Where are our legacy builders?

Over the last couple of days I have chosen to read some stories of what some people would call heroes of the Christian Church. I have been reading biography’s on people such as Martin Luther. William Tyndale, George Mueller and CS Lewis I guess with the aim of trying to glean something from their lives. All of them had different roles to play in the history of Christianity in the 20th Century. And while those roles were different there was a common thread in their lives and that was that while they have suffered tremendously for their desire to serve God in their community they left us a lasting legacy. History looks back on them favourably and tells that they were right to make the stand they did against popular opinion at the time and the persecution they received was unfair and unjust.

The lesson though I have learnt is that they left a legacy behind that ultimately millions of people have benefited from. A legacy that they didn’t see or probably expect but that their influence over life is still seen today. What challenged me was two things. Where are those people today who are standing up for truth in the face of popular opinion and what legacy am I leaving for my children and their children plus those around me.

We live in a society saturated with heroes or role models whose status is based on celebrity or notoriety rather than anything they have said or done. Their contribution to society hasn’t cost these people anything in fact it has probably added to their status and in many cases wealth. The legacy I am talking about has a cost because it is not popular or conventional even but is right and beneficial to society and future generations.

I am talking about something where my children may say in years to come I admire my Dad because of ….. I look around society for those people, who are quietly going about being influencers in their family and community. Sometimes they are obvious but mostly they are ignored by the vast majority of people. It saddens me that most people give little regard for these people. Imagine if these people were given the prominence that most sports, music and movie people get. Perhaps the values in our community may change. In stead of their self worth coming from fame that a lot of people crave, their significance might be gained from what they selflessly do rather than by who they are.

I want my kids to have me as a role model not some fleeting famous footballer. I want them to admire their church minister not some person in America who is popular. I want them to learn life lessons from the oldies in my congregation not some talking personality on TV. Am I wrong to hope for that?
What can I do to cultivate people around me to be legacy builders? People who will do significant things that will leave behind something bigger than themselves in their field of endeavour and will affect generations to come. What will it take from us to create the opportunities in our family or church or workplace for those people to rise up? This country is crying out for legacy builders or contributors. There are already too many consumers in this society.

Any ideas?

The Power of Encouragement

The other Saturday I was driving from Harrison’s Under 13 school soccer match to Jack’s Under 8 club soccer match. This season I had agreed to coach Jack’s team which has been an interesting experience for me. Any way in the 20 minute trip I had broken the news to Jack that it was his turn to be goal keeper. Now Jack is scared of getting hurt by the ball and previous turns as goalie have ended badly for the team and his parents.
Jack earnestly pleaded his case not to be goalie but I knew it was his turn and as I was the coach I promised to help him through this traumatic experience. Right up to kick off Jack was still apprehensive and I did my best assure him he would be fine and that I would be there to help him. Now in under 8’s the coach can be on the field so I was able to encourage him while standing with him as he did his stint as goalie. By half time no goals had been scored and he had actually saved 2 goals.
By training the following Wednesday Jack’s confidence was so high he wanted to be keeper at practice and wanting to keep in the next game as well. What had changed?

I don’t know but I did learn that encouragement mixed with physical support is a powerful tool.

Now I am not talking about unnatural encouragement. You know telling some one they will be a scientist when they fail science, that you will be a good electrician when they are colour blind. No, I am talking about when you know they are capable but lack self belief. It’s encouragement beyond just saying words; that has action with it. I’ll stand with you, watch you, and get you some help.

Raising kids or work mates is more than words. It is about putting self belief into their life. It’s about fostering a ‘you can do it attitude’ and saying that I will see it through with you.

My favourite Bible story is about Mark. Paul says that Mark is useless to him and tells him to go away. Latter we read Paul at the end of his life calls for Mark as he believes he is useful to Paul’s work. What caused the change? Barnabus. Barnabus known as a great encourager takes hold of Mark from the scrap heap because he could see something in him and with some encouragement could make Mark fulfil his potential.

This week at soccer I learnt what it is like to be Barnabus to my son Jack and I have since seen what it has done to him. Imagine what would happen in your work place, congregation, and home or your sporting team if you have a Barnabus person in its midst. How different would your office be or your church, sporting team or home. How much more successful would it be and importantly how many more Marks or Jacks would be encouraged to achieve something they thought was impossible.

Creating margin in our work and private life

One of my recent disciplines is to get back in the habit of scheduling reading time. It is a two hour block of reading books that will stimulate me as a leader, as a person, as a contributor to other people’s lives. I am not talking about reading newspapers or magazines but books that will shape my work and personal life.

