No Hand Backs

I’ve noticed in my dealings with various companies that one of the significant factors that impacts my satisfaction is the manner in which I am moved through an organization’s bureaucracy. So, for example, I deal with a couple of financial firms who work with me on a number of levels in different ways. In some cases I am a personal client, in others I am a corporate client. With a bank, for example, I might have different kinds of accounts including a checking account, credit card, and mortgage, and I may deal with the same bank through my work. Inevitably, it seems, I start by calling the wrong person or department. A couple of years ago it seemed that SOP (that is standard operating procedure) was to give me the phone number for the right department… “I’m sorry Mr. Neary, you need to speak with someone in the mutual funds department… they can be reached at 1-800-blah-blah-blah.” That was good service because usually the person on the other end of that call (Ok... really it would be the person I would eventually get to after responding to several automated prompts) could help me.

These days it seems that SOP is that, rather than giving me another number to call (thus handing me back my problem), organizations are more carefully handing customers off to those who can solve problems… “I’m sorry Mr. Neary, you need to speak with someone in the mutual funds department, please hold… hi Joe, I have Mr. Neary on the line, he needs you to help him with his mutual fund account… you should have his information on the screen… I know that you can solve his problem.”

Hand offs are far superior to hand backs.

An organization in pursuit of superior customer service should adopt a no hand backs policy. No matter what, once a customer (student, parishioner, patient, constituent, influencer, etc.) presents you with a problem, you don’t get to give it back to the customer. It is either yours to solve, or you need to thoroughly hand off the problem to a colleague. No hand backs, only hand offs.

This approach could help fix some common misconceptions including:

• Customers understand and appreciate the fine lines of delineation that exist in our organizational structures. If I were a bank employee, for example, I might better understand why the mutual fund representative can’t answer questions about a money market account… but I’m not an employee and all the problems, as well as all the various customer service representatives, look the same to me. We can’t expect our customers to be all that skilled in navigating our bureaucracies.
• Getting involved in another department’s work is the unpardonable sin. I think that most people most of the time do hand backs not because they are uncaring or lazy, but because they are afraid to touch another department’s business. Once the problem is solved, the customer will likely go merrily along their way… but I have to work with Joe in accounting for ever! For the sake of our customers, and ultimately for the sake of our organizations, we need to get over our fascination/fear of our organizational structures.
• It is bad form to dump problems on others. I get that; we call them wet babies in my office. If we hand back, we might be able to do so anonymously; hand offs tend to implicate us in the problem. Again, we need to get over ourselves. Besides… if we do a good job of handing off, helping to identify the problem and getting good communication going, we are already more a part of the solution than part of the problem.

This is all pretty rudimentary stuff, I know, but it seems pretty important.

I’m thinking about making a no hand backs rule in the organizations that I have a part in leading. Think it will work?

Creatio Ex Nihilo

There are so many mysteries that accompany our walk of faith. Like Winnie the Pooh, I walk this path of faith realizing that I am a bear of very little brain… so I can only handle one, or maybe a few, of these mysteries at a time. So as I deal with one mystery, I have to let the others take a back seat in my mind; it is a simple tactic in pursuit of some measure of sanity.

I think the mystery that lingers at the forefront of my mind more often than the others is this: Why does God choose to accomplish most of his work in partnership with the likes of us? There are, of course, those instances in which God completely and sovereignly overwhelms a situation, changing the course of things with a dramatic miracle. But the usual way that God accomplishes his purpose is through His people. Why does God degrade His work by mixing his perfect and powerful ways with our flawed and puny ways? Why risk it on us? If I were God I would likely do it all myself.

Yet, His primary mode of operation is to accomplish His work through people. I think it probably has something to do with God’s mission not only being about what he accomplishes through us, but maybe even more importantly, His mission is also about what He accomplishes in us. Furthermore, I believe it is at the forefront of God’s mission to not only accomplish His will in us and through us merely individually; He desires to work in and through us corporately as His people. More than just a vast number of persons, we are called to be His people. God’s mission is to accomplish His work and will, both through us and in us, as what the New Testament describes as the Body of Christ. God’s plan is to work through His current, bodily representatives on earth, that is the Church.

So with that theological framework in mind, I press a bit more into the mystery by asking: What kind of work would God be doing through His Body/Church/People? To answer that question, we are forced to get to know God, which leads us to His Book. If we start with the first words of His Book, we read, “In the beginning God created.” God as creator may not be the most important theological understanding, but it is certainly one of the first (actually, I think it is the second since the first theological understanding is the preexistence of God stated through the first three words “In the beginning”).

It is a pretty easy jump for people to understand that the Church ought to be creative. Creativity is a God-like quality that should mark the Church. But what about the kind of creating that is referenced there in Genesis 1:1? What about creatio ex nihilo? The standard view is that only God can create out of nothing… that creatio ex nihilo is what distinguishes God from us; creation out of nothing is off limits for us mere mortals, even off limits for the Church.

But I wonder if creatio ex nihilo is really off limits for the Church. I’m not proposing that we suspend the laws of conservation of matter or conservation of energy, but are there real areas in which these laws do not apply? I think that wealth is one area in which the laws of conservation do not apply. Creation of wealth is more than the sum of its parts. A productive enterprise should create more wealth than the sum of the values of components and natural resources, even more than the component values of soft resources like knowledge, skill, and even labor. When business works like it should, there is some part of wealth that comes from nowhere… creatio ex nihilo!

