Tag: focus

  • Focus and the worship service

    We use lights, microphones, seating, and position to focus attention towards the platform during a worship service. People who are attending the service may come with a million words to say, a lot of things on their hearts, and a lot of individual motives… but those putting on the service easily gain control and retain control of the room tactically. 

    • Lighting – By illuminating the platform and darkening the seating area, this draws your attention to the light, humans are built that way. The darker you make the seating area, the more you focus attention on the platform and visa versa.
    • Seating – By point all of the pews/chairs towards the platform, it is more comfortable to put your back against the pew/chair and your feet facing towards the platform than it is for any other seated position. With seating pointed towards the platform, eyes naturally go there.
    • Sound – By amplifying the human voice you can communicate to the ears of everyone else in the room that you are more powerful than they are. Music, voice, video… all of that done at 80-105 decibels will typically focus all of the audience attention.
    • Height – By positioning people on a platform or a stage, especially while you are in the seated position, you are forced to “look up” to whomever is up front. This tells your brain, “that person is in control.“
    • Position – As people of faith, we already have an assumption that the people on the platform have some level of authority over us. This is right and good. We ought to give that person our attention.
    • Schedule – By controlling all of those factors, you control the schedule. People will stand when you say so, sit, be quiet, and be dismissed. These are cultural cues, defined by mores. We all know, intuitively, that it’s rude to stand and talk to the person behind us when someone with a microphone is speaking in front of us.

    From a moral perspective all of these are neutral. Nothing about having or even creating that tactical advantage is either good nor bad. But it is a tactical advantage that most churches utilize on a week-to-week basis. It’s what they know how to do as they’ve copied and refined it over the years.

    This has inherent advantages and disadvantages, like all tactics. 

    • ADVANTAGE: This allows you to start/end services according to a prescribed time.
    • DISADVANTAGE: That only works if people show up on time and are willing to stay.
    • ADVANTAGE: The person on the platform is rarely interrupted.
    • DISADVANTAGE: That only works if the person on the platform doesn’t need to be interrupted.
    • ADVANTAGE: As a worship service planner, you can set the theme and manage the content of the service.
    • DISADVANTAGE: The service is limited to the planning teams creativity and listening to the Holy Spirit.
    • ADVANTAGE: You can build the whole service towards a theme, anticipate a response, and even manipulate the audience psychologically to respond the way you want them to. (Yes, I went there.)
    • DISADVANTAGE: There is an opportunity for abuse of power, position, and the temptation to sin is great.
    • ADVANTAGE: You can make a worship service clean, orderly, and (for the service planning group) predictable.
    • DISADVANTAGE: It’s easy to forget that the Spirit is wild, untamed, living and active in the hearts of the audience.
    • ADVANTAGE: The audience knows what to expect from the worship experience.
    • DISADVANTAGE: That predictability makes it easy to tune out.

    I’d encourage you to continue with this list of advantages and disadvantages in the comment section.

    So what’s the point?

    The point is that we need to think about these things, be reminded of them, and ask hard questions about our motives. As leaders we know it’s relatively easy to gain a tactical advantage over our audience. But, in doing so, we are also intentionally limiting the input and community aspects of our congregations.

    Again, these are morally neutral. But what happens in our heart as we utilize these advantages must be regularly checked.

    Historically, the Bible was not meant to be studied in private. At the time of its writing no one had private access to scripture. The New Testement authors couldn’t have even envisioned that one day people would study the Bible privately, it was outside of the realm of possibilities. They would argue “Why would you even want to do that?” The notion of privately owning sacred texts is a 16th century innovation. (Gutenberg, Wycliffe)

    It was never meant that the speaker would prepare in isolation and reveal his teaching at a service with such a physical tactical advantage. Even the notion of a personal application and an individual dividing Scripture and then sharing it publicly is not a historical position, but a remnant of the Reformation and Enlightenment. (Evangelicalism is really the perpetuator of this today, most mainline denominations and our Catholic brethren lean on a common lectionary.) Likewise, from a historical perspective few messages could/would ever be shared outside of a small context. In today’s technological age it’s very easy to hear messages that were never intended for your context, and a lack of specific local contextualization is a general assumption for those preparing messages/sermons today.

    Again, So What?

    For me, as I personally struggle with focus and distraction during worship services, I’m left with this thought about the impact of the modern worship service:

    Are attempts to control and limit focus in worship services killing creatively looking at the potential impact of the Gospel message on a community? Research shows that distraction leads to creativity while focused attention leads to mere productivity. And in many churches we are very productive at some things while largely ignoring the major problems our communities face.

