Links that Help, Links that Last

Good Links -

I thought I’d share some links that I have found helpful –

www.fathers.com  -- get their weekly newsletter that shares good fathering tips.

www.covenanteyes.com – good filtering and monitoring along with good information.

www.pray-as-you-go.org – simple and good daily meditations. 

http://sermons2.redeemer.com – a section of free sermons by one of my favorite preachers, Tim Keller.

http://www.textweek.com – for Bible study.

If a Job's Worth Doing

I met a guy who was addicted to brake fluid.  He said he wasn't, that he could stop at any time.

I don't want to stop on the subject of axioms.  For pilots the rhyme, "Red over white, you're alright," helps them keep the runway lights in the right order for landing and means safety.  Just so, axioms help us in our decisions and actions in life.  

Last week I shared off-handedly, "If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right."  So if an organization has dwindling clients or customers and yet what gets passionate debate in their meetings is how much or how little detail should be in the minutes, I think they're doing something not worth doing.  If the Titanic is sinking, who cares if I rearranged the deck chairs correctly (whatever that would be).

Paradoxically, I offer as wisdom, "If a job's worth doing, it worth doing not right." Here's what I mean and maybe it is just for the perfectionists out there.  Let's say a person gets 80% of their production done in thirty minutes.  The next two hours gets them another 10%.  The next ten hours gets them 4% more.  The next one hundred hours gets them 1% more.  Somewhere in there, let's say after two and a half hours, if he or she had said, "Not perfect but pretty good and good enough," they could have gone on to the next project.  Against the person who keeps going for the 100% on one project, the good enough person gets thirty or forty projects done.  If it's worth doing, it's worth doing and not getting hung up on perfection.

The other aspect of the axiom is that if we aren't failing some or not finding our results having imperfections, we may not be taking on big enough challenges or risking enough.  Ie, we're playing it safe or underneath our abilities.

I'm glad for whoever noted that Jesus didn't wait for Jerusalem to quiet down, for the disciples to get back up to the number twelve, for the disciples' doubts to be completely assuaged and their convictions finally forged before he gave them the Great Commission.  If we wait for everything to get perfect, we're not ever going to get started.  This is an important job and while not trying to do it wrong, if it's worth doing, it worth doing, and it's worth even dealing with doing some of it not right.  

Axioms

A while back Bill Hybels wrote a book called Axioms.  Axiom: Powerful Leadership Proverbs.  It contained pithy convictions about leadership.  He said, I believe, that he got the idea from Colin Powell who had done the same.  (Powell Principles The Powell Principles: 24 Lessons from Colin Powell, a Battle-Proven Leader (Mighty Managers Series) 

I didn‘t think I had any axioms but it turns out I’ve got a few.  For example, “If a job is not worth doing, it is not worth doing right.”  But the one I want to focus on today is, “You don’t get what you expect, you get what you inspect.”  We all need feedback.  Our eyes and ears and nerve endings in our fingers give us feedback and we need that to live well.  We like it when someone says, “That was good,” or even, “Adjust your work a little in this direction.”  Without these bits of feedback we operate in the dark in a lot of ways.  So it is important, I believe, for organizations, their staff, and their boards to give and get feedback, to evaluate. 

It is terribly important to evaluate against a set of criteria.  In other words, up front we have said these are the attitudes we expect and these are the things we want accomplished.  If you haven’t said what you want or how it ought to be, you lose voice when it comes to talking about how it is.  You might just unfairly evaluate on the basis of the focus-de-jour which was not part of the original plan!

Right now we are heading into the fall with budgets to be drawn up, including money for salaries.  If those salaries are merit-based, and I hope they are, then we need to do evaluations.  After the fall there is January and, in our case, a new budget and new session.  So we also have goal setting.  The fall, then, right now, is how did we do on our past goals followed by what are our new goals.

Leadership in the Presbyterian Church is shared.  Usually, if it happens at all, and too often it doesn’t, the pastor gets a performance review.  However, there is a session that aids and abets the pastor’s leadership.  They, too, should get a performance review. 

I like asking people to first say what is important to them in their attitudes and tasks to be accomplished and then let them evaluate themselves against their self-stated standards.  So in the shared leadership of a Presbyterian Church, pastor, review thyself.  And, session, review thyself. 

But some outside inputs are necessary too.  The person’s goals need to tie into the organization’s goal for that role or position too.  So pastor, get reviewed by someone else, like the session.  Make sure that the task list for the last year that gets inspected as done or not done has your human being worker goals crowned by the corporate directions.  And, session, get reviewed by someone else, like the pastor.  Same thing about corporate directions with you.