The first book I have started this new discipline with is called Margin by Richard A Swenson. Richard is a GP and describes margin as the space that exists between ourselves and our limits. It is something held in reserve for contingencies or unanticipated situations.

In my blog space I will be from time to time reviewing or commenting on aspects from the books I am reading. They aren’t complete reviews more a pile of thoughts for people like you to ponder.

I read Margin not from a situation where I had lost the margin in my life but having seen it disappear in those around me I wanted understand its importance to us as functioning human beings. Swenson is a GP in the USA, a Christian and has written this book out of his observations of patients across all spheres of life and vocations.

He exposes some of the common myths that life was easier back in the old days. If only we live today the way our grandparents did. Swenson argues that life wasn’t easier then just different. He says we just choose to remember the good bits.

The thing I found interesting that eating away the margin in our lives is growth or what he better describes at progress. Swenson says that growth in this world is now exponential not linear. So before people saw growth over a longer period of time which gave them time to adapt their lifestyle; now with exponential progress people are racing to keep up. This exponential progress erodes the margin in our lives without us realising it.

While we cant physically halt this exponential progress we can take steps to keep some margin in our lives and protect ourselves physically, emotionally, financially and importantly give ourselves some time to live not merely exist.

It is a great read for all sorts of people. Not just those who are struggling and need a prescription for change but for those who want to prevent it happening to themselves and those around them.

Margin by Richard A Swenson M.D. Published by NavPress.

When less is more

As I have been getting around church ministers, I have been hearing many people voice this similar statement ‘Sunday church service is just too hard to get unsaved people to attend.’ I am beginning to think that it is not so much what the Sunday church product looks like but the fact that people don’t go to activities they know little about.

An increasingly greater percentage of 96five’s audience rarely if ever attend church yet they are increasing their engagement with the radio station. Obviously they are not negatively affected by the Christian message in the programming. Attending church though on a Sunday isn’t an option for them. I actually think it is unfamiliarity with church which could be the problem.

Let me use the Bronco’s as an example. Very few people would go to a Bronco’s NRL match not knowing anything about rugby league. Virtually the whole crowd has at least some passing knowledge of the rules and format of the game and the Bronco’s. If there are any who go with no knowledge at least they go with someone who does and invited them to go.

Why are we surprised that strangers don’t suddenly start turning up at our services. What we do know is that strangers will come if they are invited by a friend. And most church ministers do encourage their congregation members to invite a friend to church.

What I have been seeing are ministers who are starting to think out of the box. What if I kept my congregation members less busy and gave them more opportunities to form relationships in the community. What would it take to resource Mary Smith to help her be Jesus in the school tuckshops? How could I help Rob at his kids sporting club be Jesus to the parents on the sideline. Historically church has been about keeping its members busy so they don’t get caught up in the world. Suddenly we have lost our influence in the world. What if your church businessmen were members of their chamber of commerce? Congregation members joined political parties on both sides of politics. Then we start being an influence, making friends and creating opportunities to invite people to a relationship with Christ and church.

I think as more Christians are released to be Christians in the marketplace not just in the pews we will begin to see our influence spread further and perhaps over time our attendances rise. Maybe the principal of less is more might work. Less work in church programs and more work out in the community might just work.

The Church in action - a powerful force

The disaster of the floods which has swallowed up large sections of Queensland has certainly seen some unprecedented examples of people doing whatever they can to help their fellow Australians in time of need. Some people have been saying for a while that the church is starting to become an irrelevant force in Australia. Over the last 2 weeks in South East Queensland I have seen the opposite.

When the floods started wreaking their havoc over the SE corner of the State the first organisation the Govt contacted to set up evacuation centres were local churches. Across Brisbane and Ipswich churches with only a few hours notice became evacuation centres. Congregational member were quickly mobilised to provide bedding food and importantly comfort to the fleeing residents from flood affected homes. The Salvos were asked to provide catering and comfort to the big evacuation centres at RNA Showgrounds and the QE 2 sports centre at Nathan. All over the region local churches were rolling up their sleeves and serving people who thought they would never visit that church in their lifetime.

Then in areas that weren’t flood affected I saw churches begin to organise clean up teams to go and clean up flood affected communities on the other side of town. This happened well before Campbell Newman was able to organise his large volunteer army. The church was able to organise itself into teams and with help then connect with churches in the middle of the crisis and find the places in most need of assistance.
Other churches mobilised themselves into catering teams and organised sausage sizzles and tins of cakes for the volunteers.

Other churches started organising Baskets of Hope for families who were flood affected to help them restart lives in their damaged homes. Some two weeks after the floods we are still seeing churches spearheading the community recovery teams in many parts of Brisbane, Ipswich and the Lockyer Valley. In fact while sporting teams got plenty of publicity for their good works churches have continued to quietly go about helping people rebuild their lives with dignity.

