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How They Think of Me as a Leader

Tonight before right before our service began, a friend and fellow leader
gave me this saying that she thought of me when she saw it.
This is not the first time I have been given a
 
Michael Scott inspired item with similar sentiments.

My Thoughts Heading into "The Most Wonderful Time of the Year!"

Today begins what truly is the most wonderful time of the year – the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament!

I have been watching the NCAA tournament since 1978 when I followed the Duke Blue Devils lead by Sophomore center Mike Giminski go all the way to the finals losing to Kentucky Wildcats 92-88. 

In my 31st year of watching the tournament here are my thoughts heading into it …

For a team that has been named the team of the nineties and is the team with the most wins in this decade, winner of its 8th ACC Tournament Championship in 11 years this year– I am wondering why do the Duke Blue Devils get so little respect as #2 seed headed into the tournament?  Sure they do not necessarily over power their opponents, but they have incredible on-the-ball defense and I have seen Duke teams like this in the past that though may lack a strong inside presence, can get on a run, stay focused and go very far in the tournament.  In addition they have a pretty good guy sitting on the bench in Coach K!  He is the difference maker that only Duke has.

UCLA, though I am picking them to go out in the first round, this is a team that no one is talking about and could make a run in the tournament.  How soon we forget that the guy playing point guard for them, Darren Collison, played in the last three final fours.

Can one man make a difference?  We will find out in regards to Oklahoma Sooner sophomore Blake Griffin – who more than likely will be the national player of the year.  Will he be able to carry a team on his back with strong individual performances and take his team to the dance like these players in the past have: Larry Bird (1979 Indiana State University), Danny Manning (1988 Kansas) & most recently Carmelo Anthony (2003 Syracuse).  I believe can in part because he has an incredible coach in Jeff Capel, a Duke alumni.

Teams that are not a 1,2 or 3 seeds that I think can make a run and go far in the tournament:  Arizona State Sun Devils (6), Florida State Seminoles(5), California Golden Bears(7) &  Boston College Eagles (7).

How much of difference will Ty Lawson make if he is not playing?  Experts are saying the North Carolina Tar Heels can’t win it all without him?  Keep this in mind in 1995 UCLA beat defending champions Arkansas Razorbacks without starting point guard Tyus Edney whom, without his opening round heroics would not have been in the finals.

Who is Joe Blits?

One of the ways an attendee of one of our weekend services can communicate with us is by taking time to fill-out a "Communicate" card where they give us their contact information and space is provided to write out their requests.  Requests include information on a specific ministry or the church in general; prayer needs; or simply a desire to talk to one of the pastors. The cards are usually collected at our Guest Services counter, turned into the office and then the office forwards them to the pastor or leader that can best answer their questions.

On way too many occasions our Guest Services team members let us know that guests come back expressing their frustration and/or disappointment that they had not been contacted -- in some instances weeks after they had turned in the card.  Oh the horror!

Two weekends ago Joe Blits turned in a "communicate" card expressing an interest in joining our 10:45am greeters team.  I promptly e-mailed Joe's contact info to Alex,our Lasting Impressions Team leader,to follow-up.  She quickly responded back saying that she had done so last week.  I was amazed at the quick handling of the request.  It was explained to me that "Joe Blits" is an alias for our 9am greeters leader Johnnie.   A guest that Johnnie brought several months expressed his frustration that he had not been contacted after turning in a card.  So to see for himself, under the alias of Joe Blits, Johnnie solicits questions just to see what kind of response he gets on a regular basis.

I am grateful that I serve with a leader who #1 when confronted with a problem, did complain and criticize but to investigate himself: and #2 someone definitely is has sharpening effect by keeping me sharp and prompt on my responses to the cards that come my way.

The Reason for God

As we head into week 2 of our series Dialogue this weekend's subject deals with the differences of the world religions.  Now this a subject matter that much has been written on and one message on this subject matter can cover the subject in only from a broader perspective -- this would be true of all the subjects that we will cover in this series. 

Therefore we are encouraging those who are attending this series to pick up the book the The Reason for God by Timothy Keller.  This book will serve as a great resource on the subject matters covered during our series as well as being a great resource that serves to underscore some of thinking that went into the formation of the series Dialogue.

The first chapter of the book "There Can't Be Just One True Religion" fits perfectly with this weekend's message.  Chapter two of the book, "How Could a Good God Allow Suffering" looks at next weekend's message topic.

Our bookstore has copies -- I hope you will be prodded to pick it up.

Dialogue -- What We Will be Talking About

In a previous post "Enter the Dialogue" I mentioned that the input from your spiritually seeking friends would be critical in shaping the content of the weekend messages.  Based on the input we received here is what we will be speaking about in the next four weeks.

What if weekends services could address the questions that came up  THAT WEEK as you were talking to friends at work, school, the gym,  Starbucks? How cool would it be if you could invite people to hear the  stuff they want to talk about at church, to try & answer the questions  they actually have? Well that’s what this unique series is all about.  It will involve YOU. We will collect the questions from people in YOUR  WORLD throughout February & the top ones will be this series. Look for  a “Chat Room” at least a couple of times during this series.

March 6 & 8: You asked about… HELL “Why does hell exist? Does it?

March 13 & 15: You asked about… OTHER RELIGIONS “How can you know that you are right about Christianity? What about religious tolerance?”

March 20 &  22: You asked about… SUFFERING “Sometimes I can’t help but wonder where God is when I hear about suffering & atrocities & suffering? How can I believe in a good God in a world like this?

