Monday Morning

This week we are switching our Monday morning staff meeting to Tuesday mornings. I really dug the monday morning because it got staff meeting done quickly, and then any assignments were given at the beginning of the week.  So today I’m a little lost in the schedule change.  It’s kinda weird.

This weekend was a busy one.  We had a short but great staff retreat this weekend over at a Cabin that Kathy’s Aunt’s family owns.  It’ right on the water on Whidbey Island.  It’s incredible. It was a play and pray kind of weekend.  When you are doing ministry with people it’s so important to take time to keep your relationships healthy and this weekend was intended to reinvigorate our good vibes.

So that was Friday to Saturday, then Sunday was a busy day. We had a guest speaker, Alan Johnson, who is incredible, great preacher, great man of God.  Then lunch afterwards with Alan, then come home for two hours and turn right back around for our leaders meeting and cell groups.  Then I got home and posted the sunday morning podcast and got that all squared away.  So it was a busy, busy day.

Jesus and the Great Chefs

Hey all I came across this post from Jason at 37Signals

What’s your cookbook?

By Jason

How does a chef break big and become a household name? One of the best ways is to release a cookbook or have a big cooking show on TV.

Mario Batali, Julia Child, Emeril Lagasse, Bobby Flay, Rachael Ray, Rick Bayless, etc. You probably know these chefs better than you know the chef of one of your favorite restaurants down the street.

These chefs give away their recipes, their secrets. They say “This is how I do it and you can do it too. Don’t worry, it’s not hard, just follow along.”

The more they give, the better off they are. The more they open up, the better off they are. The more they let you inside their kitchen the better off they are. These chefs have built empires by making their knowledge available to the public. They are astute business people.

If you’re looking for a way to break your business in a big way, follow their lead. How can you give away your formula, your secrets, your recipes? How can you give away what you know to increase your exposure and expertise?

It got me thinking, this is what Jesus did, he took along 12 students and showed them how to live kingdom lives, he was real, authentic, open and honest with them and then eleven of those 12turned the world upside down.

As followers of Jesus and ministers of the Gospel this is what we ae called to do.  Pastors should be real and display life for the people in their church and their ministries.

That sort of behavior filters down through the organization.  the more real we are the more real our church will be.

Hard Work or Difficult Work

In Free Prize Inside, Seth Godin make a very good distinction between Hard Work and Difficult Work.

“I define difficult work as the stuff that takes guts or insight.  It’s not dependent upon how big your budget is or where you got your degree.

. . .

Companies are pretty good at hard work.  Hard work involves the management of projects and the deployment of assets.  The people working on a project don’t spend a lot oftime worrying about whether it’s ultimately going to be a success in the marketplace — Instead they worry about their role in the process.

. . .

Difficult work is easy to avoid.  Difficult work is exactly what will get you promoted.”

I just read that and had to share it with someone.  I think this is where I have been over the past few months.  Youth ministry is hard, but changing the way you do youth ministry is difficult.  We have been experimenting and taking a huge risk because the old way wasn’t working.  So we split to cell groups and that has it’s own challenges.  So now the dreaming and planning and praying and listening is the difficult thing that we as a ministry have to do.

It’s easy to just do what I’ve always known and try to play it safe, but playing it safe is a waste of time, and it’s the riskiest thing that you can do.  Safe is boring, safe is invisible.

There has to be a better way to reach teenagers with the Gospel of Jesus.  there has to be a better way to transform a generation.  There has to be a way to curb the church drop-out rate.

So my prayer has been what is that way.  And the prayer that i ask anyone reading would pray is that God would give our team wisdom.  We can’t do this process of transformation on our own.

Taking the risk is difficult.  Changing the formula is difficult.  But if the result is a better, stronger, healthier ministry is it worth the cost?  I think so.

Monday Monday So Good to Me

This morning our staff had a change to hang out with Gordon McDonald.  Not the dude from Leadership network.  But a different Guy.  it was a great time of worship and a reminder of what leadership is from 1 Thessalonians.  It was brilliant, it was a great reminder that Jesus calls us to serve and sacrifice because the mission is more important than our comfort.  It was a great, incredible, simple time.  I love these kinds of moments.