is there a word or a phrase that best describes your experience? If you’re not a designer, please comment below and share your story to aid the brainstorming process. 

Then step up to get involved with the design of the 2012 Summit international t-shirt concept:

1. Share. Please help us connect with artists and creative-types by emailing, tweeting, facebooking, and blogging about this opportunity.

2. Design. This is your chance to show the world how you see and experience TGLS. Submit your t-shirt design at 99designs.com. You’ll need to create an account and then search The Global Leadership Summit for contest specifics. To sweeten the deal, prize money will be awarded, including complimentary tickets for 4 to the Summit 2012.

3. Vote. Check back at 99designs each day for updates and to help choose your favorite t-shirt design. Who knows how we might be giving away t-shirts in the coming months?! 

Here are a few of the words that our Summit team lives by (if it helps inspire you!), and be sure to check our Facebook page for stories from leaders around the world:

The Global leadership Summit exists to transform Christian Leaders around the world with an injection of vision, skill development, and inspiration for the sake of the local church.

The Global Leadership Summit has become a unique two-day leadership development event that is unashamedly Christ-centered, intellectually challenging, and results-oriented, with a diverse faculty line-up that will create disequilibrium for the sake of transformation in the Church.

In 2011 over 160,000 people will share this experience in over 400 cities around the world. 

Lead Where You Are has become our rally cry to inspire leaders in all sectors to serve others for the sake of the local church.

Thanks for reading, and thanks for helping us spread the word! 

The winning design will be announced on Tuesday, November 1

Beth Dahlenburg (@Bethd5)
Executive Director of Marketing

The Cost of Networking

I love my office. I love sitting in my office pumping out that next well-crafted sermon. I love sitting at my computer fleshing out that new strategy that is going to revolutionise my ministry. I love pausing in my office as I think through an idea that could really change things. 

I just love my office.

Despite this love affair, it sometimes does me more harm than good. The more I love my office, the less I want to be involved with others in my ministry area. I often view networking with other leaders as the annoying interruption in my comfortable, self-absorbed day. It is only now that I realise why this networking business often makes me feel uncomfortable. It costs me.

Networking costs me time. If I meet another leader for coffee, that’s at least an hour out of my day where I could be finishing off a new roster. If I meet with local youth pastors for breakfast, that’s 90 minutes that I could be spending preparing next week’s service.

Secondly, networking costs me control. Whenever I’m involved in organising an event with other youth ministries, I don’t get to make the final decision on everything. I’m only given one responsibility and kept out of making other decisions, which makes me feel less important.

Finally, networking costs me my personal beliefs. When I work with other leaders, I often need to sacrifice my perspective on various matters. I may have to give an offering talk even though my denomination doesn’t usually do that. I may have to allow worship to be done with epic lights, booming speakers and slick-dressed people on stage.

But if I step back and look from a Kingdom perspective, is 90 minutes with a local leader and a ‘Big Breakfast’ really a sacrifice of time? Who cares if I’m only in charge of wristbands at a combined event? And come on, does it really matter if there’s an offering talk or not? I mean as long as the gospel is being preached, right? As long as discipleship is still the priority. So please, stop reading this in your office and call a leader in your area for a catch-up. Organise a breakfast for your team.

Go! Get out now, before you’re tempted to marry your office chair!

Luke Williams

Youth Pastor 

Wollongong Church of Christ

luke@wgongcoc.org

A Code Of Conduct To Develop A Culture Of Honour

Possibly the biggest challenge in developing a great church, community, staff team, marriage, family and social relationships, is that of providing a culture of honour to surround, protect and foster these important relationships. A culture of honour transcends position by safely allowing all people to appropriately acknowledge, celebrate, and give to each other, the gift of who they really are and what they can positively and uniquely contribute.

To develop a culture of honour there needs to be a commitment to seriously encourage, practice, and be held accountable for the following foundational qualities in all social exchanges. With additions or deletions, these qualities could be used as a social and relational covenant in a variety of settings. Each quality is both named and explained using a statement of commitment.