  • Be Intent

    The last seven weeks I’ve had laser focus on one thing: Be ready for September 1st. 

    Buy office equipment. Set-up a home office. Lease part-time office space. Create financial systems. Set-up a business infrastructure. Write business plans. Write marketing plans. Lay the groundwork to build a customer base. Write proposals. Sign contracts. Get consulting. And a whole lot more stuff like that.

    This has been my life. And I’m exhausted. Last night was another day when I started at 7:00 am and went until 1:00 am with only a few breaks in the middle. It will be like this until Labor Day weekend when I finally get to disconnect and reward myself.

    Here’s an observation I’ve made during this season: When you’re starting something from scratch you have laser-like focus and unlimited energy because you can grasp the big picture all at once. What’s next is what is right now.

    The flipside is: Existing organizations have a unique ability to lose focus at the exact wrong time.

    What’s next takes priority over what’s right now and visa versa. A big project is coming up and right before it happens a key decision-maker goes on vacation. Your biggest sales opportunity of the year? You missed it because you scheduled an internal meeting instead. On and on. Mental errors cost you in an existing business because you can’t see the whole organization anymore.

    It’s like observing an island from a plane before you land, when you’re at 30,000 feet you can see the whole thing. But when you land you can only see what’s in front of you. 

    In life, just like in business, the difference between success and failure in life is razor thin. Watch any sporting championship and you’ll see it. A single mental mistake at the wrong can cost you a championship, or a deal, or whatever your measurable is for success. That same mental mistake a thousand times during the season never hurt you before. But in the wrong moment? You’re dreams are wiped away.

    When those moments come. Be intent. 

  • My Kids Aren’t Your Target Audience

    Imagine the freedom of hearing this one phrase.

    A parent affirming a youth pastor by saying, “My kids aren’t your target audience. Reach the lost.”

    What would happen if parents stepped into their role and discipled their teenage children, and at the same time affirmed the church’s youth pastor by saying, “My kids aren’t your target audience. Reach the lost.”

    Game changer.

    G-A-M-E-C-H-A-N-G-E-R

    The reason so many youth workers feel like babysitters or cruise directors is that they are regarded as such by many people in the pews. (And sadly, by their bosses and governing boards who see them as a way to attract or keep parents of teenagers.) The attitude is… “Well, we give money to the church which funds this persons salary and the program they run so we should allow the expert to pour into my kid and I’ll just step back, get the most for my money.”

    This makes some logical sense because its visible. But it is missing the point, missiologically and ecclesiologically.

    Modern church youth ministry, as a movement, sprung out of parachurch ministries like Young Life and Youth for Christ in the 1950s-1960s who stepped up to answer the call the church would not… reach lost teenagers. It was primarily a method of evangelism. And it operated well outside of the walls of a church because the methods often used to get students interested in the Gospel freaked churchgoing adults out.

    In the 1960s and 1970s churches woke up a bit and started hiring youth workers of their own. (Lots were former YFC and Young Life staff) And all of a sudden the vocation of youth pastor started to shift from something that looked like a missionary to something that looked like a pastor.

    As things have morphed over the years many youth ministries focus has shifted from non-church teenagers to almost entirely church kids. Youth ministry has gone from being mostly about evangelism to mostly being about discipling church kids with an evangelism strategy which boils down to, “Bring a friend.”

    That’s a bad thing! And as I’ve said over and over again… we’re reaching a decreasing amount of the population with this strategy. Some try to dismiss me by claiming I’m just deconstructing. I’m not deconstructing, I’m calling the church to recognize her strategic failure and change!

    Personal Example

    I’ve always known this to be true. (That my churches job wasn’t to reach my kids, but to reach the lost.) But I suppose economic realities and race make it obvious enough for my dense mind to notice now that we go to a mission-styled church.

    I don’t want my church reaching my kids. If I sit in on my churches kids ministry program and it is targeted at my kids I know something is wrong. Why? We’re a mission church in a neighborhood where 75% of the people don’t speak English in their home and even more are not from the U.S.A..

    My kids aren’t the reason my staff raises support! I know this and I celebrate it. I’m pleased that my tithe doesn’t help create a ministry paradigm designed to disciple my kids. Why? That’s my job!

    Their job is to reach the neighborhood!

    Why is acknowledging this important?

