Monday Soup

Ugh.  I'm looking at the date of my last post, and it reads August 9th.  Embarrassing.  Busy season, blah, blah, blah.  Time to recount again what God did this weekend.

Summer is coming to an end, the fall is descending, people are back from their vacations, kids are back in school, students are back at college, and we are in week #2 of our Who We Are series... across all THREE of our campuses!  Welcome, Osage!  Keep praying, giving, and going - September 12, your grand opening, is just around the corner!

Pastor Carl brought it.  Our arts teams brought it.  Loved every minute of it.

We opened with this hilarious yet poignant video by the Skit Guys.  Good use of humor that kinda slips past people's defenses and gets them involved into the subject matter for the weekend: the Bible as part of our DNA at PLC.

Then we sang a special from stage: Revelation Song.  You should've seen the crowd at Cedar Falls on Saturday night.  Awesome, spontaneous response to how God moved through it.  Many in the crowd stood and raised their hands - some singing, and some listening.



If you're not familiar with this song, its lyrics are taken directly from Revelation 5:11-12:

Then I looked and heard the voice of many angels, numbering thousands upon thousands, and ten thousand times ten thousand. They encircled the throne and the living creatures and the elders. In a loud voice they sang: "Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and praise!"

We followed it up with Beautiful Jesus, Glory to God Forever, Mighty to Save, and an updated version of I Exalt Thee.  Fabulous set.

At Cedar Falls, for the first time this weekend, we used a "Campus Pastor" to handle both family concerns and some shepherding at the end of the service.  Kyle Thomas, the High School Coordinator at Cedar Falls, did a fantastic job, and gave our congregation a little bit of a taste of what it's like to have someone other than the teaching pastor shepherd through the service.

John Fuller served as the Campus Pastor in Waterloo this weekend, and loved every minute of it.  This was his first visit over there since they launched back in Easter.  The folks at Waterloo really enjoyed having him there, and gave him a glimpse into what it's like to be a multisite campus.

Chip and the gang completed their second soft launch weekend service, this time flying solo on a lot of accounts: no Portable Church staff, and no tech personnel from Cedar Falls.  Tim Sherwood, their Tech Director, says they are still ironing out a few kinks... but overall, it's going very well.

Pastor Carl preached from Nehemiah 8, the passage that marked a point in Israel's history where they cracked God's Word open for the first time in a long time.  If you missed it, make sure you watch it when it gets uploaded to the web on Tuesday.  There's some great, helpful encouragement there to get reconnected to the Bible if you've been drifting lately.

Finally, our campus pastors closed by handing out a Bible study resource called SOAP (which stands for Scripture, Observation, Application, and Prayer), a study method developed by Wayne Cordeiro of New Hope Church in Oahu, Hawaii.  (For an great exposition on this method and how to use it in your own personal study, take a look at this blog.)  If you missed this weekend and want access to the little card we handed out with a brief explanation of SOAP, stop by and pick one up at the Connection Desk, or just come on one of the next few weekends.  We'll make them available.

EndNotes:

• We had a great Worship and Production Staff and Volunteer retreat last weekend at the Waterloo Center for the Arts.  If you missed it, grab some coffee with one of your shepherds.  They'd love to get you caught up.
• Jon, Spencer, and the team put on an amazing night of worship last Friday.  We were able to debut some PLC originals: Hope Is, and The Eternal One.  You'll be hearing them in the services soon!  Special thanks to the many volunteers who served extra hours this weekend: Craig, Mitch, Ken, Renee, Bob, Gary, Andy, Bret... and the list goes on.  You guys are amazing.
• Make sure to keep Osage and Waterloo in your prayers, regardless of what campus you're attending.  Although they are at different stages of the journey, they would both benefit from your requests and petitions to God.

Pleasure serving with you all.

Monday Soup

 
Week #2 in our 3 Doors series saw us open ourselves up to confession.  Wonderful message and a wonderful service.

I've really felt like we've been touching on some deep spiritual needs of our campuses with this series.  It's been humbling to watch how people have responded.

This also marked the first weekend that John preached solo back from his 1 month sabbatical.  Maybe you noticed what I did: he spoke out of the journey that God took him on during his time away.  Very powerful, authentic, and focused.  I loved hearing him recount his prayer of confession at the monastery: "God, have mercy on me, your son, a sinner."

I thought our worship set was incredibly powerful and appropriate.  We began the service with this video as a call to be present in the moment with God's presence.  Then we followed it by singing Jeremy Riddle's song, Stand In Awe:



We then invited our people to sing with us to Sweetly Broken, Sweep Me Away, and How He Loves.  Ron Morlan (at Cedar Falls) and Zach Elster (at Waterloo) both did a fantastic job of leading and spiritually directing people into this posture and attitude of confession.

Sidenote: this weekend also marked a few firsts for us.  Zach began his first weekend as the Worship Director at Waterloo.  And I began my interim position as the Waterloo Campus Pastor.  It's going to be a lot of work, but has already proved very insightful and rewarding.

On another sidenote: it's been a little while since I've been over to Waterloo, as this summer's vacations have kept me at Cedar Falls filling in on stage as the worship leader pretty often.  Coming back, I was delighted to see: they are good.  I mean, good.  The've got "It," if you know what I mean.  Great, excellent, relevant, inviting experience.

Whew.  This Monday Soup is getting long (big?  Maybe it's not possible for soup to get long?)