Could it be then that the Church ought to be more intentional about the intersection of our faith and business activity? Could it be that the creation of wealth is a Christian endeavor, especially when we are approaching this all with a proper view of stewardship?

Meetings Make Us Dumber

One of the greatest things about working in higher education is lunch. Really… lunch is great at the University; you can count on great conversations. It is a real privilege to work with so many smart people.

Today I brought up the story I saw posted yesterday on MSNBC titled Meetings Make Us Dumber, Study Shows. It turns out that the headline was more interesting than the article. The basic gist of the article was that “people have a harder time coming up with alternative solutions to a problem when they are part of a group.” Sorry MSNBC, this is not big news.

Our lunch bunch agreed. Group think is rarely good at coming up with good solutions. So, we asked, should we ditch all the meetings we attend? No… but why? I think we correctly identified that meetings are great for two vital tasks:

• Identifying problems and opportunities, and
• Making good solutions better

That gave us a model that we’ve all seen work:

1. Use groups and teams to identify problems and opportunities. Meetings are great for identifying problems that need attention, or noticing opportunities that might be seized.
2. Look to individuals or small teams to formulate, and document, a solution or a few solutions.
3. Use groups and teams to counterpunch with the proposal. Again, meetings are great for taking good solutions and making great solutions.

Marketing’s New Idea or the Church’s Old Idea?

An ancillary comment delivered by Dr. Brian Stiller in his concluding talk in a lecture series here at Northwest University got me thinking about something I heard recently on the HBR IdeaCast. The current issue of the Harvard Business Review (HBR) includes their annual survey of emerging ideas under the title Breakthrough Ideas for 2007.

Breakthrough Idea #3 introduces the idea of cohort marketing. The brief article explains that “the typical brand manager is an ageist.” There are, of course, all sorts of ways to segment markets, but breaking markets up into generations is probably the most common and effective. So, a brand manager targets a generation and then manages the brand by attracting those who are aging in at a rate equal or greater to the number of those aging out. As middle aged men move from Polo to Brooks Brothers, brand mangers drag young men away from Abercrombie and move them into Polo. This is a tried and true method; it is marketing conventional wisdom.

The HBR, with new idea #3, urges consideration of a different approach. A cohort branding approach dictates that once a brand manager selects a generation, the work then becomes managing the brand in such a way that it matures with the cohort. This is a strategy aimed at nurturing brand loyalty. Rather than counting on customers moving from Ford Mustangs to Lincoln Continentals as they age (risking the loss of the customer in the transition), the strategy would be to let a brand segment morph and age with the consumer. The model they offer is the Harry Potter brand; the series is primarily targeted at kids who are the same age as Harry and they all, Harry and customers, are aging together. The strategy certainly has limits (anybody interested in an Oscar Meyer filet mignon?), but it is an interesting idea.

I contend that the Church has been doing cohort marketing for years, although sometimes without intention. In our contemporary churches it is not uncommon for a ministry to age, often times right along with the founding pastor. So a church might start young and hip, but then the nurseries get upgraded when the leaders start having kids, then children’s church becomes a major focus and maybe even a Christian school, followed by youth groups, and so on. Other aspects of cohort marketing in church contexts drive us to keep things the same. Music tastes, for example, often don’t change as we age; so a cohort strategy for churches would be to lock in to one music style and hold on to it through the years.

In a more macro sense, entire denominations seem to follow this cohorting pattern. Something new happens, an organization forms, and it develops and matures along with its leadership. But somewhere along the way the organization’s rate of change slows, or even stops, and organizational forces are then applied to holding on to an era, at which point the organization faces the risk of becoming irrelevant.

A simple approach to cohort marketing has an obvious fatal flaw: cohorting puts an expiration date on a brand. A church that follows this simple path will eventually die with its leadership.

But if we would come to grips with cohorting, it could unlock a path to increased effectiveness. I think I can make a case that individual churches should cohort. The local church is the best expression of the Body of Christ. Sure, Jesus saves and the Holy Spirit indwells individual believers, but persons are saved and filled to not merely remain persons but to become a people, the church, God’s cohort of believers knit together to worship, serve, and witness.

Many small group strategies work in this sort of cohorting fashion. A church could embrace this too, as long as it could manage several cohorts. In the corporate world, cohort marketing only works over time if there are new (or possibly renewed or recycled) brands introduced on a periodic basis. In the church world, leaders would need to intentionally manage a range of cohorts through multiple services. I understand the rationale behind a strategy that simply duplicates a one-size-fits-all worship service a few times on a Sunday morning, or even several times throughout a week, but I think applying this cohorting strategy could increase impact. If congregations were encouraged to cohort, it could result in deeper meaning, stronger service, and more loyalty.

A successful denomination or church organization needs to resist cohorting for the whole group, but rather intentionally lead a multi-cohort strategy. The difficulty here could be that organizational leaders may mistake cohort distinctives as what ought to distinguish the whole, which would likely lead to getting stuck in an era and eventually becoming irrelevant. There needs to be more of a big tent mentality, lots of different expressions of style that are bound together around unifying goals and principles for the good of all.