    1. It changes my attitude from entitlement to supporting the mission of the church.
    2. It clarifies expectations.

    Your Role as Parents

    If you are like me, a Christian parent, your role is vital. Deuteronomy 6 is abundantly clear. A life with Jesus isn’t reserved for the temple. You’re to talk about God in all that you do, everywhere you go, and in your own home. You are to impress on your children that your faith is real. If you want your kids to believe in God it is up to you. If you leave it to your church to do you have failed as a parent. (If your church is telling you it is their job tell them they are wrong, they need to hear it.)

    Your tithe is an offering to God not a ticket to entitlement to church programs. While it is our role to oversee and make sure that the church is not misappropriating funds– It is hardly an offering to God if it has strings attached to it which stipulate that the church will create programs to entertain and disciple your children.

    Imagine

    Imagine the freedom it would create to your church staff if you uttered this simple phrase, “My kids aren’t your target audience. Reach the lost.”

    Go ahead, try it.

  • Success and the American Dream

    Is this what you're after? Something tells me its not as easy as just buying it and sailing away.

    Have you ever noticed that people who have reached the pinnacle, the elusive American Dream, are actually miserable?

    “That’s just a Hollywood cliche.” Really? Think about your own interaction with highly successful people… I don’t think it’s a cliche. There are just as many miserable successful people as there are unsuccessful people.

    Here are some elements of what we define as people who’ve achieved the American Dream:

    • Big lifestyle (cars, houses, travel, jewelry, boats, planes, and other stuff)
    • Big notoriety (everyone knows who they are in their circle of influence, people talk about who they hang with, people are jealous of stuff they do)
    • Big influence (the stuff that they do makes others think, act, or spend)
    • Big power (they get to tell a lot of people what to do, they call the shots, they are monarchy at their work)

    While on the surface all of those things sound great, I think there’s a real reason why they are miserable.

    They are big, powerful, and wealthy… but none of that has brought them the freedom that sent them looking for the American Dream in the first place. It’s all come with entrapments.

    • Big lifestyle comes with a high cost of ownership. Buying stuff is fun, paying for upkeep and maintenance results in a lot of very wealthy people being in a lot of debt. They simply have to keep working just to maintain all the crap they own. You’d think that these people could control their schedules? Nope, they have to work 14 hours per day so they can keep the illusion going.
    • Big notoriety comes with a high cost of inconvenience and friendship politics. Within the rich and powerful there is a complex game to be played. You can’t just be seen with “anyone,” you need to be seen with the right people. And if you get too much notoriety you can’t be seen anywhere because going places just becomes annoying. People just wanting 5 minutes so they can say they met you… that sounds like a life full of hollow relationships to me. True friendship has got to be hard to find. Accountability? Yeah, right.
    • Big influence is a double-edged sword. This may seem like a lot of fun on the surface, but it comes with a ton of pressure. When the words that you say, the stuff you use, and the thoughts you think effects so many people– that influence comes with unlimited scrutiny.
    • Big power also means big responsibility. (You’ve heard that a million times!) Sure, it’s fun to call the shots. Who doesn’t like feeling like the genie every once in a while? But big power comes with the big expectation that you’ll deliver every time. The world holds its breath for Steve Jobs to reveal his latest gadget… but all the pressure is on him to reveal something that doesn’t suck. If it sucks, it was his call and a lot of people lose their livelihood. That’s a pretty stressful place to be every day.

    Sometimes when I look at the lives “rich and successful” people lead, I am repulsed. Seems more like a nightmare than a dream. That isn’t success! It’s a life of working 24 hours per day and being stressed about every relationship and decision. Yuck.

    I say these things because I’m beginning to dream of a different American Dream.

    If I’m honest, my American Dream has freedom at its core. (not acquiring stuff) I don’t want my stuff to own me so I want to make life simpler, not more complex. Buying stuff I can afford with cash is simple. The more I do that the more I like it. Notoriety isn’t nearly as intriguing as having truly deep relationships with a handful of friends. It is nice to be recognized for the right reasons, I can’t lie about that. But big influence? I’m working hard to have influence over my own actions! I suppose if that trickles out beyond me to my neighbors and community… cool, but I don’t dream of me speaking and an army of people doing. (Or watching a reality show about me) Really, I dream of having influence with a small number of people who also have influence in my life. Power? Only if that power leads to doing good for other people and having fun along the way. With that said, the power worth pursuing is to have enough power to truly have freedom.

    The old-style American Dream just feels tired and complex. I watch TV shows about them and just feel sorry for their life. This new-style American Dream makes me smile. Simplicity leads to freedom.

    Help me work this out a bit. Where does this new American Dream fall flat?