After John's message, we took communion together, and were invited to confess while we had the elements in our hands.  We listened to the band sing Tomlin's Amazing Grace (My Chains Are Gone):



Then we allowed people to stick around and take a step into the light if they so chose - to come forward to a pastor, elder, or chaplain and confess face to face.  We lined the stage with lamps to symbolize this desire to be transparent.  Always humbling to be a part of moments like that, at both campuses.

See you next weekend - another big one.  We send off Ron Phares to his next position as the Senior Pastor of Elevate Church in Mankato, MN.  We commission our Osage staff and congregation.  And we invite you to pray, give, and go.

See you there.

Leadership Summit Session Twelve :: Jack Welch

Jack Welch was the CEO of GE for over 40 years.  He grew the company from 13 billion to over 400 billion during that time, employing over 300,000 people.  Bill Hybels interviewed him.

• Leaders have to be authentic.  You have to be yourself.  People can see through a phony in a minute.  People want to know that you are who you say you are, and that you can be counted on.
• You should make your church or place of business less formal, where people can be themselves.
• Leaders have to have energy.  You not only have to be energetic; you have to be able to energize others.  It is not enough simply to be energetic; you have to excite people to achieve the mission and the vision that you have articulated.
• Energizing people towards a vision takes time, relationship, and investment.  You have to enjoy this process.  
• Energizing people is not hyping or manufacturing; it is getting people to feel where you are going.  Unless the leader feels the fire, he or she can not pass it on.  It's helping people connect to and tell a story of life change.  You get people excited about the journey because you are excited about the journey.
• The job of the leader is to always raise the intellectual bow of the room by drawing out the people who will make you smarter.  You have to hire smarter people.  
• Insecure people hire dopes.
• Leaders have to speak with candor, and encourage/develop/protect it among those who lead.  You have to fight desperately to get what people are actually feeling on the table.  Over the long haul, this requires less meetings, less posturing, because everyone is free and obligated to be honest and tell what they believe.
• Leaders have to be ok with differentiation.  At GE, they identified the top 20%, the vital 70%, and the 10% of people were low performers who needed to be improved.
• The best sports teams differentiate.  Differentiation leads to winning.
• You can not have a differentiated organization without having candor.
• You have to get rid of your phony evaluation systems.  
• You can not go to work with people who constantly don't know where they stand.
• Chances are: people already know who is in the top, middle, and bottom groups.
• Leaders have to stop spending so much time with the bottom 10%.  Rather, they should get them out and into a different organization in which they would be a better fit.
• The bottom 10% know where they stand if you promote candor in your organization.

• The top 20% (the A group) are filled with energy, likeable, and have a gene that says "I love to see people grow.  I love to reward people."  They celebrate their people.  They have generosity of spirit.
• These people also hire great people, and love to have them around.  This is an attractive and contagious characteristic.
• Top performers also are free of envy.

• The vital 70% (the B group) are hard working people.  What is hard about this, though, is that the top of the 70% don't like being in the same group as the bottom people in the 70%.  You have to keep them in the organization by telling them that this is a snapshot in time, and what they have to do to improve so that they can be in the top 20%.
• When giving performance appraisals, write over the old appraisal.  Don't write up a new one.

• The bottom 10% (the C group) are low energy, acidic people.  They actually have negative energy.  These aren't the boss-haters or the loudmouth disrupters; these people are the silent whisperers.
• You have to do everything you can to stop the meeting after the meeting.  The meeting after the meeting is an unacceptable event.  If something needs to be solved, it needs to be solved in the context where a solution can be found - the actual meeting.

• You can't give your top 20% enough.
• The idea of never acknowledging performance is silly.  No winning team operates that way.
• Non-profit can not mean non-performance.  You have chosen non-profit; you have to deliver non-profit.
• Jack Welch's biggest mistake?  Moving too slowly.  People have to have the self-confidence in the gut to do things when they feel that they have the right answer.  If they are right, it gives them confidence to make the hard decision the next time.
• You can't over-criticize a mistake.  It will kill self-confidence.
• Jack Welch began the process of selecting his successor 8 years before he was going to retire.  He had 8 candidates; 3 of which were long shots.  When it came time to make the decision, the final 3 candidates were all the ones who began as the long shots.
• Hiring is hard; succession is brutal.

Leadership Summit Session Eleven :: Blake Mycoskie :: Tom's Shoes

Blake Mycoskie is the 33 year-old founder of TOMS Shoes.  He successfully launched five companies before the age of 30.  Tom was interviewed by Darren Whitehead, a teaching pastor at Willow Creek.

• Instead of looking to charity to solve social problems, Blake looked to business: for every pair of shoes bought, a pair of shoes is given away to a child in need.
• Giving not only feels good; it is a good business and life strategy.
• People who buy Toms are invested in the story of TOMS.  They organically and passionately share it.
• TOMS focuses on giving in a clear and authentic way, which leads to natural marketing within their customer base: they do the same things.
• TOMS employees are encouraged to be a part of the giving.  If you are an employee for 2 years, the company pays for a trip for you to go and give away shoes to children.
• Even if you can't incorporate 1 to 1 giving in your organization, incorporating giving at any level is transformative: it reduces anxiety because it takes the focus off of you and your problems, and puts it in on solving that of another unselfishly.
• TOMS is a for-profit company with a non-profit culture.  It is a for-profit company, because a for-profit company provides a never ending supply of revenue and capital to continue to give away shoes.
• 250,000 people participated in TOMS initiative of "A Day Without Shoes" to raise awareness and solidarity with children around the world who do not have shoes.
• TOMS gives people a very simple thing to do - a very easy way to act - as well as gives them an opportunity to show the world what their value system is by giving them something that becomes representative of their identity: a pair of shoes.
• TOMS has plenty of strategic partnerships with corporations and churches.  They have formed these partnerships by offering these partners an authentic story - that the owner was connected and invested in the cause.  This was an attractive thing to the partners to be a part of.
• If you really want to create change around your idea, you can't get around making big asks.  What's more: people enjoy it, because they enjoy being a part of a great journey.  You simply can not afford to be bashful.
• Blake thinks that TOMS represents the principle behind the Proverb: give away your first fruits, and your vats will be full.  This has formed the 1-to-1 principle.
• It's never too early to start giving and start serving.  Don't wait to "make it" to be generous.

