• Being Good News

    Today’s video post is a synopsis of about 10 conversations I’ve had in the last 60 days. All of them get to the question, “Adam, something has changed inside of you. I like it sometimes and I don’t like it sometimes, what is it?”

    One thing I’ve learned to get comfortable with in the last 10 years of ministry is people asking me hard questions, diving into my motivations, and even offering critical responses. I can handle it. I am not intimidated by it. In fact, questions like this actually encourage me.

  • The Vindication of Steve Fisher

    The Vindication of Steve Fisher

    If you aren’t familiar with the head coach Steve Fisher at San Diego State you should be. In fact, if you aren’t familiar with his 19-0 Aztecs, you aren’t a fan of college basketball.

    Yesterday was the perfect example of why they are so good. They traveled to New Mexico to play in an arena called “The Pit.” It’s a notorious place to play. They were down early- the starters were plagued by whistle-happy refs. With three of the starting five on the bench, the Aztecs roared back on a furious run which ultimately held on at New Mexico. The simple fact is that they have 8 legitimate starters in a league where most teams have 3. They get stronger as the game wears on and eventually own their opponents.

    Is this team as good as the Fab 5? Probably not. We will ultimately find out in March. Before that they are hungry for a conference title, then trying to repeat as conference tournament champions.

    If you get the chance, watch a home game on TV. (I’d say go to the game but I think all of the tickets are now gone!) What you will see will rival anything you will see at any of the big programs in the country. It’s loud, it’s festive, it’s fun. And it’s starting to look like an impossible place to play.

  • Danger: Texting While Walking in Front of Fountains at the Mall

    This hit close to home for me. While I’m doing much better about texting while driving; texting while walking in malls is still a big problem for me.

  • Putting your worst foot forward

    Photo by Kevin Trotman via Flickr (Creative Commons)

    Which of these introductions garners the most trust to you?

    • Hello, my name is Adam McLane. Thank you for inviting me here today. As an expert in my field, I look forward to sharing with you this morning 7 insights which will revolutionize ________.
    • Hi. I’m Adam. I guess you’ve invited me here this morning because you’ve tried everything and looked around and found the one guy in the world who has tried more ways to _________ than you have. Well, I guess a broken clock is right twice a day. Let’s get started.

    Chances are you like the first one a little better. The first introduction would cause you to reach into your bag and fish out a pen and some paper. But the question isn’t who would you like better or who would give you the most stuff to write down, it’s which introduction garners the most trust?

    An experts role is to teach 5 things in an outline, collect his check, and move on to the next place. But a teacher creates questions inside which spurs on your own thoughts and solutions to the problems you are facing.

    I have a tendency to trust the second introduction a lot more. I might not write down as much stuff… but that second introduction will cause me to lean in. Something about that humility tells me he has something to say.

    It tells me that this person isn’t just rolling out their presentation… but they are probably going to take me somewhere I need to go. They are going to help me recognize that while I’ve failed in the past I can keep trying and searching for the answers I need.

    And they aren’t going to lie to me and tell me that success is just 5 bullet points away. I already have mountains of notebooks filled with outlines on things that didn’t work. The second person is going to share the truth that the journey to success is paved with many pitfalls and traps along the way.

    I can trust that person.

    I think this is one subtle way the world has changed.

    • Expert = distrust
    • Humble guru = trust

    We laugh at the irrelevance of the person who stands on the street corner proclaiming into a bullhorn that he has all the answers to life. Turn or burn, that’s all you need to do. Stop fornicating and you’ll be fine.

    Let’s face it… it’s a stupid way to communicate. But it’s not unlike what we do in our churches. We hide behind our degrees, we point to our bookshelf, we hide from tough questions and real ministry by filling our schedule with meetings, and we gather as a staff to celebrate how awesome we are. But in the quiet moments, sharing coffee with a friend, we are no more faithful or have the answers than the person sitting in the pew behind us.

    Trust me, but how?

    I think most of us were raised in a time when we were told to always put our best foot forward. So we do that.

    But times have changed. We can no go faster and further with people in building trust when we start by putting our worst foot forward.

    “My name is ___________. I’m no better than you. I don’t have all the answers.”

    Go ahead, repeat it out loud until it feels natural. It just might lead to something unbelievable.