Keep it simple.  If it gets too complicated, it gets frightening and deferred and … not done.  Done simply is better than not done at all.  If need be, look at the to do list and then ask what do we need to do more of and what do we need to do less of?  A discussion on that much is better than not at all.

Done simply is better than not done at all.  Hey, that sounds like an axiom or a principle or something. 

Push Push Push

I like the sign on the maternity room door:  Push, Push, Push.  Let me do the same about inviting, a subject of last week's blog.  

One of the reasons I arrange my preaching not around the lectionary but around series is so that people can invite.  "New" is one of the most powerful words in our society that there is.  We like new.  I like new.  You like new.  New clothes, new book, new movie.  We even have new car smell.  A message series when it approaches and begins is new.  

One of the concerns about Sunday School classes is that a set group of people bond and keep on meeting and meeting and meeting.  If you don't have history with the group, you might feel like you're breaking in.  Many refer to these classes as chiques.  So if you are new in town, or just want to turn over a new leaf about Sunday School, you might always feel like you are boarding a moving train.  When will you find one that is fresh taking on passengers and leaving the station?  That's why there should be new classes in the fall, after New Years, after Easter, and so on -- so new people can start at the ground level.  

Same with messages ... people can get a fresh start.  Maybe they don't know if they want to hang in there with church.  But they could persuade themselves to come for this 4-message series.  

But I started this blog suggesting it would be about inviting.  Here it is.  Each new message series gives members a new chance to invite friends, neighbors, relatives, co-workers, vendors, ... to something new starting at their church.  

Problem is too many people say that it isn't necessary.  Then the church dwindles.  Or they say it is someone else's responsibility.  Then the church dwindles.  Or they say, "If God wanted to grow the church, he would do it himself or it would just happen."  Then the church dwindles.  Or they say, "That's so gauche!"  Then the church dwindles.  Or they say, "The newspaper ad will do it."  Then the church dwindles.  Or they say, "We did that once and it didn't work out."  Then the church dwindles.  Or they say, "My church isn't worth inviting people to."  Then the church really dwindles!  There's no way around it -- An Inviting Church is Made by Inviting People.  

Think that line through in several ways -- An Inviting Church is Made by Inviting People.  

Open the Front Door, Close the Back Door

    

                Growing the church comes down to opening the front door and closing the back door.  It is normal with health for there to be growth, little bodies grow to be big one and even when our bodies stop growing we take it as a sign of health that our minds keep growing.  Growing a church has to do with keeping the ones you have (close the back door) and getting some more (opening the front door).

                Many time church evangelism committees are really the welcoming committees.  Do we have a nice brochure to give the visitor?  Do we call them visitors suggesting they’ll just be moving on or do we call them guests suggesting more hospitality?  Do we have a coffee cup with the church logo to give them before they go?  Do we send a welcome letter?  All good considerations … once someone has come to church that is.  But you can keep do all this friendly stuff if they haven’t come in the first place. 

                Evangelism, I think, is about letting others know in a multitude of ways about the claims of and events around Jesus of Nazareth.  It’s a little different than putting the classified in the newspaper or the yellow pages to get people to come to church in the first place.  Evangelism is more about us going to them than it is them coming to us.  Getting ourselves out of the pews rather than them into the pews. 

                I do like Inviting Committees.  I like them because some people are very fearful and feel inadequate around Evangelism.  “I don’t know what to say,” they plead.  Remember, as well, that for a church to grow we do need people won to Christ and then incorporated into his family but we also need simply people to come to church.  An Inviting Committee can focus on getting people to church for the first time.  Someone else can focus on getting them to come a second time.  And they can focus after that on them getting assimilated.  But an Inviting Committee can simply help everyone invite to church or some subset of church – join me for the Sunday School class, join me for our Habitat Saturday, join us for our pot-luck and speaker about Jesus’ leadership principles, join me for Christmas Eve service, join us for our new message series that sounds so interesting, join us our Bingo and board game night, …. 

                What it takes to invite someone to church or a subset of church is a basically good feeling about your church.  If the people are off-putting or the preaching is bad or the AC doesn’t work or the sound system doesn’t amplify right or the coffee is too weak, … then confidence evacuates the asker.  But most any church that simply tries to love people, then we are inviting people into a loving place.  That’s it and pretty good in the most simple form. 