Leadership Summit Session Ten :: Daniel Pink

Daniel Pink is a speaker, an author, and former speech writer for the White House.  He is the author of the recent book "Drive."

• We each have a biological drive, a reward and punishment drive, but also a curiosity drive.  This third drive is routinely neglected in the context of an organization.
• Organizations usually have a two dimensional view of human beings - trying to restrain the biological, and manage the reward and punishment.
• Even the most rudimentary cognitive skill can not be rewarded by the science of reward and punishment.
• Straight, simple, straightforward tasks can be rewarded by the science of punishment and reward.  But when you're dealing with complicated tasks that require creativity, these kinds of rewards are ineffective, because they encourage tunnel vision.
• When we see these "carrots and sticks" fail before our eyes, we don't try to be more creative in our approach to our work.  We instead cry out for more carrots and sticks.  People try to manipulate the system of reward rather than try to improve their work when we are simply trying to reward/punish.
• We make the wrong assumptions about people in our organizations: 1) That human beings are complicated but mechanistic machines.  If you push the right buttons, you can get them to do what you want them to do; and 2) That human beings are blobs - that people are basically passive and inert, who need to be rewarded or punished to get them to do what you want them to do.
• It is in human nature to be active and engaged (just look at kids).  This is our default setting.  And while events and circumstances can mess with this setting, we still have this in us.

• So: what works for complicated, conceptual, and creative people doing this kind of work?

• Autonomy - Management is an inventional/technology from the 1850s.  It is a technology designed to get compliance.  We don't want compliance in our organizations; we want engagement.  Self direction - autonomy - leads to engagement.  People report their best bosses as being the types that gave them the most autonomy.
• Giving people autonomy over their time, their team, their task, and their technique leads to engagement.  Example: giving people a Thursday afternoon to work on anything they want that is not work-related, and presenting it to the company on Friday.  It's a "FedEx Day" - delivering something overnight.
• Another example: 20% time by Google - people can spend 20% of their paid time doing working on whatever they want.  Out of these times have come Google News, Gmail, etc.  Almost all of Google's good ideas have come out of the 20% time.
• To implement this in your organization, you have to go slow, because people are used to being compliant.  Use scaffolding: try a FedEx day, or some other modified version of 20% time (maybe 10% time).  Do it with the people who would use it the most effectively, and do it for a predetermined period of time.

• Mastery - The single most powerful motivator at work are those days in which people are making progress.  Therefore, a manager's role isn't to help people gain compliance, but helping them see their progress.  People want to gain mastery at things, because of their curious drive.
• Flow - the place where what you are doing is so in line with your passion and giftedness that you lose a sense of time and self.  These moments are most likely to happen during work.  We want to help people get into the flow.
• You also have to give people feedback - feedback that is rich, robust, frequent, and authentic.  We need to encourage people to take their feedback into their own hands, doing their own reviews, by setting their goals at the beginning of the month, and then assessing themselves every month against those goals - perhaps informally with a supervisor over coffee.

• Purpose - we are seeing the limits of the profit motive.  There is a rise of the purpose motive.  
• When the profit motive becomes unmoored from the purpose motive, ethical problems arise, but even more so, mediocrity and uninspired, insufficient motivators.
• People are telling the profit sector to act more like the private/non profit sector - to be driven by purpose.
• Use this diagnostic tool - listen to the pronouns people use when they are describing the organizations they work for.  The "we" organizations are high performing; the "they" organizations are not.

Organizations are not simply changed, overnight, with a silver bullet.  Rather, we should be asking if we can change what we do.  These cumulative changes will effect change in the organizations.  These changes begin with a conversation.

Leadership Summit Session Nine :: Terri Kelly

Terri Kelley is the president and CEO of W.L. Gore and Associates, makers of the waterproof, breathable GORE-TEX material.

