Authentic...why do we keep using this word?

Authentic worship...

Authentic community...

Authentic church...

Authentic ministry...

Authentic leadership...

Authentic prayer...

Why in the world do we feel the need to add the word authentic to everything we do or experience? It seems to be we are always on the hunt for something authentic in our ministry.  My problem with the over use of the word authentic is we keep trying to attach a human emotion or feeling to things that are eternal like community, worship, prayer, or the church. Authentic is subjective. What is authentic to me may not be authentic to you. When we say something is authentic we are subliminally saying that it is the right way to do something, it is genuine, it is real. We unintentionally are saying there is a way to be in community, to worship, to encounter God, or do church that somehow is not authentic. Maybe it is time to expand our vocabulary when we are talking about things that are eternal. Worship, ministry, church, community are way more than authentic in any context.

What helps a staff really work TOGETHER?

This week our kids ministry and small group ministry worked together to have 2 events going on in one area of our facility on the same Sunday. They worked out the timing, the space usage, the lighting, and then both events pulled off with success. It took some careful planning and intentional collaboration but the partnership worked great. Why are our teams able to collaborate and work together? Our staff is linked together through our strategy and mission. We will do whatever it takes to make sure Grace Community Church is able to fulfill our strategy even when we have to put aside our own personal ministry goals. When we signed on to work here we agreed to support a vision of what church could be if we were willing to unite behind a strategy.

Are you picking up on a theme here? If you want your staff to collaborate then your team has to be united in visions, mission, and strategy. Most of our organizations have only two goals and that is to make people happy and sustain the institution. With these goals the staff are left to fight for their own agendas. Most of us understand this because we are currently fighting for our own ministry goals and when we are supposed to collaborate with other staff all we find is conflict. Your team can begin to work well with other teams when you take these steps...

1. Unite around strategy and mission // The entire staff needs to constantly be reminded of the bigger mission of the organization. Strategy and mission have to be constantly repeated and modeled!
2. Serve each other with humility // when staff members work together they model humility. There is nothing like collaboration to help staff value other areas of ministry in the organization.
3. Identify the win // before collaboration begins a clear win needs to be identified. Clear goals help staff know where they are headed together!
4. Celebrate together // teams that collaborate with success find moments to celebrate with each other. Even if it just over a quick lunch or in the middle of staff meeting make sure teams have time to celebrate the in.

Why we are launching the Kenwood Campus?

We are 13 days away from launching our second campus at Grace Community and then energy is high on our team. We are excited about this new adventure. This morning we commissioned our launch team heading out and it was an exciting reminder that this is real...this is really happening...after all the planning and prayer it is go time. Here are a few reasons why we are launching another campus and going multi-site.

• People are looking for a place to go to church in their community! The Kenwood area is a community we get to become a part of.
• We know we can never build one building that will reach this city, we have to provide local sites that will invest in different part of our city.
• We have a partner in Kenwood High School that is excited about partnering with us and we are pumped about investing in that school.
• We have the chance to empower an entire new volunteer team! Want more volunteers? Create a new adventure for them to join. We are pumped about new opportunities for people to serve.
• We have a passion to engage a city and we feel God's call on our team to move this direction.

We ran this video in our service this morning...this is where we are headed!

intentional ISOLATION

At our office we try to keep our doors open as much as possible. We love the exchange if ideas that comes we when we have freedom to connect with each other during the day. We want conversation to happen and ideas to flow freely. What we are discovering when you have this type of office environment is that you have to become intentional with your alone time...you have to plan distraction free time. Because we are so available due to email, instant messaging, video chat, and text messaging combined with natural interruptions from members of our team in the office we are easily distracted from the finishing any project. This year our family ministry team is trying to plan times of intentional isolation. This is just a block of time where we place an isolation sign on our door and we give ourselves time to focus on creating without distraction. We are finding when we get alone for a block of time we accomplish more and fuel creativity. We also find when we block time out for isolation we create space to focus on what is most important. In our culture of constant connection don't apologize for taking time to be alone and focus.

RELEVANT is back in 2011!

We have had Christmas, New Years, bowl games, and lots of snow but tonight RELEVANT student ministry kicks back into full speed ahead mode with THE MIX (our middle school service) and REMIX (our high school service) kicking off. As we start the new year we could not be more excited to start the write.rewrite series. We all have huge expectations for 2011. We have goals, hopes, dreams that we have embraced and I think we underestimate the influence we have in making those ideas a reality. God invites us into a story He has created and at the same time welcomes us to live this out with Him. Will the story of our lives be one that is worth repeating. We will we have a story that matters. Will we live out stories of significance or just fit into the mass of humanity around us going through the motions. Going to be a great adventure the next three weeks.

If you are wondering, our student ministry partners with the team at XP3 Students...go check out how we collaborate with XP3 and how you can too. Great environments are no accident, great environments have teams that make it happen every week. XP3 is on our team! Check them out!!

Make the most of what you have!

You never know where you are going to be inspired. This week inspiration came from my daughters and their friends in our neighborhood. We didn't quite get the amount of snow we wanted but what did the girls do...they made the most of what they had. They sled, threw snowballs, and even worked together to make that amazing snowman. No complaining, no excuses they just went for it. I wonder in the organizations we lead if we need to stop complaining, stop evaluating, stop procrastinating, and simple strive to make the most of what we have. The difference between an average and an extraordinary ministry lies in how we maximize the resources God has given us. When it comes to making the most of what we have we have to...

