It’s Friday morning and the world holds its breath as a Florida “pastor” deliberates whether he’ll burn Qurans to commemorate the anniversary of 911. The logic behind his stated reasons for burning the sacred texts is so convoluted that one can’t decide if Terry Jone is more evil or stupid. What is obvious is that it only takes one hateful act of a Christian extremist and a TV satellite to incite a Muslim extremist on the opposite side of the planet. Those of sound mind and body more than a little soul-weary from this misguided war of monotheisms that the lunatic fringe keeps dragging us into.

Here’s a better way to remember 911: Read these excerpts from Sarah Cunningham’s book, Picking Dandelions.  Sarah is one of the more promising voices in the suddenly cluttered genre of spiritual memoir. Sarah graciously gave permission for me to share these snap shots from her book. The Christian responses to the future anniversaries of 911 need to mirror the best Christian responses to that horrible day.

(more…)

I’m reading Victor Hugo’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame in the early mornings on the elliptical machine. The novel centers around the Notre Dame Cathedral. In fact, the church could be considered the central character in the book. The church building marks the passing of time and the tumultuous changes facing Paris. The building is timeless and unchanging, the perfect foil to the unrest that give rise to words like:

“I tell you, sir, this is the end of the world. The students were never so riotous before; it’s the cursed artillery, bombards, serpentines, and particularly printing, that other German pestilence, No more manuscripts, no more books! Printing is the death to bookselling. The end of the world is at hand.” (more…)

Who doesn’t love a little Christmas in July? Here’s a few chapters from my next book, A Nativity of Misfits.  A Nativity of Misfits is a spiritual memoir that tells of my struggles with connecting to the holiday and how I learned to take my place among the Christmas misfits. I’m having a little trouble getting this book placed. Books about the Incarnation are considered seasonal in our culture. That just adds to the challenge of finding the right publisher. But I’ll get there with some hard work.

In the meantime, here’s a sample of the book. I’d love to hear what you think.

ANativityofMisfits

Today’s final post of the blog tour comes from Peter, a thoughtful children’s pastor who shares my love of jazz, particularly that of Chick Corea. I can identify with Peter. When I first entered children’s ministry I thought I was expected to do it all. Naturally, I wasn’t very good at being Super Leader and came to dislike my job quite a bit. It wasn’t until I started building diverse teams and developing some close friendships that I rediscovered my love of working in kid’s ministry.

On final note on this subject before this blog tour ends: Teams are hard work. Working in teams is not easier than working alone. It’s just more effective and more emotionally rewarding. There will be conflict and chemistry issues.  Your first attempt at team building might fail. However, community seems to be God’s primary means to get things done and to make us all like Christ.

Thanks for hanging in there with all book promotion. Yes, I’m trying to sell books and pay for braces for the boys and shocks for the van. Hopefully, I’ve been able to add some value along the way, though. Tomorrow everything returns back to normal.

A couple years ago I received a complementary copy of a book that I didn’t recognize, mostly because it was written in Korean. I thumbed threw it and was surprised to see my name written on the back of the jacket.  I was surprised and honored. I was amazed that perhaps God was using my book to train leaders in Korea. I was excited about increased book sales and a larger royalty check. If I were to be totally truthful, I had those thoughts in reverse order.

If I’m reading my royalty updates right, the book hasn’t done well in Korea. And I finally understand why.

Our staff recently read “Sticky Church” by Larry Osborne. Pastor Osborne dedicated a chapter explaining why the small group model of the largest church in the world didn’t transfer from Korea to the United States. Pastor Cho’s meta-church model introduced several ideas into our American small group model: “The open chair” and dividing the small groups to name a few. Osborne pointed out that many of these ideas worked in the Korean model because of their hierarchical culture.

What was the consequence of not having an open chair and inviting people to fill it? The pastor would command you to spend a weekend on the Mountain of Prayer to confess your sins and pray and fast. In the Korean culture, where people defer to authority figures, these wishes were honored. Not so much in our American culture of “radical individualism.”

So I shouldn’t be surprised that a book on collaborative teamwork wouldn’t be lighting up the charts in Korea, either.