• Your foundation and values of your organization will drive your success.
• Gore & Assoc. developed and employed small teams to fuel their organization.
• It is a peer-based organization; each employee's job is to build relationships with their team members and help the other succeed.  The effect of this was that ownership greatly increased.
• While Gore & Assoc. has a leadership structure, they do not have a fixed, formalized hierarchy.  Decisions are made by the best person to make that particular decision.  They call this "hierarchy on demand."  A lot more of the population was involved in decision making.
• "Ladder vs. Lattice Organization" - Gore is a lattice organization, in which everyone is connected to their network, and has access to the person they need in order to keep things moving.
• Arriving leaders do not simply direct reports.  Instead, they influence them.  They try and help them to understand the significance of what they are doing, and shift the energy to get it done from the leader to the report.
• Gore keeps everything aligned by spending more time creating a common foundation in values among their employees: the power of the individual and his/her ideas/influence, the power of small teams, the reality that we are in the same boat, and a long term view (sustainability and innovation over profit).
• Every associate at Gore has to be a good "salesman" - they have to be good at selling their ideas to the company, and get others to buy in to them.  They also use a peer review process to help the best ideas bubble up by letting their teams review and recommend ideas that have been put on the table.
• Also: the teams are asked to rank which individuals are contributing the most to the success of the enterprise - top to bottom.  This is what determines compensation.  The person contributing the most to the success of the organization as ranked by their peers garners the most compensation.  The person contributing the least gets the least.
• This process helps to drive people not to just succeed and advance, but to align themselves with what they are passionate about.
• Gore has more "coaches" than "bosses."  Gore has utilized the role of a sponsor.  A sponsor - usually not their supervisor - takes charge of helping an associate grow and develop, including selecting a career path that will help the associate be the most successful one they can.  Each associate at Gore has a sponsor.  These responsibilities are delineated from leadership, and the sponsor facilitates conversations that span work and personal interests.
• Gore has 18 plants of 200-250 people each within a 25 mile radius.  This encourages relationships, fosters personality and individuality, and encourages collaboration.  Beyond this, Gore found that their organization's effectiveness fell off.
• This model also helps the organization's values to be transferrable and rooted.
• While the values binds each plant together, each plant is also given the freedom to achieve those values in a way that makes the most sense for that individual plant.
• Gore spends a lot of time on behavioral interviewing to determine if the values of Gore resonate with their own, and if they can lead into them.
• The "waterline" principle - this encourages healthy risk taking.  In things above the waterline - where the water hits the hull of the ship -  the individual has the freedom to make decisions.  In things below the waterline, the decision has to be run up the lattice.
• Leadership at Gore is defined by followship: people are only a leader if people want to follow them.  Leaders therefore are working to secure the influence and trust of their teams.  The ranking system is a good reinforcement of this value.
• In this system, the leader spends a lot of time explaining their decisions.  At Gore, this is precious time, not wasted time.
• The CEO at Gore is responsible for remaining true to Gore's values while defining the changes in their expression to remain relevant in a changing world.  She also determines the allocation of resources, and spends time with their key leaders.
• Over 50% of the associates at Gore reported that they considered themselves leaders in the organization.

Leadership Summit Session Eight :: Jeff Manion :: The Land Between

Jeff Manion is the Senior Pastor of Ada Bible Church in Ada, Michigan.

• "The Land Between" is the place where the college graduate lives after graduation before a job, the place where you say "for now," and the place where the real estate agent sells 5 houses per year and asks "How much longer?"
• Israel was in the land between as Moses led them out of fertile Egypt through the desert into fertile Canaan.
• In the land between, God provided manna (literally "what is it?") for breakfast, lunch, and dinner... for years and years.
• As we check in to Israel's story, we see that the land between is actually fertile... for complaining.
• But be careful: we have a tendency to look at people who live in the land between, and think that we would be above it all.  However, we would do better to put ourselves among them.  We would probably be exactly like them.
• The Israelites were not just complaining about their circumstances; they were complaining against God.  This is something we have to be careful of in the land between.
• See Moses' prayer in Numbers 11:11-14 - the land between is fertile ground for emotional meltdown.
• Like: the couple who can't get a firm diagnosis as to why they can't conceive, or a parent not knowing how to bring their kid back from the brink, or the pastor navigating through a split - like Moses, "this burden is too heavy to carry."
• Throw yourself into spiritual leadership, and you will, at some time or another, find the end of yourself.
• God moves towards Moses in Numbers 11:16-17 - he instructs Moses to assemble the elders, and puts the Spirit on them as well, to help Moses carry the burden.
• Thus we see: the land between is fertile ground for God's provision.  Once we open up our hands - our need - to God, he provides something to help us carry the burden: Patience, a word, a sermon, determination, strength to endure.
• It is like Elijah running from Jezebel, complaining and crying out to God: instead of a lecture, God provides him lunch.
• God will correct/discipline you if you turn your complaint on him, accusing him of not being present, or declaring that you were better off without him. The land between is fertile ground for God's discipline.
• People died for their complaints against God in the land between.
• Discipline is inflicting pain for redemptive purposes.  This is God trying to rescue his people.
• We are naive to think that we are immune from God's corrective hand when we embrace a spirit of complaint that concludes that we are better off without God.
• The land between is fertile ground for transformational growth.  It is the place where we can learn to trust God.
• The people of Israel were a people that were coming out of an indoctrination of idolatry and were going to a land of promise.  They needed time to become the people of God, by learning/having to trust God in the land between.
• It is in the land between that we learn to pray, that we learn to depend, that we learn that we need God.
• Time does not heal all wounds: when you travel in the land between,  your heart is in danger.  There are difficult choices to be made in the land between.  Let's face it: the land between can be the place faith goes to die.
• We do not have to extend an invitation for complaint to show up in the land between.  Complaint resists eviction.  We do, however, have to an extend an invitation for trust to show up in the land between.
• Complaint is evicted when we invite trust into our house.  Trust evicts complaint - they are incompatible roommates.
• The space in your life that you most resent is the soil where God can produce the crop we most desire.  This is the land between.

Leadership Summit Session Seven :: Andy Stanley :: Tension

• As a young leader, it is tempting to view more mature leaders as having it all together, or to view successful organizations as not having many problems.
• It is also tempting to think that great organizations don't have tension, or that great leader's job is to eliminate tension.
• Actually: in great organizations, there are tensions that never go away, and great leaders leverage that tension in such a way that it becomes a growth engine.
• If fact, this way of dealing with tension results in a third category for some of your problems.