  • Do Good Ideas

    Last night I was riding my bike home and my head was full of ideas. I actually pulled over, whipped out my iPhone, and jotted 3 of them down so I wouldn’t lose them.

    That lead me to post on Twitter: “I really wish I had 4-5 people to sit around with regularly and share ideas. I could actually meet almost every day.”

    That tweet launched a conversation about if such a group was really plausible.

    Here’s what I’m thinking. This is completely open for discussion. So leave a comment if you have ideas or feedback.

    And yes, I’m pretty serious about this.

    Good ideas cohort

    • It’d be a group of people who care about investing in an idea enough to see it through.
    • It’d need to be a group of people somehow vocationally tied to youth ministry, but the ideas shared wouldn’t necessarily have anything to do with youth ministry.
    • There’d be a $500 buy-in per person, so everyone would have a dog in the fight. (We’d hold the money in an escrow account.)
    • Annually, we’d fund one idea with our seed money. Other than that no one would profit from the cohort.
    • Everyone in the group would sign a non-disclosure agreement as well as some sort of an agreement that ideas shared would belong to the person presenting them.
    • Everyone would get the opportunity to share their idea (quickly) each time we met. If nothing less, this cohort would teach you how to pitch an idea for action.
    • We’d commit to a one-year cohort for the purpose of sharing ideas, learning from one another, etc. If the group wanted to keep going beyond that, it’d be up to them. (But they’d have to put up $500 annually)
    • We’d have something like a private Ning group to regularly share concepts, ideas.
    • We’d meet quarterly online via some form of video conference.
    • We’d meet annually for 2 days somewhere. Location would depend on the people in the group.
    • This would be an all-for-one and one-for-all type of thing. No one would have more power in the group than another.
    • Ideally this would be entrepreneurial. The idea of somehow donating the money to a charity doesn’t give me a lot of energy. Instead, I’d like to see the measurement of the idea be “what’s the best idea” as opposed to some other measurement.
    • Seems like 10 people would be about the maximum per cohort. But I can see doing an East Coast and West Coast version.
    • The reality is that $5000 (group of 10) isn’t a lot of money. But it could be the seed money an idea needs to get going. And who knows from there?
    • Ultimately, this would be informal enough to be fun yet formal enough that everyone would agree to take it seriously.

    Good ideas friend group

    As I thought about this more. I like the idea of the cohort a ton. But I would also love to have a group of Southern California friends to get together with much more often in a way more informal way. To maybe share ideas, bounce around solutions to complex problems facing the church today, and generally just be friends brought together by a common thread of wanting to see change happening and perhaps having one slice of the pie at their disposal to see change happen.

    Thoughts? Ideas? Refinements? Just crazy enough to be for you?

  • L’agenda

    The longer I walk with Jesus the more complicated my life seems to get.

    Kids, ministry, job, dreams, bills, skills, personality flaws, responsibilities… the list is endless. Life is complicated. Scary. Confusing. Worrysome.

    At the same time, the longer I live the more simple the application of God’s Word gets.

    When things seem really complex and over my head I am reminded of how Jesus spoke into the complexities of a “religious life.”

    One day Jesus was talking with a group of religious people. And, as religious people are known to do, they all carried a specific agendas. They wanted to know if Jesus was on their team. As they sat around testing Jesus on his belief on the issues of the day they were flustered by his ability to respond with Option C on an Option A or B test time and time again.

    They were upset with him because he had taken the things that divided people… agendas with teams, financing, factions, and power… and given simple answers with a new agenda.

    So they put their heads together and nominated the biggest religious expert in the room to trap Jesus. This question was the 1st Century equivalent of, “If God is a good God, why do bad things happen in the world to good people?”

    Here’s the agenda-laden trap:

    Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”

    Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

    Matthew 22:34-40

    Baffling simplicity.

    L’agenda

    Jesus’ agenda for your life is quite simple. As we see above, all of a God-pleasing life flows from those two bullet points:

    1. Love God with everything.
    2. Love your neighbor as yourself.

    A popular phrase in Evangelical circles, full of agenda, has repackaged Jesus’ words and simplified it too far by saying we are called to “Love God, Love People.” But I think Jesus is smarter than they are. And his agenda rings clear enough for me.

