Image by Jean-François Chénier via Flickr (Creative Commons)

1. Drive people around them nuts
2. Piss off critics
3. Take you places you would/could never go on your own
4. Care deeply about the goal, but even more about the people under care
5. Celebrate victories

I think the opposite it true, as well. I know someone isn’t really a leader if they…

1. Are laid back about their work
2. Worry about what critics say
3. Talk a lot of crap, but don’t ultimately take you anywhere you couldn’t go on your own
4. Care more about the goal than the people under care
5. Worry more about the next goal than celebrating a victory

I don’t know about your world. But in my world everyone calls themselves a leader. These are some criteria I use to tell the fakes from the for-reals. What are your criteria?

People don’t like to talk money and the church. It makes people instantly think of TV evangelists.

And while those TV evangelists swindled millions out of well-meaning, hard-working Americans, the truth is that 99% of churches are great places and not full of crooks.

I have an encouragement for my friends just entering their 30s, you’re finally hitting the earning power to make a difference in your church.

Here’s something that may be news to you: It only takes about 10 solid givers for a small-to-medium-sized church to stay solvent.

Working for a small church this was clear. 6-7 core “giving units” provided a solid foundation of giving on which our monthly budget was built. We didn’t really know who they were but we were thankful for their faithfulness. But the $200-$500 a week they each gave weekly was the difference between the staff having a heart attack about the budget and knowing we’d at least make payroll! And, of course, people beyond that core group gave substantially too which made all the difference in the world for doing more than making payroll. Yet the fact remained that without those 6-7 anonymous folks we would have been in deep trouble.

Now, I’m sure $200-$500 per week seems unattainable. You’re saying that’s a lot of money! In some parts of the country $800/month is more than the mortgage. So you’ll have to do the math to figure out what that translates to in your local economy.

But here’s the point: These weren’t a special breed of super-givers. These were regular Joe’s and Mary’s. The median family income in that part of Michigan was about $60,000. That meant the median family brought home about $800/week after taxes. ($80/week if they tithed) Yet most of the folks in our church had professional jobs which paid much, more than that. All of a sudden you realize… the 6-7 families funding a big chunk of the church are really just average professionals tithing about 10% of what they brought home.

That’s where you come in. If just 5% of the church actually tithed, your church could stay solvent. I don’t mean they’d be in great shape. I just mean that 5-10 solid givers per hundred forms the foundation of giving for your church.

And if you are wise with your money you can be one of them soon.

Again, that may seem impossible. But if you got serious for the next 6-12 months on reducing your debt load you will be able to give a lot more. And while most people in their early-mid thirties are just starting to dig their way out of mountains of credit card debt, college loans, car loans, and the fat part of a mortgage… as they do that they are discovering they can have a lot more giving power.

It only takes 10 givers to fund a church. The question is simply– Do you want to be one of them?

Praying with Michelle was about the most gut wrenching thing of my life. Please listen to her story and ask yourself… How is God asking me to be involved?

Which came first? The staff who ran the programs or the programs which required the hiring of staff?

No offense to my friends who work at churches– but I wonder if their goal is to secure a job for life or to work themselves out of a job as quickly as possible?

When I read church growth strategy books and articles I’m always amazed that they only talk about getting larger budgets, larger buildings, and larger staffs. Never mind that it’s a horrible strategy. Most think tanks only think about one strategy… how to get bigger. The idea of getting more efficient is ludicrous.

When I read about the church of the first 100 years after Jesus I see a church growth strategy of “get in, train people up, and get out as fast as possible.”

Here’s a centuries old tried and tested church growth strategy we have rejected: With no staff your church will grow.

The “if you build it they will come model” of the last 50 or so years has lead to utter devastation of the church. Numbers are down big time. Sure, you can point examples of big churches. And no doubt people will leave comments saying how awesome their programs are. But the percentage of Americans regularly involved in the local church has declined sharply in the current multi-staff model.