• Every organization has problems that shouldn't be solved and tensions that shouldn't be resolved.  This is the third category of problems.
• Like: the problem/tension between work and family life.  
• These are often industry-specific: marketing and sales; leadership and management, etc.
• In fact, if you try to solve these types of problems/tensions, you will have created a new problem/tension.
• Learning to leverage these types of tensions/problems will cause you to grow and progress.
• If you take certain problems off of the table, not to be discussed any more, you will have created a new barrier to progress.
• Progress isn't about resolving the tension, it is about managing the tension.
• Certain tensions are a key to progress.

• How do you distinguish problems to be solved and tensions to be managed?
• Ask yourselves these questions:
• Does this problem keep resurfacing?
• Are there mature advocates on both sides?
• Are the too sides really interdependent?
• Every single healthy church should constantly be inviting the tension: how do we remain safe for nonbelievers and how to we mature believers?

• The role of leadership is to leverage the tension to the benefit of the organization.
• Identify the tensions to be managed in the organization - what are the problems that we need to stop trying to resolve, and instead move it into a tension/3rd category.
• Create terminology - "I guess that's a tension we have to manage."  When you create terminology, you create language for your entire team that denotes a 3rd category.  So, when you get two strong personalities on opposing sides, it doesn't have to be a win/lose.  If there is no 3rd category, it becomes a win/lose.
• Inform your core - once you decide this is a reality, you make sure your key leaders understand this principle.
• Continually give value to both sides.
• Don't weigh in too heavily based in on your personal biases.  As a leader, if we are not careful, we, by our personality, we can shift some tensions off the table simply by our words and influence.  We can not afford to weigh in too heavily.  Understand the upside of the opposite side. Learn to argue the case of your opposite.
• Don't allow strong personalities to win the day.  We need passionate people that can champion their side, but you need them to be mature enough to realize the tension between their side and other realities.
• When it comes to applying this principle, don't think in terms of balance; think in terms of rhythm. We are not trying to figure out how to be "fair," or be in perfect balance/equity.  There is a season to lean heavily into something, and a season to lean heavily away from it.  There is a time in a church's life where you need to sing more and preach less, or preach more and sing less.  You just have to pay attention to the rhythms of the organization, and make the call as a leader.

As a leader, one of the most valuable things you can do for your organization is to delineate between the tensions that need to be managed and a problem that need to be solved.  In fact, the relevancy of your organization depends on it.

Leadership Summit Session Six:: Dr. Zhao Xiao

Dr. Zhao Xiao was commissioned by the Chinese government in 2002 to come to the United States and do research into why the capitalist economy provided the country so much success.  Dr. Xiao concluded that this economic philosophy was so successful because of its rootedness and connectedness to Christian principles.  Along the way, Dr. Xiao even converted to Christianity.  He returned to China as a converted Christian Chinese communist (!).  He has been advocated for religious freedom from his governmental platform ever since.

• Leadership is not just influence; it is about leading people in the right direction.  Simply influencing them is not enough.
• What will be the significant change that will define the next 500 years?  Perhaps it will be the rise of China.
• Dr. Xiao doesn't think the right term is "rise up;" it is "come back."
• China was a world leader in many ways from Christ's birth to 1870; since then, it has fallen off severely.
• In the last several years, the World Bank has documented that never has such a huge population experienced such a dramatic growth in economic power.
• By the end of this year, China will supersede Japan to #2, and is poised to overtake the U.S.
• However, economic growth does not automatically lead to leadership influence and good decisions.
• China has struggled with dramatic pollution and resource challenges.
• China is struggling with disparity, corruption, and other invisible problems as they grow: they are moral problems.
• If China can not export values and ethics, then China can not become a superpower (Margaret Thatcher).
• Another scholar has been quoted saying, "There is no such thing as a 'Chinese dream'."  Equivalent to the American dream.
• Many people in the world love Americans, not because of their economy/materialism, but because of their values.
• China must once again open her arms to learn, not just systems and policies, but culture and values... the most important one being from Christianity.
• Missionaries' work, like Matteo Ricci, Robert Morrison, and Eric Liddel, has borne fruit, even despite Chairman Mao's persecution.
• Conservative estimates count 18 million Christians in China; optimistic counts are at about 130 million.
• Life transformation is now exceeding economic transformation in China.
• Chinese people are not stubborn; their culture is not static, but dynamic.
• In Chinese history, there have been two cultural revivals: the Han dynasty (200 B.C.) with Confucianism and Taoism, and later with the incorporation of Buddhism.
• Dr. Zhao thinks that Christianity will support a new revival in Chinese culture.
• There are already movements that are affecting the way Chinese business leaders do business, and how ministries are being organized.  See the Cypress Leadership Institute.
• If China's life in Christ grows as its economy grows, China will be a blessing to the world.

Leadership Summit Session Five :: Adam Hamilton :: When Leaders Fall

Take a look at Adam's bio.  He is the Senior Pastor at the Church of the Resurrection in Leawood, KS.