I saw in these floods people from different parts of town, different congregations and styles of worship come together around their common love of Jesus and serve with out any agenda. By agenda I mean a desire to see these people come to their church. They served because that is what Jesus would do to people in a time of need.

So while the stats of bottoms on seats may show the church in decline and perhaps irrelevant to its community; in a time of crisis it was a powerful resource of buildings and people who can quickly be organised into service without asking questions. As some one asked earlier where was God in the middle of this disaster? He was right in the middle in the faces of the volunteers serving the people.

Some observations on power of social media

The floods crisis affecting Queensland over the last few weeks has shown me how valuable social media can be in informing the public and also mobilising people to a response. For us at 96five it showed again that radio is a great broadcast platform for flood information and that twitter and facebook are useful tools to compliment what we as a radio station can do. This blog is some thoughts on how I see twitter and facebook as useful and perhaps how you maybe able to harness these platforms to your ministry.

Facebook

To me facebook is like a giant noticeboard. It is a great way to paste up information with some limited response from people who are part of your network. It is a notice board that also allows instant sharing of information and comments which is where it differs from a website. While anyone can view a website only ‘friends’ can view your facebook page but facebook is a lot easier to quickly up date information.


Twitter

I think twitter is a valuable social tool for getting out short succinct messages or information. It is not designed for feedback or conversation but to just make statements. The lack of feedback means that unless it is from a reliable source the information can be wrong or at least misleading. This is where it differs from facebook which at least allows people the opportunity to see if a message sent has been shown to be wrong or it has been confirmed by other sources.

Pros and Cons

In my experiences Facebook and twitter are forms of social communication. What they aren’t are advertising platforms. I have yet to see any one company or church use them in a successful advertising or marketing way. They are platforms for ‘followers’ to post their thoughts but invariably those following are already consumers who are passionate at some level to your organisation. So no I don’t think they are helpful to get people to come to your church service on Sunday but they will at least let your congregation know what is happening much like a church bulletin.

Facebook is an invaluable pastoral care tool though because you do see what your congregation is ‘doing’. They may not tell you to your face but they will tell all their facebook friends. Where twitter or facebook is helpful is quick call to action stuff
Eg Mary Smith is ill and needs some help with meals for kids, or looking for some information on a topic xyz can anyone help me.

They are more flexible platforms than websites are, but again I don’t think either will replace a good website. Twitter and facebook are noticeboards not relationships either. Use them for call to actions not friendships.

Love to get your thoughts or experiences and feel free to find me on twitter and facebook too.

Managing Change in your Church

What is the biggest fear most people have in their life? Is it death, public speaking, sharks? I think the most common fear for people is the fear of change. People are scared of it. They don’t like it and sometimes will do extraordinary things to avoid it.

But in reality change is inevitable and in fact we face it daily. Just by growing old we face change. I think it is in fact not change we are scared of. People may articulate it as change but it’s not change but loss that people are actually fearful of. Loss of something they once had. It’s not the change of body shape we actually fear as we get older but the loss of our youthful energy, the loss of hair colour or even hair. The loss of normal slimness of youth replaced by middle-aged spread.

Church ministers are people who are constantly challenged with leading congregations through change. Recently I have spoken with several ministers who are currently taking their congregations through the difficult process of change. In these cases it is changing the format of their Sunday service. One of the things that will make it easy for these minsters is the recognition that is not change but loss that these congregation members actually fear. Loss of a familiar worship style, loss of predictability, loss of routine.

Now to some of us these may seem trivial things but to those people they are real losses and they will have real feelings of grief. For most of then they will in fact go through the 7 stages of grief over the loss of service style.

A smart minister will recognise this as loss and they work with those people in a more appropriate manner rather than thinking they are opponents of change. I actually think the oldies in our congregations are some of the biggest accepters of change because in their lifetime they have witnessed huge changes in society and technology. More and bigger changes than our kids have seen.

Why is it then that they seem to struggle then with a change in the church service?

I think Bill Hybels summed it up very well at the recent Global Leadership Summit when he said a good leader moves people from here to there. How does he do it? By making the ‘there’ more attractive than the ‘here’. Help them want to embrace the there by having the current here so unbearable that they will want to run to the there.

The three keys points for us as leaders to recognise in bringing in change is

• Recognise loss is the biggest part of change
• The need to make the end point more exciting than the start point
• Allow open two way communication through the change process

These are just some random thoughts. I would love to get some feedback on your experiences on implementing change in your church.