Encouragement

I will at all times seek to speak well of others and encourage them especially concerning their giftedness, roles, and ministries

Containment

I will, apart from seeking personal confidential counsel, always seek to first address my concerns by directly communicating with those my concerns are about. If a person speaks to me about their concerns regarding another person, I will encourage them to seek a meeting with that person and offer if necessary to go with them for that purpose

Assertiveness

I will take the initiative to appropriately raise my areas of concern according to Matthew 18,  believing that in so doing I demonstrate the value I place on preserving and strengthening relationships and the value God places on us each and on kingdom community

Appropriate self-disclosure

I will share with those with whom I have concerns, appropriate content, feelings and meaning associated with my concerns

Non-defensive active listening

I am willing to listen to others’ concerns about me without defence so as to accurately understand and have verified by them that I have understood their concerns (content, feelings and meaning)

Respect

I am “for” those with whom I have concerns, not “against” them, and so will offer them my respect by my listening, looking, speaking, word selection, tone of voice, reasoning, style of approach, body language and responses

Genuineness

I will always strive to be open, transparent, and true to myself in my communication

Understanding  

I will make every effort to consider others and my motivations, needs, values, feelings and attitudes

Self-control

I will not say and do anything that will cause bad attitudes or further complicate problem(s) and concerns

Honesty

I will always strive to honour my word and any commitments I make

Empathy

I will attempt to appreciate how those who have concerns about me feel and why they feel the way they do, believing that their needs are valid simply because they see them as such

Conciliation

I am committed to finding a workable solution/outcome to dissolve concerns of others

Growth

I am open to help and development as I discover aspects of my thinking, behaviour, and attitudes that need to change

An elegant outcome

I will always aim for outcomes from my interactions and negotiations with others that are mutually beneficial and fair

A culture of honour takes time to develop so these qualities need to be discussed, owned, and practiced until they become habitual. When such qualities are enthusiastically and seriously embraced into any culture, they take relationships and teamwork to a new level not previously experienced.

Ric Benson

Senior Pastor

Kenmore Baptist Church

Creating and Communicating a Ministry Culture

Children’s ministry teams by their nature draw together a wide range of volunteers. These volunteers come with a variety of experiences which shape their expectations and often direct their methods.

They have a mental picture of what Children’s Ministry is and what it ought to be. A teenager can tend to favour a fun environment being a “mate’ to the kids and may struggle with the leadership aspect. Someone who has worked with kids for a while, will want to draw on the methodology of the past and as a result may struggle to adapt to new methods.

Some volunteers value recall answers, others discussion and others craft. The more volunteers we have, the more diverse their expectations, therefore the clearer you must be in determining your culture.

A clearly defined culture

·         Gets everyone on the same page.

Visitors, Volunteers, parents and children all know what your ministry is about. Every week there is one consistent message going home and a clear plan on how parents can be involved in helping children take the next steps.

·         Gives consistency and continuity for our kids.

Most of us have teams that rotate, so the same team does not serve together every week. We need to present consistency in presentation, language, and expectation across our ministry.

·         Ignites passion.

Nothing is more inspiring to a team than working together to see goals achieved. Knowing and feeling like you are part of something bigger, and more significant than just you!

Vision and values can be recorded for people to read, but culture defines what actually happens. It’s what people see, feel and hear when they are in your ministry area as a visitor, volunteer, parent or child. It can be heard by the language that is used, the rituals (programming) that you engage in and in the dynamics of your team.

Communicate your culture

·         Speak it!

Remind your team of the things that matter most and why they are important, what would be lost if we did not pay attention to them? These characteristics not only form the vision piece, but link to the process (eg. “when you give kids time to share, they feel we value them”), and evaluation as well. Don’t say it once, but over and over again in different ways.

·         Show it!

Use non verbal ways of communicating your message through signage, decor, atmosphere, and procedure/ritual. Our words become even more powerful when they are backed up by consistent actions. eg If your ministry area is truly targeted for the kids, it will look age appropriate. This can be done on a week by week set up, it does not have to be permanent. If we say we are relevant and prepared and then to quickly write a bible verse on a white board or a scrappy piece of paper shows something different.

·         Feel it!

Atmosphere is one of the first things that registers for me when I walk into a ministry area. A collaboration of visual messages reinforced by the personal approach of the team and reflected in the kids response. Ownership is a value that can be felt. When every person on the team knows what their contribution is and how it helps the overall team, you can feel it. There is an atmosphere of encouragement and support—we play as team!!

·         Live it!

These characteristics become part of the fabric of being team, it’s like breathing, we just do it!

To change any aspect of your existing culture takes time and intentional effort.

What are the characteristics that define the culture of your ministry?

·        How do you demonstrate these on a weekly basis?

·         If you were to evaluate your ministry this week based on these characteristics,

how would you score?

·        Ask your parents, volunteers and children questions to determine if you are actually communicating clearly.

Margaret Spicer

Children and Families Pastor

Crossway Baptist Church, Melbourne