"When Leaders Fall"

• Adam had to deal with an extramarital affair that two of his staff members fell into.
• You have a responsibility for all involved: the sinners, those who are immediately impacted (their family, kids, etc.) as well as the congregation.
• You have to communicate according to the pastors' visibility.
• You have 4 options: say nothing, be evasive, scarlet letter (pronounce them as sinful and distance yourselves); or approach it with transparency, honesty, and compassion in which you articulate the consequences and remind people that they are the church who is called to be the church - to reach out to broken people.
• Integrity has two sides: when you are a pastor, you have expectations put on you by the congregation, and you have to honor that trust.  But, the congregation has to have integrity by being the church even to its pastors.
• Get ahead of the rumor mill with grace, honesty, and compassion... even if it's via email before a congregational meeting.
• When people catch wind of these types of things in church, they draw near, hoping that their expectations of the church (hypocritical, pharisaical, etc.) would be reinforced.
• Surprise outsiders and insiders by preaching not about those who were caught in their sin but by the sinful condition of the rest of us.
• These moments can be defining moments of the congregation: "Who are you, really, when you feel betrayed?  Will you be the kind of church that waits with your stones in hand, or are you the kind of church that will realize that you have no right to throw stones?"
• There are consequences for sin.  But the goal is grace.
• No matter how you handle it, there will be people who will leave your church.  But, how you handle it can reestablish trust that is based on the gospel.

How to prevent sexual misconduct:

• Staff Covenant - signed every year by the staff, including policies about where you can go with people who are not your spouse.  
• If something looks like a date, and smells like a date, we're calling it a date.
• Have a meeting twice a year with your staff where you talk about sexual misconduct with your staff.
• 3 Drives: we are all human beings who are wired for sexual reproduction; we are all wired for sexual intimacy; and we have a drive to sin.  
• We have to be careful, because being a good minister sometimes equates to being attractive.
• We have to be careful, because we are dealing with vulnerable places in people's lives.
• It is helpful to think of temptation in repulsive terms: like a dog who can't resist rooting through the cat's litter box.
• Recognize the "moment of the maybe" - the point at which you wonder "what if," allow sin to gestate, and start to imagine what it would be like... instead of allow rationality to inform what it will really be like to the ones you love.
• Don't let the devil ride, because he'll want to drive.

5 "R's" of resisting temptation:

• Remember who you are: a child of God, a follower of Jesus Christ, a leader in the church, a father, a husband, a mother, a wife.  Declare these and pray for help every day.
• Consider the consequences of every action: how will I feel?  Will I be more or less human?  Would I want my congregation to know about it?  Will people still trust me?  It is helpful to fantasize about the worst possible outcome.
• Rededicate your self to God.  In the moment you find yourself tempted, you should stop and drop to your knees in prayer.
• Reveal your struggle to a trusted friend.  James 5:16.  Part of the power of temptation is the power of secrecy.  When you tell someone about it, it has less power, and your friend is able to keep you accountable.
• Remove yourself from the situation.  In the sermon on the mount, sometimes you have to take radical steps to protect yourself... even leaving your current church if there is something there to tempt you.

We are called to be sanctified, and yet all of us are tempted.  There are consequences when we fall.  But the final word of the church must not be a word of judgment, but a word of grace.  We serve a Lord who was a friend of sinners - drunkards, prostitutes, and cheats.

The gospel is for sinners.

Leadership Summit Session Four :: Tony Dungy

Here are some notes from Craig Groeschel's interview with Tony Dungy:

• Tony's style of leadership is mentor-leader: it was not to be the boss/have all of the ideas... it was about helping those who you lead, and helping them to get better.
• He took a lot of criticism early on - "You don't speak their language, you're too soft, you're not tough enough," etc.
• His philosophy did not really pay off early on; it didn't translate immediately into wins.
• "Stubbornness is a virtue if you're right."
• Tony encouraged his players to live their lives in balance: you can't make your work your life.  You have to balance it with other interests and needs: family, spirit, etc.  If you are doing well in life, you'll do better at your work.
• In order to teach this philosophy, you have to model it/live it.  For example, Tony and his team would work hard/late, but families were welcome to come and hang out, sometimes he would instruct his team to go home, etc.
• "Don't mistake hours for productivity."  Don't feel guilty for going home at a decent hour.
• How do you find a mentor?  Look for people you admire.  It doesn't always have to be one-on-one; you can be mentored from a distance (read books, follow up with a personal conversation, go listen to great people speak).  It doesn't always have to be an icon, either.  Don't underestimate the power of a person who is just a few steps ahead of you.
• "Everybody should have a Paul.  Everybody should have a Timothy."
• A mentoring relationship is incumbent on the mentor - to facilitate, guide, and develop the relationship.
• Some of the most influential mentors are the informal ones - the barber, the kid a few grades ahead, etc.
• You don't have to have a formal position to be a mentor.
• You have no idea how even the most insignificant mentoring conversation will impact a person.

Leadership Summit Session Three :: Christine Caine

For a resource on who Christine Caine is, take a look here at the organization that she and her husband have founded.