The fact remains that a church with less staff will be forced to be the church more than a church with programs where people show up and everything is done for them. This “worked” for thousands of years. What we are doing now isn’t working and we all know it.

At some point someone decided that everyone needed to be on staff at the church. So we hired a music pastor. A worship pastor. A youth pastor. A children’s pastor. An associate pastor. An administrative pastor. A senior ministry pastor. And all of that staff required administrative support. Oh- and they’ll need offices and space– so we’ll need a bigger building.

If I put my businessman’s glasses on I examine this trend and say: You’ve added a lot of overhead. Your business multiplied by 25 times, right?

Wrong. The strategy didn’t work. But now we have an entire industry of church workers in an environment where they are reaching fewer and fewer people with bigger, more expensive programs. Now we’ve created an entitlement that simply isn’t sustainable nor is it leading to the growth long ago predicted.

It’s almost too easy for me to point to examples of this in other countries. (We certainly saw this in Haiti.) But it’s also true among the exploding Latino and African-American churches in the United States. With almost no infrastructure they reach thousands. In your own community it is likely that there is a church kicking butt with nearly no overhead of staff or a building.

I’m well aware of the biblical justifications that church staff deserve to make an income. Yes, I’ve used that myself. I’m not arguing that you have a right to claim that to be true. I’m merely questioning the strategy and inviting you to recognize that this strategy has seemingly paralyzed the church.

Even those who bring up the Pauline argument for getting paid in ministry often neglect to mention that Paul also didn’t implement this strategy in all the places he ministered. Nor did he ever buy a house and start a family.

Some questions to get you thinking

• Where does the offering at your church go?
• Where did the funds in Acts go?
• How much has your church grown in the last 10-30-50 years using the current staff-heavy strategy?
• What would it look like if say… 90% of that offering were given away in your community to feed the poor, care for the sick, take in orphans, protect widows, on and on?
• Don’t you think that would be good news to the neighborhood?

What I’m not saying

• The church is wrong to have staff
• The church should fire staff
• All of my friends who do associate level ministry are bad/dumb/hurting the ministry of the church in their community
• My own church is bad, filled with money hungry punks who make fat salaries. (Um, they all raise their own support!)

What I am saying

• A church as effective as the Book of Acts is possible today.
• Churches should ask hard questions about meeting the needs of their community.
• A lot of church growth strategies are really “church growth industry” growth strategies.
• Church leaders should challenge their assumptions of what they know vs. what they know to be true in Scripture.
• It is possible for the local church to reach 90%+ people in your community.
• We should not be satisfied to “pay the bills” and reach 5-10% of our community.

“Wake up, O sleeper,
rise from the dead,
and Christ will shine on you.” Ephesians 5:14

I love to track changes in technology. I can’t help looking my sons Nintendo DS, his prize possession, and remember what it was like when I received by Nintento Gameboy back in the day.

If you are anything like me you are also infatuated with tracking these changes. It doesn’t matter what you are into– computers, television shows, sewing machines– you can look back and remark on changes to the technology you love.

One of my favorite past times is talking about the change technology cycle.

But do we stop to think and think of change as a technology itself?

Wait… did you catch that?

Change is a technology. Absolutely.

Philosophically speaking we believe in change. Our society conveys it and our science confirms it. Change is necessary.

• Change means innovative.
• Change means keeping ahead, keeping fresh.
• Change means alive.
• Change means evolving.
• Change means refinement.
• Change means you are fighting against the effects of entropy.

Does it actually mean those things? Sometimes yes and sometimes no. But we almost always believe change is either good or bad.

When we look at change as a technology we gain the ability to zoom out the lens and examine the underlying currents, reasoning, and relationships which change creates. When we see change as technology we are able to recognize where we’ve been, why we are where we are now, and potentially what will come next.

HT to Beyond the Zoo

This video is enchanting. Just. Can’t. Stop. Watching. It just makes me happy!

HT to MC Hammer

Maybe it’s just me, but I’m shocked to see how many people carry $50-$100 in cash in their wallets. Just so I know if I’m weird or not, humor me and let me know how much you typically have on you. (Totally secret, no way for me to know who said what.)