I’m interested in feedback from readers. Does this make some sense or is it wrongheaded? Do you have examples of how this does work in the church world, or how it has failed? I’d like to hear from you; use the comments option below.

Lost Sheep

At least half and up to two-thirds of our kids will step away from their faith while attending non-Christian colleges and universities. This is the most startling statistic distributed in recent reports published by Christianity Today based on studies by Dr. Steven Henderson. Dr. George Wood, General Secretary of the General Council of the Assemblies of God, goes on to report this statistic in terms of our sponsoring church when he says, “nine years from now, as many as 189,000 of our 315,000 youth could be drop-outs from the faith.” Dr. Wood’s report has been circulated among our faculty and leadership at Northwest; you can access it here http://www.danneary.org/blogstuff/agu.pdf

University
At our University, we are grateful for the nearly 1,300 students that are in our care this year, but we are also mindful of these 189,000 potential lost sheep.

Reports like these remind us of our stewardship responsibility. The years that students spend at our University are often among their most important years of formation as they become Christian adults. While here at Northwest, students are challenged to think deeply about their faith, employing academic rigor and critical analysis tools in ways that are likely new to their Christian experience. We may challenge them to ask questions they have never asked before. What makes our Faculty members different from their counterparts in secular institutions is that their goal is to drive students toward their faith, not away from their faith. The faithful stewardship of this trust demands that we nurture our students’ faith, building a solid foundation that will stand up against the inevitable attacks they will face throughout the rest of their adult lives.

We are mindful of the lost sheep when we do our work in recruitment. Even though our work shares some of the trappings of marketing campaigns and sales tactics, we know that there is so much more at stake. Our recruiters are motivated by a very real sense that they are dealing with God’s plan and calling in the lives of our prospective students. Recruitment, at least for us, isn’t merely about closing a deal with a student, it is about helping a student answer God’s calling and preparing for a life of service.

Reports like these also increase our burden for fundraising. Cost certainly is not the only barrier that keeps a student from attending our University, but it is one of the toughest barriers to face. Every dollar we can raise that helps keeps our costs low, is a meaningful step toward reaching lost sheep.

Church
This report impacted me as a leader in Christian Higher Education as it reminded me of important principles that have guided my work over the years, but this specific report impacted me even more as a Pastor. For nearly 20 years I have been involved in drawing students to Christian higher education because I know, firsthand, what a difference a place like Northwest University can make in the life of a student. For the last 5 years I have also been involved in sending students to Christian higher education as I have been serving as pastor. As I read the reports from my perspective as a pastor, it occurred to me that this is not merely about the impact of a Christian university on a student, but it is also very much about the way a church like mine disciples students so that they will be apt to choose a Christian university. I need to be more purposeful about leading my church in such a way that the young people under my care are the kinds of young men and women who want to choose a place like Northwest. My church needs to help lead these students to this important choice.

The reports also reminded me how important churches like mine are in supporting Christian higher education with prayer, influence, involvement, and finances. There are all sorts of agenda being advanced at universities across our country by organizations that stand in opposition to the Church. Even our governments advance positions that are contrary to our Christian stance through support of their universities. I need to lead my church in such a way that we are advancing our cause and providing for our church’s future leadership through support of Northwest University.

Home
Beyond the impact on me as a university administrator and pastor, the impact that hit closest home was on me as a dad. My oldest son Alex will be making his choice of a university in just a few short years; his 11 year-old brother Donny will be making his choices soon after. I’m glad that they are already planning on making that choice Northwest, and that I will be able to support them in that choice. A lot can change, of course, as my boys grow up and the crucial time for their decision approaches. As a dad, I know that I will serve my boys best by helping them understand the weight of that choice and providing them with a clear view of the value of choice for a Christian university.

I Do My Own Stunts

I’ve been thinking about this little phrase over the past couple of days.

Occasionally we’ll hear the really macho actors brag that they do their own stunts. I think they want us to appreciate how tough they are, and how they don’t look to someone else to do their dirty work.

Should we admire those who do their own stunts? Or, rather, should we marvel at their stupidity? I don’t think many A list actors do their own stunts. Is it because they are chicken or lazy? Or is it because they realize that by doing their own stunts they jeopardize their most prized assets? George Clooney can’t make the big bucks with a smashed face or paralyzed legs. An A lister needs to be careful not to get too scuffed up.

I get the feeling that President Bush does many of his own stunts, and I wonder if that is part of his PR problem. He is leading in such a way that he doesn’t have anyone else to blame. It could even be that he’s so scuffed up and rattled that he can’t do a great job as “communicator in chief.” It seems that some of his predecessors, especially the more eloquent communicators that are in our recent memory like Regan and even Clinton, made sure that others were doing the stunts.

I think I’m a do-my-won-stunts-kind-of-guy. I’ve also been a stuntman from time to time; it comes with the territory of being in supporting roles, especially when those roles include marketing manager, ad guy, ghost writer, and problem fixer. Sometimes I wonder if doing my own stunts is an asset or a flaw. Does this approach to life and work hobble me?

I don’t think I’ll be making any changes along these lines; I can’t even conceive how I would make that change. Besides, when I think about the kind of leader I want to continue to be, I identify the specific leaders that I want to emulate… and they all seem to be do-their-own-stunts people.