    Jesus’ agenda for my life is to love him with everything I’ve got. (From my skills, to my personality, to my family, to my vocation… everything) And the action of that agenda is to love my neighbors as myself. (You know, the people I live near, see in my daily life. Neighbors implies really close to me, and is specific to a group of people I’m to have regular casual contact with. It’s the people on my block, not the people in the pews or in my youth group.)

    All of God’s word is to be applied through that lens. Jesus sets the agenda.

    When I study Scripture I’m left to ask myself, “How is God calling me to love him?” and “How can I love my neighbors as myself because of this teaching?”

    It’s personal and communal– but not religious

    Anyone who knows me knows that I have a deep love for the church. In the same passage of Matthew 22 and other places in the Gospels, Jesus refers to his relationship with the church as his bride. To disrespect the church is de facto disrespecting Jesus. (If you said you loved me but disrespected my wife… I’d punch you in the face. What kind of husband wouldn’t?)

    I’d prefer not to get punched by Jesus for disrespecting his bride.

    At the same time, I wonder if many churches have made the agenda about them? There’s nothing more annoying than a selfish bride. Sure, there is love there… but there are a lot of strings attached to that love.

    Other churches are defined by their size… hardly a respectful description for a bride. We’d politely say things like, “She must be a good cook.” Right?

    Other Christians are defined by the political bedfellows they keep. Their agenda is confused with the issues of the day. Their leaders espouse vocal support of things like a right to own a gun while all the world desperately needs of them is to embrace their right to love their neighbor.

    Still others are defined by their application of Revelation 2-3. They look at Jesus’ proclamations of judgement and they say… “Wait a minute. Jesus isn’t judging First Baptist of San Diego any different that he is judging San Diego Church of the Nazarene or even the Diocese of San Diego… Jesus loves and judges us by where we live in community, not where we individually gather to worship.” And those churches are defined by the agenda of neighbors loving neighbors, churches loving churches, and sharing in the great love of their Savior in the L’agenda.

    My prayer today for the bride of Christ is that we would be a people defined by our world-changing L’agenda for our neighbors and not the trappings of a religious life.

  • Sick Puppies – Maybe

    When the generations prophets cry for change you have to ask yourself:

    Am I a catalyst for the change they are calling for or am I the object the catalysts are fighting against?

  • What have you done for me lately?

    A year ago the earth shook and the world changed.

    Billions were given.

    Tens of thousands have gone to help.

    Yet not much has changed.

    • The poor suffered.
    • The rich got richer.
    • More people died needlessly.
    • The UN has effectively lied, spending money studying and asking questions while accomplishing little.
    • And America sleeps in their comfy beds tonight feeling like they did something because they texted a donation to the Red Cross.

    We’re left now with more questions than answers.

    1. If the international aid organizations aren’t going to do something, who is?
    2. People are stealing aid given while government pockets are filled with bribes, who will prosecute perpetrators when the government is the worst offender?
    3. How can we help this country get back on its feet while at the same time lessening dependencies on the outside world?
    4. When will the colonial view on international missions be put away and replaced with working alongside of Haitians to build housing for people in tent cities, advocates standing for justice, and training of teachers, city planners, and tradespeople begin?
    5. Where is the army of Sean Penn-like camp managers?
    6. Who will hold accountable those who make empty promises?

    The answer to all of these questions is you. The cameras will shine on Haiti today. And you will feel sorry for what is going on.

    Don’t.

    Our Haitian brothers and sisters don’t ask for your pity today.

    But they are asking for you to help them in ways that answer the questions I’ve posed above.

    Know that the media elite will leave tomorrow; having satisfied their ratings and your curiosity, they will board private jets tomorrow and go back to New York, while children still sleep on muddy cardboard beds.

    1.5 million people are asking the question, “Who is helping us?”

    The answer is you.

    Turn off the TV and do something.

  • Blog economics of hate

    The easiest way to draw traffic to your site all you have to do is hate on people.

    My definition of flaming content online: To bad mouth purely for the sake of creating traffic, link baiting, retweeting, Facebooking, and otherwise bad-mouthing a person, organization, company, or news item for a purely selfish reason. (Read here to see what it is like to receive these criticisms)

    Why does this work? When someone reads something that you write, they are left with a number of choices. Do nothing, comment, talk about it, share it, tweet it, email it, or bookmark it.