Here’s the leadership take away: Every church program is a delivery system for that church’s unique values and culture. So practice a “plug-and-play” approach to ministry at your own risk. Awana programs only make sense to churches that share similar values. Big group/small group approaches to ministry work best in creative churches with strong small group ministries.

…

Today’s book review comes from Wendy Douglas. Swing by her blog for a change to win a copy of Lead the Way God Made You.

One of my biggest hopes for Lead the Way God Made You was that its readers w0uld find a way to free themselves from the “Myth of the Perfect Leader.” There’s simply no person out there who has mastered every leadership voice there is. Yes, seasoned leaders have the ability to adopt another leadership style, for a season, to accomplish a particular task. But that’s draining work that saps a leader’s stamina.

A better way is to get comfortable with who it is that God has built you to  be.

My accountability partner and I have been reading through the Old Testament lately. I’ve been struck by the a few instances where one leader passes the baton to the next. Moses and Joshua had little in common with each other. Moses was an orator, Joshua was a warrior. David was a warrior and a poet, Solomon was a thinker and  diplomat. All of these leaders had radically different leadership styles. The only thing they had in common with each other is that they surrounded themselves with a community of leaders who thought differently than they did.

Lead the Way God Made You won’t make you perfect leader. However, I think that if you take the book to heart two things might happen. You’ll know your leadership sweet spot. And you’ll become connected to a team of friends who will help advance the mission, together.

…

Today’s review comes from Jonathan Cliff. Pastor Cliff is loved by God, even though he is a dirty Cowboy’s fan.

Here’s an interview that I did with Karl Bastian. Across North America, Karl is known as the “The Kidologist” due to his extensive workshop speaking and kidology.org web site.

Karl took the Dramatic Leadership Assessment Test and scored highly in several styles, including Drama Coach. A veteran children’s minister, Karl has learned to broaden the repertoire of his leadership style.

In fact, Karl attributes his effectiveness as Drama Coach to his desire to be a life long learner.  At  Karl’s last pastorate, he rarely scheduled himself as a presenter at his own teacher training meetings.

“You know the verse about a prophet in his own country? Instead of presenting, I bring in outside experts to my teacher training meetings. Or I have one of my seasoned teachers present. They have so much wisdom.”

Karl sat with his volunteers, took notes, and asked questions. “My volunteers need to see me modeling being a learner. I can steer the conversation by asking questions, but it’s important that they see me as a peer—learning.”

Karl focused the majority of his teaching ministry his Leadership Team. The Leadership Team consisted of the heads of each department in his children’s ministry. Leadership Team meets each month. Karl opens each month with a simulating question such as “If God gave you $1,000 to use in the children’s ministry, what would you spend it on?”

Karl gave his team homework assignments such as reading a leadership book together and discussing portions of it each month. He challenged his team to interact with the material and make personal applications.

According to Karl, creating a leadership team that values learning requires personal humility. “I need to convince my team that I’m a peer. That means that my ideas can die on the table, just like theirs can die. I need to create an environment where people feel free to criticize me.”

Once Karl showed his teach a clip from the movie “First Night”, where King Arthur established the Order of the Round Table. “Our meetings need to be just like that. There’s no head of the table.”

These meetings are valuable, but not Karl’s preferred venue to exercise his teaching gift.

“My favorite way to teach is one-on-one. It took me awhile to learn that. It’s easy to be happy in the spotlight. At my first ministry after Bible School, I launched the church’s first kid’s club and a children’s church. Attendance tripled. However, I had to leave under difficult circumstances regarding the Senior Pastor.

Ten years later, everything I put in place crumbled. Members look back at the those days and refer to me as “The Legend.” I look at all those years as a failure. All of the long hours and all-nighters that I spent to make that ministry sizzle—nothing remained.

“I ran the ministry instead of building it. “

Today Karl sees one of his primary roles as being a coach for his leaders.

“I coach them how to solve their own problems. The answers to most problems are obvious to the paid professional. But I need to coach them through the “big crisis,” then I need to let them do it. I’m not the paid fireman. I need to allow my leaders to lead.”

Karl uses his life-on-life coaching moments to give his leaders a vision that what they are doing is significant. “I want them to see a higher purpose for what they are doing.”

Karl’s method of leading through his leaders and building them up has paid off. Twice, when Karl moved on from a particular church, his teams were developed to the point where they were able to function without a paid child’s minister. The churches used that money to hire a staff person in a different department.

