clarity evangelist

Thanksliving

I had a moment that transcended the turkey, pilgrims and pumpkin pie this thanksgiving.  It was a moment of looking my children eyeball to eyeball and sensing a mutual gratitude for gift of each other.  In the interchange, Joel, my twelve year old, shared something he had learned- that this Thanksgiving should be about "Thanks-Living." We all laughed and leaned into this clever letter switching!  The new word carries with it the idea of tranforming an event into a way of life, a moment's celebration into a daily continuation. 

No doubt this new word will find its way into our family lexicon.

Just like there are special moments- literal seconds- that seem to hold more significance, maybe a sense of the eternal in time, there are a special words that do the same. One word, out of and endless possibility of sounds, words and phrases that clutter our lives each day, may break through with special meaning and shared value. 

Thanksliving.  May it be so. 

Structure as Solution

This last week I led a quarterly offsite meeting for Faithbridge.  Faithbridge is second home church for me as I serve as a leadership coach on the staff. Our focus of the day was the "challenge of structure." I started the day by anchoring the topic of organizational structure into a biblical-theological foundation.  I asked the staff the simple question, 'When in biblical history did God provide structure as a solution." Here is some of the things on our list:

• Structure of marriage is a solution to man being alone
• Organization on the ark as a solution for preserving planet life   
• The reorganization in Exodus 18 to provide wholeness, health and sustainability to people of Israel 
• The levitical structure to provide worship and access to God on behalf of Israel 
• Jesus choosing the 12 and sending the 72 as a solution for proclaiming the kingdom
• Smaller organized groups facilitating discipleship - Acts 2   
• The selection of 7 leaders when Hellenistic Jewish widows were being overlooked in the distribution of the bread - Acts 6 

We spent half the day rethinking ministry department structures based on the 40% rule:  Every 40% of growth requires a new structure.  

As I continued to think about structure as solution, I thought of the trinitarian structure.  What problem does the trinity solve?  It is the solution to God being loving and self-sufficient at the same time. 

10 Most Unique Church Buildings

I ran across this fascinating post.  If you were wondering how unique churches can get, wonder no more!

10 Most Unique Churches

Where will Obama attend church?

One of my favorite Psalms is the second as it asserts God's supremacy over all earthly rule. I am so grateful that the church, and not the government, is the hope of the world. Having said that, this is an interesting little Time article on where Obama will attend church.

Normalizing Absurdity

I recently shared a favorite Einstein quote in one of my posts. It became the seed to a session entitled Normalizing Absurdity that I will be doing at Leadership Networks Innovation Cubed Conference in January. Check out their post on it here.

Boomin

Toby Mac's lyrics for Boomin have been bouncing through my mind; this is the most played song on the family playlist last week:

I've been around the way
I've been around the block
I got the keys to the city if the gates are locked
And a freak like me ain't ‘bout to stop
I've got a handful of dreams and a heart full of God!

Top Ten Annoying Phrases

Have you ever noticed how certain phrases become part of a culture's conversation style? Some are memorable and become "buzz-worthy" (heard that before?) or create culture by sharing ideas and ideals. Others just create verbal fatigue with overuse and misuse of language and detract from your message. Wired Magazine's blog, Underwire, recently cited the list of The Top Ten Most Annoying Phrases from Oxford University researchers. The list includes:

1. At the end of the day
2. Fairly unique
3. I personally
4. At this moment in time
5. With all due respect
6. Absolutely
7. It's a nightmare
8. Shouldn't of
9. 24/7
10. It's not rocket science

Absolutely. I personally would like to add that at the end of the day it's a nightmare that we distill our communication with verbal noise in an effort to be fairly unique. It's not rocket science but, with all due respect, we are all truly unique 24/7 and shouldn't of thought to mess up what we say by cluttering things with superfluous sayings.

What phrases do you catch yourself using that may add to verbal fatigue? What additional "noise" does your church or organization regularly use that may detract from the clear message you want to send? "That being said," are there any you would like to share?

Church Unique makes the "Golden Canon"

I was excited to see Church Unique listed in Leadership Journal's "Golden Canon." The article opening begins with a quote from Spurgeon: "A student will find that his mental constitution is more affected by one good book thoroughly mastered than by twenty books merely skimmed." Therefore Leadership Journal created a list "presenting the ten books of 2008 deemed most valuable." Here is the list:

The Leader's Outer World
The Reason for God, by Tim Keller (Winner)
Culture Making, by Andy Crouch
Axiom, by Bill Hybels
Consuming Jesus, by Paul Louis Metzger
Church Unique, by Will Mancini

The Leader's Inner World
Surprised by Hope, by N.T. Wright (Winner)
The Jesus Way, by Eugene Peterson
The Attentive Life, by Leighton Ford
Life with God, by Richard Foster
Memoirs of an Ordinary Pastor, by D.A. Carson

Many thanks to Marshall Shelley and all the folks at Leadership Journal who continue to bring a strong kingdom resource to leaders. Their purpose is to serve church leaders by offering spiritual wisdom and practical tools for faithfully proclaiming and effectively living the gospel.

Organized Abandonment: Drucker Part 2

Drucker asserts that focus is the primary challenge for leading nonprofits. Here are three quotes from Five Questions:

“… the great majority of nonprofits can be graded “C” at best. Not for lack of effort; most of them work very hard. But for lack of focus and lack of tool competency."

“I advised some close friends of mine, working with the local council of churches, that half of the things they are doing they shouldn’t be doing- not because they are unimportant, but because they’re not needed.”

“It is time for organized abandonment.”

Its amazing how this simple principle can be heard from many great thinkers and displayed by many great organizations. But few find it. What have you abandoned lately for the good of your life or career or organization?

Peter Drucker's Legacy- Part 1

I spent the day with 20 other consultants discussing Drucker's five organizational questions. My favorite part of the day was Bob Buford's personal thoughts on the life and legacy of Peter Drucker.

Buford's respect for Drucker is immense. He called him "the smartest human being alive" and described Drucker's impact in his own life using a parenting metaphor. Bob shared that the consummation of Drucker's influence could be found in the preface of a book and that the preface is no longer in print. The name of the preface, written in 1974 is "Alternative to Tyranny." The idea behind the title is that without the social sector- organizations that exist for positive outcomes of life change - we are left with only government and for-profit sectors. The thrust of the preface, according to Buford, is that if these are the only forces at work in society, then tyranny is inevitable. The alternative to tyranny then, is the strengthening of the social sector. The recognition that it is the non-profit world that can uniquely "rescue society" signaled a shift in emphasis and importance of the social sector for Drucker in the last 30 years of his life. It was from this perspective that his friendship with Buford was forged.

Buford noted an important observation that Drucker about the church. Basically, he felt that the emergence of the megachurch at the end of the twentieth century was the most significant development in the social sector.

Here is an interesting Businessweek article on Drucker.