Maybe the one’s we should admire the most are those who do their own stunts but are never heard bragging about it.

Change

Toyota has been making the news a lot recently because they are expected to become the world’s largest auto maker this year, passing GM’s sales and bumping GM from the world’s largest perch that GM has held for the past 75 years. Even though many of those Toyotas are designed, engineered, and built by Americans on American soil, this is a big deal. The US has dominated the world auto market as long as cars have been around, and now a Japanese firm is going to take a turn as the market dominator.

We know why Toyota is doing so well; they make really good cars. Specifically, they make better cars than GM. Actually they made better cars than GM… these days GM and Ford are getting rated well, right in the mix with Toyota and Honda, when it comes to quality. Unfortunately bad is worse than good is good, and US automakers have to overcome a couple of decades of making some really crummy cars in order to win back customers.

I saw part of an interview with one of the executives at GM that made it clear that they know what they are facing. He explained that they know that they can’t merely be as good as a Toyota to take back the lead; they have to be better than Toyota to get customers to come back to GM (actually, he said they have to be more Catholic than the Pope… which made me laugh). It is going to take ongoing improvements that have been underway for the past several years, but it appears that they will endeavor to stick with the change that is underway and take back the lead. As a kid from the Midwest who grew up in the shadows of smokestacks, I’m rooting for them.

Although in miniscule proportions when compared to GM, I’ve been around positive organizational change. I’ve happened upon problems in which everyone seemed unhappy: Board, customers, leaders, influencers, and employees.

In all of the reports I have seen on the Toyota story, I have never once heard anyone say that Toyota’s advertising has much to do with their overall success. Everyone understands that good marketing and advertising is important, and Toyota couldn’t be where they are without it, but it is something else that makes the difference, especially in the long haul.

This is one of the lessons I’ve learned, the hard way. I’ve found myself convinced that I could change an institution from the outside in. So, with little regard for the insiders, I worked hard to change perceptions. We had some success, real success that we could measure in revenue… but we were running into problems that had little to do with our PR and marketing efforts. We had internal relationships and systems that needed to be fixed before we could see any further successes.

Our changes in governance have not only made people feel better about their place in the organization; these changes have made it so that people are working smarter and making more meaningful contributions to our strategies that will shape our future. Our systems have changed, and so have our attitudes and approaches. Our relationships inside the organization are better, stronger, and more productive. It is working.

GM, although obviously way larger and more complicated than any organization of which I have played a part, is on the same path. Their old ways of treating employees like part of the machinery are out moded; today they know that the experiments they started with Saturn must overtake the whole organization. They’ll retake the lead from Toyota as they continue to change the way they work with their own people. Maybe, in some ways, they’ll be more Japanese than Toyota.

Mormon in the White House

Former Massacheusetts governor, Mitt Romney, took initial steps to get his presidential campaign rolling. At a recent kickoff fundraiser, his supporters expressed their enthusiasm for his candidacy with a whopping $6.5 million. He seems like he is on his way.

Prominent Evangelicals (like Dr. Dobson) have speculated that Romney would not receive support from Evangelicals because he is a Mormon. I'm wondering about that.

Laura Ingraham asked Romney about it yesterday morning; there is a clip of this portion of the interview availble by clicking here. (If you'd like more of the interview, you can access it by clicking here).

Romney's reply makes a lot of sense, as did the rest of his interview.

I'm wondering if people are really serious about Evangelicals shunning him because of his faith. What other candidate would they support? The other early frontrunners seem to be fairly secular. Currenlty we hear Obama and HRC refer to their faith more than McCain or Giuliani.

Do you think faith matters much in the 2008 presidential race? Do you think that Romney's faith will hurt him with the Evangelical Republicans?

Work to Rest

We gather together on Sunday mornings in church for worship… so really we shouldn’t start by thinking of us and what we want or need from church. We start all this with the goal of worshiping God… of expressing our thanks and devotion to Him.

But with that said, I do want people to receive something at my church each Sunday morning.

• Hope for those who can’t see a way out of their present troubles
• Answers for those who are struggling with life’s biggest questions
• Peace for those who are tormented
• Encouragement for those who are getting beat up by life’s blows
• Joy for those who are low
• Safety for those who don’t know where to turn
• Rest for those who are striving to make life better

We come to worship God, and when we meet Him in times and places like these, we are not left the same.

I have colleagues, pastors like me, who think primarily in terms of what a sermon will mean to those in the congregation… that the main way anybody gets anything out of a Sunday morning is through the preaching. They structure the service in such a way that everything leads up to the focal point, which is the message they’ve prepared. I’ve even heard them speak of everything else as ancillary or preliminary to main event… the preaching.

I don’t really have any big problems with that line of thinking. Even a cursory reading of the New Testament reveals that preaching is a vital part of church life as we proclaim the Gospel and build up believers. We take preaching seriously.

But my experience teaches me that there are all sorts of ways that our needs are met on any given Sunday morning. Many from my congregation tell me from time to time how important the sermon was, but there are other times when other parts of the service pack the punch. On a given Sunday, the sermon may have been just fine for any of us, but what really made the difference was something else (singing, words shared by others, choir, something that someone said over coffee and treats after the service). Sometimes we just sort of endure one part of our service because another part is just that good.

