Keeping busy?

A blog post by Brian Ward reminded me of how cool the missional concept is.

It is kind of intuitive and it's kind of overlooked because of it's... simplicity--maybe?

I was also reminded of it when a friend described a mission project, with a wistful look in his eye, as being "really good".

Not like other things, he described, we do which seem like "busy work" sometimes.

I could vibe with what my friend was talking about.

Some stuff you do because you have to do it. And sometimes in the obligation you lose sight of the opportunity. Check out Keitharsis for more on this idea.

This is busy work. The wood to chop and the water to tote. And there is alot of it out there. We have to produce it. Or perish. And we can produce it by the ton.

What I like about the missional church is that there is very little busy work.

It's all "really good". Because it is all done for the sake of relationships and for the experience and for how it empowers others and yourself to want to do and be more.

We'll always have wood to chop and water to tote. It helps to consider who we are chopping with and what we are toting for. And then "busy work" can become "really good". And missions can become missional.

Thanks Brian. And good luck.

More yeses

In Managing the Non-Profit: Principles and Practices, Peter Drucker defines a customer as a person who can say "no". (p.55). Do you have customers? Are they just the people who come to your events? They can either come or not come. Do you spend most of your time trying to get all those people out there to say yes and come to an event?

What about the lay leaders you serve? They can come to ministry team meetings or not. They can offer their best efforts for your event or they can offer that effort at work or at home or at the ball park. How much time do you spend cultivating and giving good customer service to this group of customers?

How about the person you answer to as a staff member or as a volunteer? How much time should we spend giving them good value for their investment? Are they an annoyance that you put up with? A hurdle to overcome? It'll be tough for them to have very much customer satisfaction if you do.

And what about those you are responsible for leading as a professional?

Can they say "no"? Or do they have to say "yes"?

If they can't say no, you are not a leader, you are a manager and perhaps not a very good one.

If they can: how often do you get them to yes?

That might be an indicator of how good a leader you are.

Funny

You were feeling pretty good about the mission trip you organized to Sri Lanka. It brought together the "old-guard": missions is all about making converts with the "new generation": mission is all about living our lives together and learning more than you try to teach and earning the right to talk by listening. Lay leaders from the congregation were fully empowered to lead the trip. They put in lots of effort and made sacrifices, but you bet they felt it was worth it!

Their were some difficult moments, but the group came to trust each other and there was lots of social capital developed. People who were considered "outsiders" were empowered and there were 3 or 4 longer term relationships shaping up by the end of the trip. It was really incarnational, you know. I mean your team lived among the Sri-Lankans and made it a point not to eat at McDonalds and took part in Sri-Lankan festivals and even prayed a Sri-Lankan prayer even though you weren't completely sure you bought into the theology of it. And through it all, God's all encompassing love was at the center of discussions and projects, and devotions.

But when you got to the evaluation meeting, people were...sad.

They were let down. All their efforts and all the work seemed to go unnoticed by the church.

It was like pulling teeth to get people to sign up to be prayer partners. Someone from the facility staff had to drive the van to the airport because no one else had the time. Worst of all right in the middle of the drive to get people involved in the Sri Lankan outreach, the announcement time in Worship service was taken up by skits and promos for the upcoming wild game supper hosted by the co-ed softball team.

During the most critical time of sign ups for the Sri Lanka trip the children's sermon was about the Motorcycles for Jesus fundraiser which supported an outside group from South Dakota and didn't really involve anyone in your church congregation except for the one guy who rode the Harley Davidson down the center aisle that day during service to raise awareness for the fundraiser.

The Sri Lankan mission team was left thinking that their efforts to live out the incarnational, relational, experiential, and empowering nature of our Christian faith--that effort to engage this new paradigm of meeting Jesus, not just "taking" Jesus--was regarded by the church as less important than the wild game supper and the Motorcycles for Jesus fundraiser.

It's funny isn't it: how people determine what's important to the church?

Or is it?

--it happens

The bulletin articles, email announcements, posters, banners, inserts, fliers, handouts, brochures, pulpit announcements, closed circuit tv slides, postcards, webpages, and personal invitations we churn out everyday could as likely represent distractions as easily as they could represent valuable activities.

People are seeking investment opportunities. Which are hard to find when you are distracted.

People are looking for a return on investment.

James Coleman identified six forms of return on investment in this sense:

1. Obligations and expectations- If I do something nice or good for you or your cause, then you will reciprocate and do something nice or good for me or my cause.

2. Information potential- Relationships developed will increase knowledge and lead me to specialized information. I'll be in the know about stuff.

3. Norms and effective sanctions- I'll be rewarded somehow someway for selfless actions and I'll receive disapproval for selfish actions. This "My Name is Earl" approach sways me to work work for the collective good of the group and it's cause.

4. Authority relations- I submit to your leadership and you then have access to an extensive network of social capital that can be directed toward a specific goal.

5. Appropriable social organization- I committed to one thing and then the next thing I know, I'm involved in something else and I keep on through inertia.