• Maximize our environments // a room, is a room, is a room. The difference comes with how we use the space. Never allow your meeting space to hold you back from excellence. Environments are what you make them. We are a ministry that rents a local church for our venue. We have to transform it every week. Sure you will have to dedicate time and resources to the space but you have to maximize what you have constantly.
• Maximize our volunteer teams // your volunteers need to be released and empowered. Make sure you are maximizing the influence of your volunteer team.
• Maximize our strategy // make sure you have a strategy you believe in then maximize it. This is not about copying what someone else is doing this is about innovation in your environment. Make sure you are pushing your strategy to the limit.
• Maximize our budgets // use what resources you have to strategically advance your strategy. You are always going to want...need more but you to have maximize what you have.
• Maximize our leadership // there is no excuse for not providing your organizations with clear consistent direction. Don't wait for someone to tell you to lead, lead now!

Feeling Stressed?

With the launch of our second campus just a few weeks away I can sense an awkward emotion in our office at Grace Community...STRESS. Yea I know many of you work in stressful church environments where you have to deal with lots of people who stress you out, but we have a pretty laid back environment at GCC. Sure we work hard and we strive for excellence but our team laughs often and our office environment is pretty chill. When you throw launching a new campus in with natural growth from week to week everyone will face pressure. When I am feeling stressed I have to be more intentional with everything in my life. Stress seems to push us to make poor choices. Here are some ways I try to deal with stress when it explodes in the ministry I lead...

• Make a list >> I am serious, in stressful times people need to slow down and decide what is most important. When we slow down to make a list we force our minds to deal with the situation step by step. You can't do everything today. You will not make any progress if you worry all day. Make a list, decide what is most important, and move forward.
• Ask for help >> in times of stress it is important to delegate and trust your team. Sometimes our pride pushes us to try to handle everything on our own but when stressful times invade our lives that is the last thing we need to do. Make sure you are empowering your team to tackle the challenge together.
• Fight for your health >> go exercise, eat healthy, get some sleep, spend time with your family, take your day off. Stress tempts you to cheat and take shortcuts. Do your best to fight for health in the midst of challenges at work. You only get one body, and one family. You have unlimited challenges in ministry, it never stops.
• Spend time with God >> stress tempts us to fix everything on our own...we find ourselves too busy to pray and read the Bible. When stress hits we need God's direction the most. Protect your time with God.
• Choose your attitude >> we may not have control of our situation but we always have control over our attitude. You get to choose your attitude. Choose to be positive, encouraging, hopeful even though the challenge is difficult. Your team needs someone to set the example.

HOPE

What I love about the beginning of a new year is hope! The new year is a time to rethink, plan, and embrace hope for a new year. I personally am kind of addicted to hope. I become a pretty miserable person when I lose hope. I also become a miserable leader when I have no hope. For those of us who lead a ministry, a small group, family, business or volunteer team we have to be persistent in our search for hope. With our God there is always hope, we are the ones who lose sight of what is possible. We tend to give up on people, dreams, and sometimes even God as He doesn't respond to circumstances as we think He should. Maybe as we start 2011 off it's time to step back and do a hope check...look around for the hope that surrounds you. We easily get so locked in on our current problems and circumstances that hope can be hard to find. Look around for hope. Embrace hope. You might have to make some new plans but I promise a leader with hope is a better leader.

the missing element

What is the missing element for many teens when it comes to faith? I believe it is relationships of significance. For many teens their faith is connected with an emotional moment, a camp, a night, a speaker, or a retreat. When those emotional feelings are gone then God seems to be gone. The only thing they can hope to do is find that emotional moment, camp, night, speaker, or retreat again. Who creates these moments for teens. We do. Yes I am a part of this youth ministry culture along with thousands of other leaders across the country serving in churches and para-church ministries. I think we short circuit spiritual growth when we create events of experiences for teens that have no relational component where teens can process. I have never seen a teen be able to survive spiritually in isolation living on the memory of past emotional experiences. True impact is made in the lives of teens when we connect the experience we create with relationships of significance. Our solution to this issue is to help teens connect in small group each week. We also make sure that at any event we work to connect students and small group leaders. Is the small group process fool proof? Do all the teens in our ministry connect with small group? We all know the answer is no but it is the best tool we have found to help teens discover mentors that will invest in their life. This generation of students will never grow if we don't help them find the missing element of relationships that matter.

drop the FEAR set some GOALS

I am back after a blogging break over Christmas, the New Year, a short vacation to celebrate 15 amazing years of marriage with my wife. As I get back to work this week I am consumed with setting goals for our family ministry, myself personally, my family, ministry budgets, and events. I also find myself more inspired by goals than ever before. I find that I need goals. I am also finding that the team I lead operates at a higher pace with clear directional goals. When I looked back at my ministry and personal goals for 2010 I see the they helped me move forward. Goals can make an impact in our life and most of us will not set them because we fear failure. If you are willing to take a risk in 2011, goals might...

• inspire us to take action
• hold us accountable
• lead us to center our life on what matters most
• provide needed boundaries that help us say NO more to things that distract us

Go ahead...have the courage to set some goals in 2011. When you set your goals take the next step and let a few other people around you know what they are. There is something powerful in sharing our goals and dreams with people who will cheer us on.