    Over time, you learn that people are more likely to link to or forward something that is salacious than they are something that is benign, informative, or encouraging. That’s just the nature of consuming new media. The result is that some people write purely to draw traffic and since “flaming sells” they know that flaming people/organizations will draw more notoriety, traffic, and the hope for… income.

    Here’s a formula that I’ve seen play out for the past several years.

    • Normal content = x1
    • Flaming content = x5

    That’s pretty much what it looks like. If your Twitter account, Facebook profile, or blog flames someone you’ll get more traffic. Why? People love to read rants.

    So are you saying that all blog traffic is drawn to flame speech? Not at all. And here is why:

    • Remarkable content = x10 (or more)

    Which leads to my point: Most people write hate/flame based content because they don’t have the time/guts/brains/skills to write something remarkable in the first place. In other words, it is easier for them to draw traffic with flame-worthy content than it is to draw traffic with remarkable content.

    Adam’s Law of Traffic: Write something remarkable and everyone will talk about it. Write about something you hate about someone and some people will talk about it. Write about normal stuff and only your mama will talk about it.

    Bonus math: Since mountains of people like to copy the thoughts of others… sometimes giving credit and other times not.

    Copied content + traffic = x5

  • Two positive trends in youth ministry

    I’m on the tail end of a one week tour of the East Coast. (Catching up with youth workers; talking about PlanetWisdom, YS Palooza, and all things youth ministry.)

    One of the things I like to do when I meet with youth workers around the country, whether individually or in a group setting, is ask the same two questions. I frame the question differently depending on the group. But these are the two questions I’m asking and comparing answers to others to see if I can sniff a trend.

    1. What is a new problem you are facing in your own youth group in the past 12 months?
    2. What are you doing that is making a difference?

    For question #2 I am continuing to hear the same things all over. While I heard these in 2009 and 2010– it wasn’t emerging quite as strongly as a trend until this trip.

    For me, it’s very exciting because the two trends that I’m seeing are actually quite healthy and sustainable.

    First trend: Bigger churches (Congregations of 1000+) are continuing to see their youth ministries grow numerically. They are reaching more and more students. (Largely unchurched) And their ministry is asking hard questions which shape how they minister to students, parents, and train their teams. The lead youth worker at these churches are typically highly experienced, highly trained, and exceptional at both leading staff teams and replicating themselves to maximize impact & set-up long-term impact.

    Second trend: Smaller churches (Congregations of  >500) are ditching models altogether and approaching their ministry from a more missiological perspective. They are saying things like, “We still meet on Wednesday night, of course, but I have a small group of guys who get together every week to visit a homeless shelter. My students won’t bring a friend to Wednesday night– but they are bringing 2-3 to that.” Even if they aren’t articulating it in words quite yet, they are saying that the traditional ministry model they grew up on is fading in effectiveness. As such, they are adapting by maintaing status quo while finding new ways to reach students while meeting a real need in the community. I’d label this a shift from meeting felt needs to meeting obvious needs. Meeting actual needs is leading to growth and they are forming their ministry around those areas of growth… which look very different in every community.

    The hallmark of both big & small of these are the same— their spending, dollar per student, is quite low. Bigger churches have staff spread over large numbers; smaller churches lost their paid staff due to the economy and are adapting their ministry to a much cheaper model.

    The uncomfortable middle

    The pain seems to be in the middle. What I label “medium-sized churches” of 500ish-1000ish are all over the place. Some are fine while some are in crisis mode. I can imagine that their dollar per student ratio is high enough where they are feeling a big pinch. They seem to be feeling a lot of pressure as their midweek program isn’t doing as well, (a hallmark of a smaller church) they are too large to invest their time finding a pocket of mission that would likely lead to new students coming into the fold, and they don’t have the money to go to a staff-size that might take them into that big church team model which would likely put them into growth, as well. This is the size church where I’m seeing lots of people lose their paid staff jobs. This is also the size church I’m hearing that the leaders (church wide) are shifting to a model like their favorite megachurch.

    Quick disclaimer: I’m not a sociologist. (But I did stay at a Comfort Inn last night.) And I don’t have hard data for things I’m writing here. [This is my blog…] These are notable things I’m learning by talking to youth workers around the United States. Feel free to engage with them, but don’t assume that I’ve got data to back this up or that this is some sort of scientific process. I’m labeling a trend as something that just keeps coming up without my prompting.