I came home two weeks ago from Haiti. And almost every day I’ve talked with a church leader with one simple question: I know about the devastation in Haiti, but if I went to Haiti what could my church actually do?
Starting next week, there will be a unique opportunity to partner– very practically— with an existing church in the greater Port-au-Prince area.
So what would your church do in Haiti? You’ll be a part of rebuilding Haiti from the inside out.
I chose to be just crazy enough. More importantly, I want to encourage others to be crazy enough to recognize that they can change the world. — Adam McLane, August 28th 2009
In moments like this I feel like there is little I can do. While I would love to hop on a plane and “go help” the truth is I don’t have any skills that are actually useful. (I doubt they need a blogger) I will do the next best thing. I will give what I can and commit to joining the people of Haiti who stretch out their arms and call out Jesus’ name. — Adam McLane, January 13th 2010
It’s now been a couple weeks that I’ve known I was headed to Haiti to help in relief efforts. In the course of that time I’ve been all over the place emotionally. I’m scared, I’m excited, I’m nervous, I’m worried, I want to just jump on the plane, I pretend like it’s 10 years away, I shop for stuff I think I may need, I change the subject when people bring it up, I watch more CNN than humanly necessary.
Back on January 13th I had no idea I would be heading to Haiti less than one month later.
But it is true. On February 11th I will land in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic and begin an overland journey to earthquake stricken areas of Haiti. In my mind I keep hearing reporters say, “Haiti is a dangerous place on a good day, and certainly this is no good day for Haiti.” (While I am not an expert in rapid response relief, I’m happy to be traveling with a team who is!)
On top of the obvious, there are a couple other elements that have me excited for this trip.
The team assembled by Adventures in Missions for this trip is crazy diverse! The first time I talked to Marko about the trip he joked that when talking to a couple other bloggers one of them said, “We’d all just have to get together and hug it out.” We come from different denominations, liberal/conservative stripes, theological heritages, ministry-types, and even ministry companies who compete against one another. And yet, the need in Haiti is way more important than anything that should/could potentially divide us.
The team is calling you to Haiti. As soon as I told others that I was going they asked me, “How can I go too?” This is one of the secondary purposes of the Advance Team. We are going first, we are exploring what you can do, we are answering your questions, and we are imploring (begging?) you to come to Haiti with a team soon. That resonates strongly to how I encounter the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I long to see Jesus not just regenerate the hearts of the people we encounter but also the places we go and even the institutions which seem beyond renewal.
Soon the world’s cameras will leave Haiti. We will not have daily updates from Port-au-Prince. What will remain when the spotlight leaves is the hard work of rebuilding a country brought to its knees. This will be done by the Haitian people, NGOs, and the church.
I am going to Haiti because God’s people in Haiti cried out in Jesus’ name for help. I am one little tiny part of that very big response from Jesus to those cries in the darkness on January 12th, 2010.
And it is my hope that this little diverse team of people who is laying aside their differences for the sake of the churches response to the crisis will begin an amazing opportunity for Jesus’ people to change the world’s mind about believers.
What would happen if tens of thousands of God’s people laid aside their differences and came together in one response to change on country forever?
What would happen? I don’t really know. But I do know that it’s going to start with you.
Most people’s default measurement tool for their effectiveness is how busy they are.
The thought process goes like this:
If I have a full schedule of activity I feel invaluable to the organization
If I am doing a lot of stuff I must be doing some good
The result of all these meetings and all this planning is that people have lots to do and are motivated
Therefore, since everyone in the organization is busy and excited, we must be effective
The activity-driven formula
Impact (?) = activity + resources + more activity
This is a horrible measurement of effectiveness. This is why billions of dollars are spent in America on the local church and we will impact about the same percentage of people in 2010 as we did in 2009.
Let’s face it. We measure ourselves by how busy we are when we are trying to cover the fact that we have almost no impact. But there is a better way.
The impact-driven formula
Impact = activity – resources + results
If the local church were a machine we’d call it broken. Lots of activity with no or negative results. That’s a zero or negative mechanical advantage! All of the energy of spinning the organization is dissipated out as fiction.
If the local church were a corner grocery store, we’d file for bankruptcy. We paid the bills but the owners aren’t seeing growth, in fact they are net losing ground in the marketplace.
If the local church were a school, the government would take over.We just keep spending more money but test results are not improving, in fact they are getting worse.
If the local church were a politician, we’d vote ourselves a raise. Wait, that’s not a good example.
In an impact-driven organization you measure success purely by impact.
In your mind activity without impact is waste.
Conversely, if you want to make a large impact you have to take the time and invest your energy in maximizing the impact while limiting your activity.
If you are stupid busy but not experiencing results— are you frustrated and trying to figure out why?