March 27 &  29: You asked about… THE TRUTH & GOODNESS OF  CHRISTIANITY "Why does Christianity breed so much hate & intolerance? Is it even good for the world?"

Leading Worship Well

This past weekend with our worship pastor Jason Denison carrying the teaching responsibilities, our music/worship was lead in a team format by the four front-line vocals that were scheduled for that weekend.  This was a first for us.  If Jason is not there we usually have one person (usually leading with an acoustic guitar) running point.

The fruit of it was incredible! This comes from personal experience being in all three services and the feedback we got from our guests and the rest of the team and also by gauging the dynamics in the room.  Whenever, I observe good leadership taking place or something being done well I try to note what made it so to build from in future situations.

So here are my observations ...

1. The team was lead well and this is a shout out to Jason whom did not abdicate his worship leading responsibilities because he was teaching, but was at rehearsal and worked with the team and prepared them well.
2. Each vocalists understood their specific role in the service as each was given specific directives to give, prayers to pray and songs to lead out.  Everybody was allowed to do their part, deference was shown and they were not stepping over one another trying to do to much.
3. They were acting out in faith -- there was heavy reliance on God -- more than usual.  Without the main leader there -- they had to rely on God.  I personally know in the back of mind that there is a leadership covering on any given weekend where there others to help pick up should I miss things on any given weekend. However, I also know what it is like when many are at a conference or on vacation and I am the only main leader -- there is a sense of vulnerability and I know my prayer life gets much more fervent those weekends.

Again the whole team did great yet one particular part of the service stood out to me.  One of our team vocalists whose singing ability has not been in question took her worship leading to a whole new level.  Here is what I noticed ...

• Again the element of faith -- this was her first time that she was asked to lead out and set up a song and you could tell this was a faith challenge for her.  As a result ...
• She was incredibly well prepared.  Her comments about the song were well thought through and her prayer was genuine and at the same time used accessible language that those of us in the congregation could own that prayer as well.
• What was shared was birth out of what God was doing in her own life and it came across as such.

Here is my last comment is that good leadership takes us places where we may not feel like going or like going altogether, but is necessary for us to go.  The song that the vocalist sang is a popular song we sing regularly -- yet for whatever reason I have not been able to gain traction with it in my worship experience.  However, this weekend was the first time I did and I believe it was because it was lead so well.

Christian Taboo

My friend Don Everts recently shared with me a great exercise he would do with his team when he was on staff with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship.  The exercise was called Christian Taboo -- playing off the board game Taboo where in that game a person would have to describe a certain topic or word to his or her team without using certain familiar words that were considered taboo.

In his application it involved his team trying to answer specific questions regarding spiritual topics without using "in house" language or what we, Christians, refer to as "Christianeze." 

The purpose of this exercise was for our team to break out of the rut we can often slip into by using terms that have grown familiar to us yet may seem like a foreign language to others.  In the church world we are often guilty of using loaded theological terms or cute phrases that can either confuse or isolate those very people we are trying to reach.

So before we engaged in business of our programming meeting we played Christian Taboo.  Per Don's instruction it began with putting up on a white board words that we consider insider's language.  The list we came up is below.

I then challenged our team to answer to following two questions in the respective given scenario without using the words on the board.

Scenario 1: A neighbor who knows you are a Christian sees you drivng up your driveway on a Sunday afternoon and asks if you came from church.  You respond yes and he follows up with the following question, "Why do you go to church?"

Scenario 2: A friend notices that you have a cross pendant on the chain around your neck, your friend proceeds to ask, "What is the significance of wearing a cross around your neck?"

The exercise was harder than we thought.  Many of us would write down responses only to realize when we looked at the board that the we used one of the taboo words and had to make an adjustment.

At the end of our time, I believe the team found this exercise very beneficial and caused us to remember that if we are about reaching lost people then we need mindful of how our language plays a critical role in reaching them.  Now will we lapse back into these habits of using vocabularly that is confusing and insiderish?  --absolutely but doing exercises like this from time can be a means to continually recalibrating and refocusing us.

"... to be Found Faithful" Kirk's Ministry Retirement Party

Last night I attended a ministry retirement party for a friend, Kirk Patterson, whom has served as a lead usher at our church for 10 years (he is moving into another area of serving with his wife).  The evening was filled with incredibly meaningful memories -- memories of ... when I first challenged Kirk to lead over 10 years ago to take a leadership role; the many great ministry moments we have shared together; seeing a great friendship develop despite his flaw of being a San Diego Charger fan; & seeing him grow as a leader and serve as a great example for others.

I Corinthians 4:2 (KNJV) "Moreover it is required in stewards that one be found faithful."  Kirk has been an incredibly faithful team member that will be greatly missed.

Lasting Impresions Team (LIT) leader Alex Layson did an incredible job of leading the evening.  She came up with one of the best parting gifts ever!  She handed Kirk a basket that he would fill with a collection of items that the ushers had passed out over the past 10 years.  Our ushers have a very involved role in our services and they are not only pass out programs.  Items included in the basket were nails, rocks, Red Vines, Duct tapes,  a pocket knife amongst other things.  Kirk was cracking up remembering those times when those items were passed out.

Kirk shared "a few" words addressing all of us and he the nail on the head when he said that the best part of being on this team for the past 10 years is the relationships thaty you make.  Kirk  you will be missed.