For me, what is often the most meaningful isn’t any one thing, but the confluence of several things. I love it when a plan comes together. Sometimes it is the result of our careful planning; we are intentional about how the various elements of our worship services focus on a theme. Other times the confluence is outside of our plans and appears to be the Holy Spirit’s work as God moves people and ideas and events and circumstances into place in powerfully meaningful ways.

I think we may have experienced one of those wonderful confluences on 1/7/07 at my church, with the confluence of:

• Christian Lindbeck’s sermon last week
• Hebrews 4 – This passage scheduled in our series
• Communion – Remembering Christ’s work on our behalf
• Epiphany – The historical celebration of the revelation of Jesus
  o To the Magi or Wise Men
  o Through His miracles
  o Up through His baptism in the Jordan River by John the Baptist. That moment when Jesus commenced His ministry, submitting Himself to baptism, where the Trinity was revealed as the Son was identified by the Father in an audible voice, and the Holy Spirit came down, as a dove according to the Gospels, and remained on Him.

Even though I was there the previous Sunday, and paying attention, I went back and listened to Christian’s sermon again. It was one of those that I knew would be good to review. As I listened again I was able to deepen my understanding of the solid Truth Christian delivered. He spoke to the ever present and frustrating problem of sin. He reminded us that we are broken and that we face real, spiritual opposition. And He also reminded us that God knows us, cares for us, Has provided for us, and that we can continue on. Although this is one of those that we didn’t intentionally plan, I think Christian’s sermon provides a great lead in to this passage that comes to us via our series in Hebrews.

Let’s run through this passage.

We can recall that the main theme of Hebrews is that Christ is superior. Reading the three chapters that have gone before reminds us that Christ is superior to angels and Moses, and that Christ offers superior salvation and superior atonement.

Since the Book of Hebrews was written first for the benefit of Jewish believers in Jesus, it is natural that the writer of Hebrews would differentiate Christianity with the ways of the Old Covenant. And not just the ways or beliefs of the Old Covenant, but the Book of Hebrews also calls to mind the history of the Hebrew people, calling these Jewish believers to proceed differently than there own ancestors. In this case, we are specifically called to remember that wilderness generation… our own ancestors in the faith that were called by God out of slavery, delivered from their enemies… yet would not move in to the fullness of God’s promises and the rest He prepared for them in Canaan, the land of promise.

So in the beginning of chapter 4, the Book of Hebrews is saying to us simply this: that just as there was promise waiting for that wilderness generation, there is promise waiting for us. We are called to enter into that promise, rather than allow our fears to keep us out of the promise, resulting in our continued wandering in the wilderness.

We ought to think a moment about this word rest that we see in the passage and contrast it with the story of that wilderness generation. After God had performed extraordinary miracles, they made their way out of slavery in Egypt. God again saved them from Egypt’s armies by providing escape through the Red Sea. He met with His people, making them His covenant people at Sinai, all the while leading them to the edge of His promise. Moses dispatched spies into the land and their reports came back so very positive that God had brought them to a wonderful place… but, the majority report was that they could not conquer those who inhabited the land that God had promised. Instead of faith, there was fear. They believed they would be beaten in war… that they, coming from one captivity, would find themselves in another captivity. They couldn’t do the work, so they turned their backs on God’s promises and choose the wilderness instead.

The problem here is that they understood the next step into God’s promise as work, not rest. Even though God had led and provided every step of the way, they viewed this next step as their step, their work, and they rightly surmised that they couldn’t do it. They were right; they couldn’t do it. They were wrong in not moving forward, don’t misunderstand, but they were right in understanding that they could not prevail. Where they were wrong was in misunderstanding that God was not calling them into work, but rest.

The point is this: If God, the Creator of heaven and earth everything seen and unseen, comes to a point where He speaks that things are finished and rests… AND He calls us into that rest, what more can we do than obey?

The wilderness generation disobeyed, and did not enter that rest. Even though they eventually entered the land, under Joshua’s leadership, they did not enter rest, but continually faced fierce opposition. That opposition continues even today.

But there remains rest for the people of God, a Sabbath-rest, a rest that is God’s rest, a rest that is a result of God’s promise (Hebrews 4:9-11). It is a rest that is more than merely a day that we honor and keep holy as a Sabbath. We can start there; it isn’t that this passage isn’t about a Sabbath day, but it is about so much more

The point here is that God has provided rest for His people and He is calling His people into that rest… superior rest. This superior rest is provided for by the work of the Son. It isn’t merely about ceasing the work we perform for our livelihoods for a day; it is about ceasing our work for salvation for an eternity. The point is that God is calling us to be His and that He has done the work. He is calling us to hear His voice and obey; He is calling us to believe in the power of Christ to be our work for salvation.

There is a really peculiar turn of a phrase here in verse 11. Do you see it?

Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest[1]

Every effort to enter rest? It seems like an oxymoron doesn’t it… work to rest?

I’m reminded of a conversation that I had with a friend this week who has a family vacation in Hawaii scheduled to begin next week. He was complaining, yes complaining, about how much stress he was under to get all his work done before vacation… saying he wasn’t even sure if it was worth it. Of course it didn’t take him long to shake that off; of course it is worth it. Now we don’t have to feel sorry for poor Jim who is heading off to Hawaii, but we can understand what he was getting at. It usually takes some work to rest and relax.