We live in divided times. In particular, those of us who love Jesus are more divided than ever. A trip to the “church” section of the yellow pages or Google is heart-breaking.
The church is polarized today.
This is contrary, of course, to what the Bible teaches.
There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. Galatians 3:28
If we contextualize that statement made by Paul to the church today that statement would read like this.
There is no liberal or conservative, Baptist or Catholic, black church or Korean church, suburban or urban. For we are one in Christ.
I pray that we lay aside or differences… as real and pressing as they seem… and live in the tension and knowledge that all people who call on the name of Jesus for salvation are one in Christ.
It’s easy and childish to focus on what divides us, it is mature and difficult to instead embrace the common mission we share.
It may not look like it yet where you live, but there are signs of life in America that things are looking better.
As the chart above shows- stocks have been rebounding for basically 12 months.
You want this chart to start going down
The unemployment rate, while still horribly high, has begun to turn… following the comeback of Wall Street.
As church folk, we know that these two charts are closely tied to people’s ability/willingness to give. When people feel good about their money [and 401k, and for retirees, their investments] than they become more generous. Once unemployment starts to turn, then happy times should come in the offering plate… and begin trickling into staff dollars and budgets.
The upside of 2009’s double crotch kick
Let me explain what I mean by the double crotch kick.
First, going into 2008-2009 pretty much every church in the country was re-evaluating and re-thinking how they do ministry. This was a crotch kick as we all wrestled through the realities that our ministries probably need to change significantly to adapt to culture faster and reach more people.
Second, 2008-2009 were rough years financially. While not in every single church, most churches saw a dip in contributions. This was a swift kick to the groin because you either had to cut staff or cut programming (or sell assets at the bottom of the market) to balance the budget.
The upside, just like in real life, is that getting kicked in the crotch twice in a row causes most people to wise up and get ready to fight.
As I talk to ministry people all over, almost universally they have come through 2008-2009 with a new sense of calling and determination.
While the signs of life haven’t trickled into every corner of the church just yet. It is awesome to report that there are signs (more than the two economic ones I’ve shown here) that things are truly looking up.
May we take to heart lessons learned in the hard times. And may we never again need to get kicked in the crotch twice to be awoken from our slumber.
Want to know a little secret? People who go to your church like it when you know them.
Want to know another little secret? People who go to your church aren’t that impressed with big anymore.
How do I know these secrets? I listen to people who don’t go to church talk about church. I listen to people who are disgruntled with their church. (Their biggest complaint is that you don’t listen to them or care about them.) I meet people who wouldn’t mind going to a church or learning about a relationship with Jesus, they just haven’t met the right people yet.
The people in your life want to be known deeply. They crave intimacy. They are looking for people to trust. They long for people to share the good life and bad life with. They need community to keep growing. They desire people to giggle with. They hunger for 6-7 close friends. Wonder why they join a bowling league? Not sure why their kids hockey team is more important than coming to hear another sermon? The simple fact is that those people know them better.
Right now, things that are big are suspicious. They smell of waste. They look at big things and wonder if they have something to hide. They look at big things and assume they will just be another customer.
If you are part of a small church, this is great news. You are perfectly positioned to make a deep impact interpersonally. If you are a big church, you better get working on creating smaller and smaller ways for people to do life together outside of your church walls.
The wise church invests in creating intimacy between people. That is so 2010.
The foolish church invests in trying to draw a crowd. That is so 2000.
Image by hiddedevries via Flickr (creative commons)
Here’s the deal.
Dirty little secret time.
I think a lot of youth pastors, youth ministers, youth directors don’t believe in the power of adolescents to flip their world on its head.
Adults think they can do it all. And they backfill that belief with anecdotal information to make themselves feel better.
They think kids are too busy. They think kids are distracted by education. They think kids care more about sports. They think that you have to be spiritually mature to reach your friends for Christ. They think parents just get in the way. They think lack of resources get in the way. They think ordinary kids can’t do extraordinary stuff.
When they see inspirational stories of teenagers who have made a huge difference, they don’t think their kids could do that. And they wonder why the adults who “really lead that” aren’t in the spotlight. The aspire to see stuff like that happen in their midst but refuse to believe the style of leadership that leads up to it.
A lot of youth leaders think its their job to do those things themselves. They think that because they are “the leader” they should be the ones leading the charge. Kids are just the pawns who attract the cameras, so they think. Ultimately, they think they are the ones who are responsible for making something big happen.
They have it upside down.
Adults just get in the way with their ego, agendas, and desires to be famous. “Maybe Disney will make a movie of my awesome leadership?”