• There are people all over who are crying out for hope.
• It is easy to get overwhelmed; there is so much hopelessness.
• The church was made and born for this moment; it is our time for our greatest potential.
• The church is the vehicle for the hope of Jesus, who is in the business of healing and saving and transforming people.
• Hope for a leader is like the oxygen that we breathe.
• As leaders, we have a responsibility to lead people from a place of hope... because people will respond to our cue.
• You have to believe that you can make a difference... otherwise, there is no point.
• Our source of hope is not simply being connected to the facts of this world but to the truths of God.
• We are not talking about wishful thinking; but a confident expectation that the Word of God is true - that Jesus is still in the business of fixing broken lives.  That if he did it for me, he can do it for you.
• How do you lead from this place of hope?  Remember that it is all about one life that God wants to change through you.  It's not 27 million people; it's 27 million "ones."
• Numbers are overwhelming, numbing, and desensitizing.  Get past the numbers to the one.  People are more than numbers.  
• Jesus didn't die for 7 billion people; he died for 7 billion different individuals.  We have to translate that love from these huge nameless numbers to the individual person.
• We have to be convinced that the same power that raised Jesus lives in us.  If we are, we are compelled to share that power with others.  Our passion fuels our hope.
• Lead out of the work that Jesus has done in you.  
• You do what you want from passion; you do what you have to do out of obligation.  
• If we lead simply out of obligation, we have forgotten what Jesus has done for us.
• When we have a passionate hope, it will carry us beyond our ability or our discouragement.
• Hope fuels our risk taking.  It helps you take a step out of the boat.  God is calling his church to go to places where she has never been.  We have to stop praying for miracles and yet avoiding those places where miracles can happen.
• We should "return to the stronghold" - be prisoners of the hope of Jesus.
• Jesus, who started this work in us, shall bring us to completion in the day of Christ Jesus.

Leadership Summit Session Two :: Jim Collins

• Good is the enemy of the great.
• Greatness is not largely a matter of circumstance, but of conscience choice and discipline.
• How do great companies fall from great, to mediocre, to irrelevant, to gone?
• If great companies can fall, than anyone can fall; no one and nothing is immune.
• The great fall through a series of stages; you can be sick on the inside but still look strong on the outside.
• The beginning of a fall is harder to detect early but easier to remedy.  It is easier to detect later but harder to remedy.
• Here are the series of stages of decline for an organization.  Each stage is self-inflicted - not what is done to you, but what you do to yourself:

• Stage 1: Hubris born of success
• We neglect our primary flywheel and primary calling, fail to renew it.  We believe that because our intentions are good and noble, that our decisions are necessarily good.  However, bad decisions with good intentions are still bad decisions.
• The remedy: good leaders who know that it's not about them, and who never give up.
• These leaders are level 5 leaders - people who are not simply charismatic, but humble.  Not a soft humility, but a humility born of a burning passion to do whatever it takes to support and live by the values.
• Without the level 5 leaders, we are dangerously exposed to hubris.

• Stage 2: Undisciplined pursuit of more
• The mighty don't fall because they are unwilling to change; they fall because they reach too far.  They try to expand too much.  They try to deliver without excellence.  They give themselves permission to grow without having the right people in the right areas.
• You have to regulate growth by sticking to having fantastic people in all of the key seats.  If not, you have you resist growth until you have them there.  Don't figure out where to drive until you've got the right people in the right spot.

• Stage 3: Denial of risk and peril 
• You are getting negative feedback, but either choose to ignore it or underestimate it.
• You must never confuse faith and facts.  You must embrace both, but not confuse them.  You should have faith, but also be willing to confront the most brutal facts.  
• Sometimes unanchored optimism masquerades as faith.

• Stage 4: Grasping for salvation (where the fall actually begins and is felt/visible)
• When you are confronted with the reality of a decline, you look for a silver bullet.
• 90% of the great companies got their CEO from within.  2/3 of the comparison companies got them from without.
• Greatness is never a singular event; it is a cumulative process.  You have disciplined people engaging in disciplined thought taking disciplined action making decisions that are consistent with your values... turn upon turn, like a flywheel.
• It is possible to get into the later stages of stage 4, and come back.

• Stage 5: Capitulation to irrelevance or death
• At this point, you've squandered all of your various types of capital, and have run out of options.

Why in the face of all of the demise and destruction do some companies remain strong - built to last?

• Because they had a reason to endure the struggle - beyond success, money, etc.  
• They have answered the question: "What would be lost if we disappeared?"
• Their purpose is rooted in their core values, not just in their business models and strategies.  Their power is derived from their values.  They separate their values from how they do things.
• They recognize that the signature of mediocrity isn't an unwillingness to change; it is inconsistency.  Their leaders embrace the genius of the "and".  They entertain two seemingly competing ideas and hold them in healthy in tension.  They stay true to their values but are willing to change their practices.

Specific "to-do's":

• Do your diagnostics (www.jimcollins.com).  Self-assess and confront the brutal facts.
• Count your blessings - literally - in a spreadsheet.  When we begin to account for all of the good things that have happened to us that we did not cause, it is humbling.
• What is your questions to statements ratio, and can you double it in the next year (1:1 to 2:1)?  Great leaders don't know all of the answers; they ask the right questions.  Invest more in being interested than interesting.
• Answer the question: "How many key seats do you have on your bus, who is in those seats currently/how many are empty, and what is your plan to fill those seats?"
• Do your teams on the way up/on the way down diagnostic.
• With your right team assembled, create an inventory of the brutal facts.
• A culture of disciplined people begins with what we have the discipline not to start doing, but to stop doing.
• Define results, and show clicks on the flywheel.  How can you demonstrate what they are?
• Double your reach to young people by changing your practices without changing your core values.
• Set a BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal) to remind you of the idea that your work is never done.

It is one thing to suffer a defeat; it is another to give up on the values for which you've struggled.