The point in the passage is that it does take effort to discipline ourselves to obey God and receive the rest that He promises.

The rest of this portion of Scripture reminds us that when we are on God’s side, we are on the right side. We’re reminded that we have God’s Word to guide us in His ways. Furthermore, His guidance through His word is more than just superficial, more than surfacy sort of trappings, but it is penetrating guidance. We have more than just a map to guide our steps, but guidance that that penetrates to our thoughts and attitudes.

God guides us fully and knows us fully. I suppose this could be a scary thing, that we can’t hide from God. But really we should, rather, take great encouragement! Our God, who knows us better than we know ourselves still bears with us, still guides us, still loves us, and provides salvation so that we can live these lives in worship to Him, and enjoy His presence forever.

We would do well to apply this passage to opportunities that could be part of our worship together this: Communion and Epiphany. These observances can help us seal the point of this passage.

Communion should always be a reminder of God’s work on our behalf. The bread and the cup of Communion remind us of the price that was paid for our salvation. Work is required to provide for our salvation… but it is work that we are unable to perform. Strive as we may, we are not equipped to secure our place in heaven. Work as we might, we cannot please God in this life.

Communion reminds us that we were purchased, that God sent His Son, Jesus, to be our way. Jesus gave did the work on our behalf so that we may enter into God’s rest. And not just so we can enter His rest on Sundays in church, but His rest is for us each and every day. We may start our workweeks again tomorrow, but the work that brings us peace with God is never ours to pickup again. Jesus paid it all and we are called into God’s rest.

Epiphany gives us opportunity to reflect on the revelation of Jesus. Epiphany gives us opportunity to commit ourselves to both seeking deeper revelations of Jesus, to see Him and experience Him more fully, and also to reveal Him to others through testimony and good work.

You see… the more we realize that Jesus has indeed accomplished eternity’s most important work on our behalf, then our work is turned to honoring, serving, and revealing Him. And this is a work of the Holy Spirit.

As we reflect on Epiphany, we think of the revelation of Jesus at the time of His baptism. Mark 1:

At that time Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. As Jesus was coming up out of the water, he saw heaven being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. And a voice came from heaven: “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.” At once the Spirit sent him out into the desert, and he was in the desert forty days, being tempted by Satan. He was with the wild animals, and angels attended him. [2]

Specifically, we recall the Father’s identification of Jesus by a great voice from heaven, identifying Jesus as God’s Son in whom He is well pleased. And we recall that the Holy Spirit rested upon Jesus as He came out of the waters of Baptism.

Later in His ministry, Jesus would breathe that same Holy Spirit into the lives of His followers, and throughout this present age of the Church the Holy Spirit works in us and through us.

So on Epiphany, we ought to look to God for anointing and filling and leading by His Holy Spirit.

The audio version of this post is available on the 1/7/07 entry at http://www.cedarpark.org/thechapel/services

[1] The Holy Bible : New International Version. Grand Rapids : Zondervan, 1996, c1984, S. Heb 4:11
[2] The Holy Bible : New International Version. Grand Rapids : Zondervan, 1996, c1984, S. Mk 1:9

Politics Grid

My oldest son asked me a good question a number of weeks ago: "what is the difference between Democrats and Republicans." I thought about it for a minute and gave him my views in terms of this grid.

It seems to me that we can define our political stance by asking ourselves two questions:

1. Do we think most people are inherently good or bad?


2. Do we think most people are generally smart or dumb?

If you think that most people are generally good and smart, then you are a Libertarian. You think that the best outcome is that we should have a really small government so that all the good and smart people can do the right thing. We don't have a lot of Libertarians. It could be because not many people think that most people are good... or not many people think most people are smart. Most Libertarians that I come across seam sort of selfish, so I wonder if most
Libertarians simply think that they are good and smart and to heck with everyone else.

If you think that most people are dumb and bad, then you are a Fascist. The best possible outcome is found through controlling the dumb, evil public. We don't have a lot of Fascists around either... for which we are all thankful.

If you think that most people are generally smart, but if left to their own selfish desires they'll do bad things, then you are a Republican. We (yes we) think that you need enough government to keep us all honest, but that we're smart enough to help ourselves. That's why, for example, we believe in free markets. Build a free system with as few controls as possible and market forces will provide good solutions because the people in the market are generally smart and will make good choices.

If you think that most people are generally good but are just not all that smart, then you are a Democrat. You think that good people aren't reaching their potential because they haven't been given sufficient opportunities to let their goodness shine. You think that people just need more help from a few smart people (you, of course, likely consider yourself to be one of those few smart people).

This view leads me to all sorts of observations... here are just a few:

• When Democrats blow it, they rationalize; when Republicans blow it, they resign.


• Republican politicians generally don't present themselves as better or smarter than their constituents; Democrats often portray themselves as better and smarter.

I'll probably write some more along these lines in the coming days... what do you think? What is wrong with this approach? What am I missing?

Term Limits

I’ve always liked the idea of term limits for elected officials and have supported term limits for members of congress. I used to think that term limits were important for the minority party… the basic idea being that it is so hard (and expensive) to unseat an incumbent that the minority party doesn’t get a chance.