6. Intentional organizations- I am brought together in an entity that benefits my group and it's cause as well as others indirectly.

According to this theory, most relationships are developed as by products of other intentioned actions.

So, does this discredit intentionality and pragmatism?

Or

Does this indicate that without intentionality, relationships don't happen?

Maybe the takeaway is that a clear cause, whether or not you advance it, leads to relationships.

And then you just have to see what happens.

Otherwise, you just spend lots of time seeing what happens.

And that's really just a bumper sticker.

Waiting to happen.

what do you think? no really?

In the a recent New York times editorial, Bono stated the three greatest threats we face today.

Should we know what they are? Why would we care about Bono's thoughts?

Should we spend very much time and energy to find out how our organization might be interested in participating in reducing the threat posed to the world by these three things?

How competent would our members and community be in engaging a plan to reduce the threat from these three things?

Bono's big three are extreme poverty, extreme ideology and extreme climate change.

Let's assume we are already working on extreme poverty.

Let's also take climate change off the table because it's kind of a divisive issue.

But what about extreme ideology? Is that something we can work on?

Could we look at how we offer opportunities for people with different viewpoints to share in a safe space about what they believe and why?

Would that have to start with us?

Maybe we should take some time to listen to someone else's idea, (at least try) to learn from the diametrically opposed, and to work with people we don't understand in a project or two of their choosing.

Would you be willing to take some time away from the birds of a feather and flock with a different covey?

Turkeys and turnover

I was inspired to wonder a little bit about Thanksgiving and the historical significance of turkeys. I have encountered a group (rafter, gang?) of wild turkeys a couple of times on jogging outings I have been on in a neighborhood closeby. I thought it was strange because I have always thought of turkeys as elusive. But there they were in folks yards- along the driveway. Some sitting on the fence. Not stressed or with a "turkey in the headlights look". Just hanging out. 20-25 of them. I was overcome by a very real sense of peace.

I was thinking about how things have changed for them: for these particular turkeys and their predecessors. And how they seem to be able to deal with it. Where did this spirit of peace, of wholeness, of OK-with-things-ness come from?

Loss of habitat. Coyotes moving in. Joggers running by. Hunters. Hunters with guns. Hunting technology. Bass Pro Shop. The development of easy, cheap, extra broad breasted turkeys. The movement back to more native type turkeys for eating on Thanksgiving.

I thought of the changes of the other historical figures of Thanksgiving. The trail of tears. Massacres. Loss of Land. Loss of tribal identity. Alcoholism. Abject poverty. Cultural demonization of spiritual identity.

I was on a visit to the Hopi Nation cultural center earlier this year and I was engaged in the same sense of peace that I experienced from the gang of turkeys. Peace in the face of unimaginable change and loss over the past couple of centuries.

And it seemed to eminate from a source of "togetherness despite it all." Young Hopi were sharing about the proud history and grace of their people. Together with other Hopi people. Older Hopi were offering their handcrafted creations to visitors. Together.

There's lots of changes afoot. Economically, theologically, and culturally, things never stay the same; but things seem to be particularly volatile right now.

How might we best impart a sense of peace in this setting?

Thankfully, I think, it will be together.

May we be a rafter of resourcefulness, a gang of gatherer-togetherers, a tribe of togetherness in all the communities we touch.

Collaborate. Partner peer to peer. Seek to learn first and try to teach second. Answer the phone before you check the caller id. Return the tough email. Show them how much you care. Pray for peace.

Happy Black Friday.

The light of Jesus and the extension cords

Tony Campolo, in a recent podcast, stated that "Christians are called not to be pragmatic: they are called to be faithful to the teachings of Jesus."

Is this contradictory?

There's the comparison in Luke 14:28-32 of someone who is preparing to build a tower or go to war to the cost of discipleship, right?

Are we supposed to consider the costs of discipleship and then make a

decision about it?

The prodigal son seemed pretty pragmatic in his determination of how to get out of the mess he made.

Do we sometimes have to unplug the light on the Jesus picture to plug in the extension cords of live to get something done?

Are we supposed to check our pragmatism at the door?

Are you OK with, "Yeah, but it's just a church thing."

Sometimes I think the church is where you can come and just not have to worry about practicalities and whether or not something works.

We have Sunday evening services because one evening a young man came to the church doors on a Sunday evening, and there was no service at that time, so he shot himself. Right there in the front alcove. You can still see the bullet hole. That's why we have Sunday evening services.

We had 300 reservations for the church dinner and we had about 300 people show up, so it was a success.

We view the stewardship commitment as something sacred between you and God, but we do use them to figure out how much our budget will be, don't we?

It's both and I'm guessing, huh? Sometimes the best way to exemplify the love of Jesus is by careful calculations and determinations of how to proceed and at other times it just happens in spite of us and our figuring.

Is that OK?

I guess the best we can offer is we'll leave the light on for you. Unless we have to plug in some extension cords instead.