                Invite away!

The Truth About Lies

I recently preached on truth telling and I got to thinking about how this might apply to something at the church.  Or not.  You decide.

We recently made a temporary change in our worship venue in order to try some new things in our worship style and at the same time save a little money in a more energy effecient space than our big, not-energy-efficient sanctuary.

What was great was that the congregation as a whole was pretty good natured about it and rolled with the punches.  A good, good sign of flexibility and good will.

As you'd expect, some were not so keen about it.  I'm not sure what all those not-avid attenders did.  I noted that some left temporarily.  They went to another church or they stopped coming to church for a bit.  They did what they needed to do, I guess.  We could have used their presence to foster the love and sense of success we need for one another and for visitors but they did what they needed to do.

Some came, maybe less consistently but not all that off-pattern, and they just tolerated it, accepted it, managed it.

Some added to these other options an outloud comment to someone of, "I don't like it," and that's their perfect right.

I've gone all this way because what I found interesting and typical and worth putting reigns on is how a few people said, "There are people who are upset by this move."  Here are my observations or thoughts on this comment.  One, it is feedback and feeback is critical.  Thank you!  Two, it is imprecise.  It doesn't tell us how many or who.  Is it two people out of a hundred?  Is it our resident curmudgeon who is against anything and everything?  Three, some people are very concerned that someone is upset and some people don't really care whether they are or not.  Maybe this is the difference between those who are fearful by anyone having uncomfortable feelings and those who are fearful of giving up reasonable goals because of a couple people having uncomfortable feelings?  The people oriented versus the task oriented?  (P.S.  If someone regularly receives others' fear and negativity, he or she or I might ask if we are giving off some kind of signal that we are good receptacle or receiving dock for such.)  Four, we hear, I think, "People are upset," more than we hear, "People are good with it."  When we repeat, "People are upset," it can start to get a life and everyone who hears this starts wondering who it is and what kind of thin ice we are on.  If we equally reported, "People are loving this," it can get a life too.  To find the truth we need to say both.  Otherwise, the negative can get a disproportianate influence.  To tell the truth we need to say all of the above and then some (stuff that you see that I am not seeing).  Telling the truth is simple and it is complicated.

Now go out there and be honest ... and loving.  Truth needs love.  Love needs truth.

5 Principles for Leadership

5 Principles of Leadership for Everyone

I was reflecting on what I believe about leadership.  Don’t stop reading because you’re thinking, “I’m not a leader.”  If you have contact with another human being, you are consciously or unconsciously influencing them and that, my friend, is leadership. 

Leadership is dynamic.  When it is time to hunt, the best hunters lead, not the best farmers.  When it is time to farm, the best farmers lead, not the best hunters.  So it is dynamic according to the objective.  It’s also dynamic by size.  Leading a three person company is different than leading a 3,000 person company.  Or what about situation – in wartime are we more directive than in peacetime?  And there are always moves between interpersonal needs and organizational tasks – are you feeling ok versus are we getting something done? 

Having said the above here are five principles for everyone.  One, it is modeling and translates into being the first one to roll up his or her sleeves.  This means being an example in terms of attitude and behavior.  Do and be what you want imitated.

Two, it is forecasting.  If everyone is looking at trees and no one is looking at forest, we won’t be as productive as we could be.  Someone needs to get out in front and scout out what’s coming opportunity-wise, what’s coming need-wise.

Three, it is having courage.  If a surgeon stopped surgery because he couldn’t handle the patient being uncomfortable, comfort rules and not health.  A doctor needs courage to pursue health.  And we need courage to tell the truth about how things are and not air brush what’s going on.  And we need courage to try again when we have failed.  Leadership just plain takes courage.

Four, it is having integrity.  Honesty is the best policy.  Authenticity merges into this.  If you can be trusted and you can’t be yourself, then leadership will tank.

Five, it is having love.  People know if you care.  Love the people you are with.  Yes, they are imperfect.  So am I.  You are too.  But there is no one without a special story and a special gift.  Value the people you are with.

Earlier I said that I’d share what I believed about leadership.  Frankly, as I typed those words I asked myself, “It is what you believe but is it what you practice?”  Ahhh.  We all believe stuff we don’t practice, right?  Funny how we do that.  But I hope I’m practicing it.  I’m trying.  I hope you will too. 

Jeff Wood, Interim Pastor at Cocoa Presbyterian Church.

Read more at www.talkingwithjeff.blogspot.com