I’m still in favor of term limits… but now for I’m thinking it is good for the majority party too. It seems that it is nearly impossible for incumbents to act selflessly; their focus moves from representing their constituents to maintaining their power. They move from pursuing ideals to protecting their seats.

I’m a Republican and I generally vote for Republican candidates. Sometimes I wish I had a better choice, but there is hardly ever another choice when my party has an incumbent. Usually the Democrat is not a choice… so I settle for supporting the least offensive candidate. I’d like to have a choice, and I want that choice to be in the primaries. The only way I’m going to have a choice in the primaries is if there are term limits.

12 years and you’re out (2 terms in the senate or 6 terms in the house).

Unintended Consequences

Systems Thinking 101 introduces the idea of unintended consequences... the encouragement is always to think carefully about how solving one problem doesn't create another (maybe bigger) problem or set of problems. There's a great example of unintended consequences in today's news. The Seattle Times reports that Washington State's new law that gives special protected status to sexual orientation is being tested in an interesting way. The suit being filed is coming from a straight woman who is suing because she is being discriminated against because of her sexual orientation. The argument goes like this

1. Her employer offers health benefits to unmarried partners who are of the same gender
2. She wants health benefits for her live-in boyfriend
3. The company is discriminating against her by denying her request based on her sexual orientation (if she was shacking up with a woman, the company would gladly pay)

Makes sense to me. Problem is, a ruling in favor of this plaintiff could establish a precedent that would throw most employers in the state into significant financial distress.

I collected signatures to get a referendum on the ballot to get rid of this misguided law... but enough signatures were not collected so now HB2661 is the law of the land. Many characterized us who signed the petition as closed minded, homophobic, bigots. Maybe a few people will now see that at least some of us who signed were just thinking a bit about the larger systems (you know the systems of marriage and family that have served our society well for thousands of years).

IdeaCast

I podcast the HBR IdeaCast. The current broadcast is among the better ones so far. There are usually two articles. This time the first is on networking and negotiating within organizations, the second puts customer surveys in perspective. At the University we do a fair amount of surveying... I wonder how much of the criticism applies to the survey work we do. I need to heed the advice to simly work harder to talk directly to customers. You can get to the HBR IdeaCast here: www.hbrideacast.org

Axiom #4

Leadership teams are like suspension bridges...

needing both tension members and compression members.

I was a mechanical engineering major for a while at Purdue... long enough to have one of those classes where you apply what you learn about force vectors to a bridge made out of balsa wood. After you design it and glue it all together, the final exam includes putting it on a contraption that adds incremental units of stress until the whole thing snaps into splinters. Some of our bridges buckled under the pressure (compression members couldn't take it), and others pulled apart (tension members couldn't take it).

I've observed that good leadership teams have both compression members (those types that are sort of solid and can handle work getting piled on their shoulders) as well as tension members (those of us who are happy to be stretched and pulled as we respond to various conditions).

Les Welk has a presentation that runs right along these lines of thinking that he calls "Leading in the Midst of Tension." I've linked it up on my podcast, available at http://www.danneary.org/podcasts

Axiom #3

A lot of the time
you have to explain to people what they really want.

A little riff in Jamie Smith’s book (page 78) goes right along with this thinking:

Worship should be an event of cross-cultural hospitality. Consider an analogy: When I travel to France, I hope to be made to feel welcome. However, I don’t expect my French hosts to become Americans in order to make me feel at home… I’m expecting things to be different; indeed, I’m looking for just this difference. So also, I think, with hospitable worship: seekers are looking for something our culture can’t provide.

Then Jamie pulls an illustration from a Perspectives article (the article is a quick read, found here) that proves the point through Starbucks’ success. For a number of years I’ve been using this quote from Howard Schultz’s biography:

First, every company must stand for something… Second, you don’t just give customers what they ask for. If you offer them something they’re not accustomed to, something so far superior that it takes a while to develop their palates, you can create a sense of discovery and excitement and loyalty that will bond them to you. It may take longer, but if you have a great product, you can educate your customers to like it rather than kowtowing to mass-market appeal.

Isn’t this just a really straightforward definition of leadership? Leadership is more than just asking people what they want and giving it to them, and it is certainly more than deciding for people and forcing it on them. Leadership holds out a better destination and makes a way to get there.

So… our churches fail when we simply try to christianize what might be popular on television, or in a night club, or in the marketplace, or at a concert or sporting event. We have something better; we have something much better… and if it takes a bit of time and education to “develop their palates” so people can see what they really want, then so be it.

Axiom #2

I think axiom #2 might be:

God saves us individually, yet saves us to be a people.

I’m about 50 pages into Jamie Smith’s “Who’s Afraid of Postmodernism.” What he wrote on pages 29 and 30 really resonated with me:

… there simply is no Christianity apart from the body of Christ, which is the church. The body is the New Testament’s organic model of community that counters the modernist emphasis on the individual.
The church does not exist for me; my salvation is not primarily a matter of intellectual mastery or emotional satisfaction. The church is the site where God renews and transforms us – a place where the practices of being the body of Christ form us into the image of the Son.
… Nothing is more countercultural than a community serving the Suffering Servant in a world devoted to consumption and violence. But the church will have this countercultural, prophetic witness only when it jettisons its own modernity; in that respect postmodernism can be another catalyst for the church to be the church.