Because you know somebody would play this in their youth group.

Please tell me they played chubby bunny next?

In Fall 2000, when we found out Kristen was pregnant with Megan, we both kind of rolled our eyes when people would say “Enjoy it, it goes by too fast.”

How right they were. Our kids are in a fun stage of growing up… but life moves so fast that we don’t pause enough to truly enjoy it.

Megan - Our crazy 8 year old

Megan is almost 9 year old. N-I-N-E! She is our sweetheart. Megan has a deep love for reading, animals, and origami. She never ceases to amaze me with the stories she weaves together or how perceptive she is. She is so quiet that you can sometimes forget that she is capable of outbursts of wild running around. She is in that stage where she plays hard and intense.

She also has an imagination that lives halfway between fiction and reality. She loves pretending to be a cat. She will crawl around her bedroom for hours, she’ll meow at you, and when she gets annoyed she’ll even hiss. (We have a no hissing rule in the house, that’s how common it is!)

Megan got a camera for Christmas and puts it to good use. Check out her photo blog, MeganMcLane.com. When she opened this present she carefully examined it. When she saw that it wasn’t a kid camera– it was a really nice adult camera– her face lit up and she instantly started making plans.

One of the highlights of my day is hearing Megan’s laugh. She has a normal giggle. But when she is really pleased she lets out this high pitched squeal that lights up the room.

Megan and I connect through exploration. She loves adventure and I love going on adventures with her. Whether its looking for shells at the beach or looking for the perfect toy at Target– we bound when we’re just checking things out and being quiet.

At school, Megan takes after her mom. She is a quiet achiever. She’s that student in class who doesn’t say much, takes the teacher literally, and is so competitive she has to be the best at everything or she won’t sleep at night.

Paul - 1000% boy at age 6

Paul is six. He is our complicated boy. We probably spend 25% of every day trying to figure him out. And he wouldn’t have it any other way. He is full of dichotomy. He loves to cuddle and be quiet. But he’s always ready to wrestle and try to kick some butt. He is fully engrossed in everything he does. But he is always listening to every noise in the house to see if there is something he can jump in on. Developmentally, his life is all about fairness. As soon as he perceives the slightest slight he pouts, “That’s not fair!”

Paul has a deep hunger. Since the day he was born he has been hungry. And  for as long as I can remember his first words every day are either “What can I eat?” or “What can I do?” Unlike his sister he likes all things spicy.

Paul has fully embraced life in his school. I’m pretty sure he likes spicy things because his latino classmates love spicy things too. “Can I get hot cheetos?” “Can we go to Mexico this weekend?” The kids school is representative of the diverse community we live in. And Paul seems to really enjoy that most of his classmates speak Spanish, Swahili, Vietnamese, or one of the multitude of other languages spoken by students at Darnall.

Like his sister, Paul stands out academically. But he’s also a lot like me in struggling to know how to ask to be challenged. He’d rather get his work done early and mess around than ask his teacher for the next challenge.

Paul’s life is dominated by his loves. He loves his Nintento DS. (It’s the first sound we hear nearly every day in our house. He wakes up about 5 to start playing.) He loves playing hard with dad. (Wrestling, boxing, etc) He loves playing games on the computer and watching Cartoon Network.

Paul and I connect best through quality time. Whether its going to Home Depot or playing a video game or planting tomatoes in the garden– Paul loves 1-1 time with dad and I love 1-1 time with Paul.

Paul is also our family elephant. He never forgets a detail. “Daddy, you promised two days ago to give us our allowance if we cleaned our rooms, we cleaned our rooms and you haven’t given us our allowance yet.” Or “Remember when you said we could go back to Legoland sometime? When? What day?”

Our kids fascinate us. They challenge us. They force us to grow. They are the best accountability partners, ever. They are not our gods but we are thankful to God that we get to enjoy them and pour our hearts into them.

And as I look at them I’m left– over and over again– speechless.