Reality check– Adults who “lead” big movements of God are typically on the sidelines. They coach. They inspire quietly. They parent. They mentor. They encourage. Most importantly, they know that the best thing they can do is equip them to lead and get the heck out of the way. And then they stand by and watch. (And then coach some more, mentor some more, parent some more, encourage some more, develop some more.)
If there is a microphone, they are reluctant to step up to it. But they are quick to put a student in front of it.
The big fancy adult leadership Christians are infatuated with rarely, if ever, results in movements of teens. (Whether as movements of religion or otherwise.) We chase after it but it’s a myth. You get there only to discover you’ve wasted a lot of time, energy, and investment in the wrong stuff.
The style of leadership that seems to result in the most world change involves handing the reigns over to kids and believing in them. It’s the most organic, natural, and effective style of leadership. It’s so easy a football coach can do it. Or a high school basketball coach. Or a Little League coach.
Those leaders do their leading on practice days and give the kids the spotlight on game day. Kids step up because that coach believes in them enough to put their reputation behind them.
And that’s the problem. Most adult leaders in youth ministry don’t seem to believe in kids.
Could you help me out? What’s the BIGGEST issue you are dealing with in your church right now? What’s keeping you up at night? DM or @ me.
Todd Rhodes tweeted this today. And his question perfectly emphasized what I’ve been thinking about the last few days. This Fall, I’ve had the beautiful opportunity to run around the country for work and in the course of doing so sit down and chat with people from all walks of ministry life. Big churches. Little churches. Senior pastors. Volunteers. On fire. Burnt out. Rookies. Seasoned veterans. It seems like I’ve had a chance to get the pulse of a pretty good sample of people doing ministry today.
At some point in most of those conversations a single theme rang true: We need to spend less time on stuff that doesn’t really matter and focus more time on things that really change lives.
More specifically, ministry-people want/need/long to focus more intently on presenting Christ than anything else! They want to focus more on the “main thing” and less on stuff like building an amazing program.
It seems like the last 20-25 years of church ministry we elevated a ministry leaders value to “what else can you do?” as opposed to “are you a minister?” You’d hear things like “That person is a powerful leader of his staff.” “That woman runs the most efficient youth program in the world!” “He is an amazing worship leader.” On and on.
Those are all value statements about ministry program skills and not the “main thing.”
And people in full time ministry are pretty frustrated by it. We didn’t go into ministry to be valued by our skill set, did we?
I experience this all the time. People seek me out to talk about “how I can help their ministry” all the time. It’s because I have a skill and not because of who I am in Christ.
Certainly, it is nice to have skills that people seek out. (Don’t get me wrong!) But I’m often left wondering… “Do these people really think I’m all about social media, internet utilities, strategy, design?” I hope not. I hope they recognize that these are the means to an end. The reason I work so hard on these skills is to convey the most important message in human history! At the core of who I am is not a tech nerd. I want to be a nerd who passionately loves Jesus and wants to reach the lost. My skills are not my “main thing” and I shudder to think of others looking at me and thinking it’s my main thing.
To answer Todd’s question: I hope people lay in bed at night thinking about their ministry. I hope the Holy Spirit stirs them at 2:00 AM to innovate powerful things. But I also hope they aren’t wasting their time and sleep on stuff that isn’t the “main thing”.
Over the past several days I’ve started to put words to what I’ve been observing: The tribe of youth ministry is anxious.
2009 has been a ridiculously hard year. Last October when Tony Campolo spoke in Sacramento he said something like… “Church, as we know it today, will collapse with the economy. And we will shake ourselves off and ask, ‘what do we do now?”
Prophetic words.
A year later we have to step back and acknowledge that in many ways Tony was right.
A down economy has forced tens of thousands of churches to re-evaluate how they spend money. Not a bad thing, but has caused stress at all levels of church staffing.
A shifting culture, and the owning of the reality that traditional youth ministry programs are fading in their effectiveness… more stress for youth workers.
Time to think, causes that stress to bubble to the surface.
The length of time things have been stressful (for some, 2-3 years now) causes this stress to manifest itself.
And the manifestation of what we are all feeling is this anxious elephant in the room at the National Youth Workers Convention. It’s the tears shed as we go to worship. It’s the hunger in conversation. It’s the sleep in the hallways. It’s the lack of eye contact. It’s the nervous laughter.
We are an anxious tribe. We fidget. We wring our hands. We bang our heads against the wall. We wonder what to do with ourselves. We wonder what the future of youth ministry is. We hypothesize. We position ourselves. We take our stress out on others. We blame ourselves. We blame our leaders. We blame our calling. We blame God.
For me… recognizing this tribal anxiety and the disorder that goes with it is 90% of the battle. All of those symptoms in our tribe, I don’t know what to do with them. But anxiety, I know what to do with that.