Who knows if it is wiring or training… but modernity comes naturally for me. I’m a fact guy, I crave solutions, and I most easily think more as an individual than as a member of a community. I can find myself in a worship service and be focused entirely on my own consumption of spiritual goods, experiencing no more connection with those around me than the connection I might have with fellow consumers in a random Wal-Mart.

But when I approach the New Testament honestly and understand what it says, I have to agree with Jamie when he says that there is “no Christianity apart from the body of Christ.” We don’t need the church for salvation; we only need Jesus. But in order to live this Christian life, for Christianity, we need to be the church.

I’ve heard a number of Christians say “I don’t need to go to church.” And I’ve heard lots of people explain that they need to go to church for Bible study, and discipleship, and fellowship… we need the stuff we can get at church. Bah! We don’t need to go to church… we need to be the church. When God saves us He saves us individually; yet He saves us to be His people. The only way to be an obedient Christian is to be an active, integrated, caring, useful member of the Body of Christ, in a church.

Seriously

There are a handful of axioms by which I try to live and work. It could be that axiom #1 is this:

I take my work very seriously,

but I don't take myself seriously.

It isn't that I'm not confident, or don't like myself, or don't care... it is just that I see so many people bogged down in taking their positions, or ideas, or reputation, so very seriously. I'm glad that I have meaningful work, and I'm really glad that I know how lots of other people could do this work... probably better than me. So I work hard and laugh a lot. I bring everything I can to the work, but always realize that there are lots of right ways to do most jobs.

Megachurches Report

Check out the Megachurches Report, published by the Hartford Institute for Religion Research, at http://hirr.hartsem.edu/org/megastoday2005summaryreport.pdf .


I found a few things espescially interesting, including:

• The section on eleven misconceptions explored (page 16) is a great list of busted myths. For example, the vast majority of megachurches belong to a denomination (6% are AG).
• Washington state is ranked 12th among the states, with 30 megachurches (appendix A, page 20). That is particularly interesting to me since we're told, a lot, that Washington is unchurched. Don't try to tell that to the 37,000 people who show up to worship in those churches next Sunday.
• As the education levels of the pastors decrease, the rates of growth of these [mega]churches increase (page 15).
• It seems that these days, the musical instrument that indicates the difference between contemporary worship and traditional worship is the piano. The word organ only appears once in this 27 page document.

Vacation

I habitually underestimate the power of vacations.

I have had a sense that my brain is working better this week (no real proof that my brain is working better this week... just a feeling that my brain is working better). It occurred to me it is probably due to the 5 days and nights I spent with my family over President's Day weekend at Sun Peaks. I think a vacation like this benefits my leadership ability along a couple of lines:

• Rest - That's the obvious one, right? I've heard a lot of people say that it takes them weeks, even a month, to really disengage and relax. I think I can disengage and relax in as little as 3 days; I must be lucky. Or it could be that I have really good people around me that can handle whatever comes-up in my absence. I'm also a guy who is glad for technology, as long as I know I can be reached in an emergency, I can easily let the cares of work stay at work. I don't think I ever realize the magnitude of cumulative fatigue until after I'm able to shake it off with real rest.
• Connection - I really like my family, especially the four of us in my immediate family. Laurie, the Boyz, and I genuinely enjoy one another's company. We enjoy every bit of vacation, even the long rides in the car. The solid bonds of connection that are strengthened on vacation provide a foundation for everything else I do.
• Fresh Perspective - A few days away gave me opportunity to step away from a few projects that were stalled on my desk. When I came back to them, it was a cinch to move them along. It is so easy to get bogged down from time to time.

Successor Story

I talked with a leader today inside an organization going through a CEO transition. In their case, the current EVP will become President and the President, after a sabbatical, will assume limited responsibilities as Chancellor. There were several points in the story that interested me:

• There was certainly success in the organization. Over the past dozen or so years, the size of the organization has increased by a multiple of ten. Their current budget exceeds $125 million.


• The current President seemed to initiate the process, signaling a number of years ago that the Board might want to prepare for a transition. They created an EVP position and hired someone to fill the position that could be a successor.


• After some time had passed, it was apparent that the EVP could serve as President. The EVP was appointed President-elect for some months.


• The new President is now poised to build on the trend of success, while having the former President serving in the organization as Chancellor. The Chancellor will have opportunity to shepherd some favorite projects, continue in fundraising, and transfer key relationships to the new President.

The axiom, to which I referred in the last post, goes “there is no success without a successor.” This case emphasizes that all of this starts with
success. The Board, in this case, was motivated to continue the clear success in the organization. They were motivated to continue the vision of the CEO through a successor, and they were motivated to continue the current president’s influence in a different role.

I think it is easy to see how a similar approach could work in a church situation. Given the right circumstances, including an open minded Board and a secure and self-aware pastor, a transition like this could work. If a pastor is leading a church with success, there's no reason that a pastor couldn't work with a Board to bring-up a successor, and that pastor continue to have some influence in an emeritus role.

P.S. - Check out this article on Bootstrapping (http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2006/01/the_art_of_boot.html) it is a must read