Leadership Summit Session One :: Bill Hybels

We're sitting up here at Eaglebrook Church in Lino Lakes, MN, attending a satellite broadcast of the Willow Creek Global Leadership Summit.  Here are some notes from the first session given by Bill Hybels:

• Leaders move people from here to there.  You have to be able to talk about your current reality (here), and cast a vision for a preferred future (there).
• It is more than just casting vision - telling people how good "there" is.  People usually like "here" better than "there."
• The first play in getting people to move "there" is making "here" sound awful.
• Long before Dr. King gave his "I Have A Dream" speech, he gave hundreds of "We Can't Stay Here" speeches about bigotry, injustice, and inequity.
• Bob Pierce, founder of World Vision, would take potential donors to food lines where the food would run out, and then say to the donors: "We can't stay here.  But, with your help, we can feed millions (go "there").
• In other words, staying "here" breaks the heart of God.
• Leaders: your job isn't to preside over something, or preserve something from its gradual demise.  It is to figure out what God wants to do in this world, and then move people from here to there.

• It takes fantastic people to move others from here to there.  You can't do it alone.
• One of the greatest joys of leadership is assembling teams of fantastic people who move others from here to there.  
• When assembling a team, look for character, competence, chemistry, and culture. You want people to flourish in your particular culture.
• Hybels and his staff went through their staff and identified which of them were "fantastic" - people who would make them vomit if they decided to leave.  Then, they met with their fantastic people and committed to investing in them and requesting them to provide feedback immediately if they were ever dissatisfied or frustrated.
• Assembling, developing, and inspiring a team of fantastic people is a holy challenge.  We have to view it as a leadership fundamental, as a privilege.
• Perhaps we need to have some sensitive conversations with fantastic people, and some sensitive conversations with some not so fantastic people for our culture.

• Mile markers and celebrations: how do you inspire people to stay on the journey?
• People are most vulnerable not at the beginning of the journey (when they are first leaving "here"), and not at the end of the journey (when "there" is in sight), but in the middle third.
• In the middle, people forget how bad "here" was, and how good "there" is going to be.
• In the middle, the leader has to refill the vision bucket.  Vision leaks, because people have real jobs, have other things to think about, etc.
• In the middle, the leader has to celebrate every possible mile marker that you can.  What keeps people on the journey is a sense of hope that they are going to get there someday.  
• It's ok to throw a party for being "halfway there."
• Most experts would say that there is a 40% differential in productivity between an inspired teammate and an uninspired teammate.
• When the disciples' inspiration level was low, he would act swiftly: take them away, take them aside, tell a story, cast a vision.

• Whispers from God: John 10:27 - God's people hear Jesus' voice.  God's leaders know the mind of God.
• Every leader ought to be a regular, relentless reader of the Bible.
• In addition to the Bible, God speaks to his people through the whispers of His Spirit: a thought, a nudge, a prompting.  We have to be attentive and respond to these.  They will prompt us to get beneath the surface with others.
• We will miss out if all we do is live out the script that others have for our lives instead of listening to God's whispers.
• If we really believed that God speaks to us today, His Spirit to ours, then we'd take better care of our "antennas" - the parts of us that can and should be able to hear God's whispers.
• From Bill: the wisest leadership moves he has made have come out being attentive to and responding to God's whispers - to not quit, to admit your mistake, to step up, to take the risk, to apologize now, to make the tough decision, to get help, to stop running from God, to slow down, to show your heart, to let others lead, to feed your soul, to bless the team, to make the ask, to do something more impactful, to come clean, to embody the vision, to celebrate the victories, to speak the truth, to pay the price, to count your blessings, to end the secret, to check your motives, to set the pace, to give God your best, to get physically fit, to serve your spouse/kids, to pray, to humble yourself.

Next up: Jim Collins.  Stay tuned!

Seek Me to Live Wednesday :: Leadership

Hey folks,

I'm sitting here in Forest Lake, MN, at a Country Inns and Suites with 3 other PLC staffers.  Tomorrow, we're going to get up and head over to Eaglebrook Church in Lino Lakes, MN, to attend a satellite broadcast of Willow Creek's Global Leadership Summit.  We'll be hearing speakers the likes of Bill Hyblels, Jack Welch, Tony Dungy, Andy Stanley, and Jim Collins, just to name a few.  So, stay tuned tomorrow and Friday as I update the blog with some notes from the conference.

Monday Soup :: Forgive

Weekends like the one we just had at Prairie Lakes Church make me recall, fresh and new, why we do what we do.

Aaron Thomas, son of the late Coach Ed Thomas, agreed to help us kick off our new series, "3 Doors: Opening yourself up to Forgiveness, Confession, and Gratitude."

He spoke on forgiveness.

We witnessed the story retold.  See below.



Then we heard Aaron recount the story himself - the story which is still being written.  The story which hasn't ended, and won't end until he is reunited with his dad in eternity.

We saw his family there.  And the Beckers.

Really: we saw what incredible power Jesus possesses and shares with those of us who choose to follow him, trust him and continue to lean into him.

On John Fuller's first weekend back from  his month sabbatical, the two men set up a moment at the end of our service for people to take a step towards forgiveness: accepting Jesus' forgiveness, forgiving themselves, and/or to decide to stop withholding forgiveness from another.

Aaron shared this verse from Mark 11:25:

And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive them, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins.

We had Elders, Chaplains, John and Aaron at Cedar Falls, and Ron at Waterloo down front for anyone who wanted to take a step.

And people did.

Lots of them.

We sang All I Need Is You as the basis for the invitation.  People came forward and walked through the red door that we constructed on stage to symbolize their commitment.  We handed out buttons to those who walked through the door to remind them of their decision that they prayerfully made before God.

It was awesome to behold.

Really looking forward to next weekend when we approach another wonderfully deep spiritual discipline: confession.  Hope to see you all there.