Karl sees his kidology.org web site as a vehicle as an extension of his Drama Coach style. “It’s a place where children’s workers can swap ideas with each other and network. What breaks my heart is that there are great teachers out there that no one knows about. They teach a great object lesson once in front of fifty people and then it’s lost.

“I want to create a place where we can learn from each other and recycle our best ideas.”

The desire to be a life long learner drives Karl. “When I observe children’s ministry professionals who are attached to outdated methods I wonder if people will look at me someday and view me as dated. I need to constantly invent and reinvent myself so I’m always fresh.”

Karl’s Tips for Leading by Teaching

• My dad had this framed in his office: “I do, you watch. I do, you help. You do, I help. You do, I watch.” That’s a good summary of the coaching process.

• If you want to be a teacher, you must be a student.

• People have to see you as a learner.

• Ask questions first. Period.

• Be a peer and your volunteers’ subordinate. “First, I fill my volunteers up with vision. Then I tell them, ‘I work for you.’”

• Be a coach

• Make failure O.K.

Blog Tour:

Today the blog tour moves to Ohio, with Wayne Stocks. Wayne is a veteran children’s pastor and an avid blogger who works at connecting children’s ministry leaders together all over the country. Swing by his website to read his review of Lead the Way God Made You and for a chance to win a copy of the book.

Several years ago I read an article on the genius of Coach Phil Jackson. The article came out when Kobe and Shaq shared the court at the same time. Today, we’re all reminded of how much those two dislike each other. We forget that back when they were making all those championship runs they figured out how to share the ball, the court, and the glory. I’ll never forget this line from Jackson. He said that to make a great team mesh that everyone has to give up a part of their game. Both Kobe and Shaq had to give up the parts of their game that they were good or every very good at. They were to focus on what they did best and to create space for the rest of the team.

In a church setting that means the department leader should be focused on what only he or she can do, can to give away the rest of the ministry. For me that means that I’ve stopped doing many things that I enjoy. I don’t play keyboards or design curriculum. I’ve got a musicians and creative types.  For a time I focused on administrative challenges until I learned that there’s a myriad of people who actually like to use Excel.

I’ve become the chief vision caster and problem solver. The team is becoming big and diverse enough that I’m need to let go of much of my game to make room for other brilliant leaders.

Today our blog tour swings to the Left Coast with Greg Baird. Greg is the founder of KidMin360.com. Greg’s a veteran children’s pastor, a consultant, and an innovator in children’s ministry.

Don’t have a copy of Lead the Way God Made You? Yikes. We’re going to have to fix that. You should order one now. In the meantime, through the magic of Google Books, you can read the first several chapters for free. It’s like driving to Barnes & Noble and leafing through a book in their cafe. But this is better. If you showed up at Barnes & Noble at 1 AM in your boxers to read the book, they’d call the cops.

Here’s Todd’s review.

One of the pleasures of writing Lead the Way God Made You was the opportunity to interview some amazing church leaders. Here’s an interview from the book with Craig Jutila. At the time this book was written, Craig was on staff at Saddleback. Craig talks about what it took to install a new ministry culture in his department.

Larry: What is culture?

Craig: Culture is the way things are done. It’s the vision, values, and behaviors of a group. Look, there are no written rules out here in California that you can’t paint your house pink if you wanted to. But no one does it. Why? It’s not part of the culture.

Nowhere at Saddleback is it written, “You’ve got to be flexible,” but it’s part of our culture.

I tell prospective staff, “You won’t last six months if you aren’t flexible.” Even though it’s not written down it’s how things are done.

This year during Easter season we had to add another weekend service. This decision was made the Wednesday before the launch of the service. You’ve got to be flexible to make it in this culture.

Larry: Craig, rebut this objection: “I have so many pressing things to do to get ready for Sunday. I don’t have time to worry about our culture.”

Craig: People who think this way probably have an issue getting people to serve out of a sense of vision and not merely out of need. Scripture says, “without a vision the people will perish.” The New Century Version says, “Without a vision, the people run wild.”

Truth is, you’re building a culture whether you know it or not. The issue is whether you are building a good culture or a poor culture.

Larry: What are some of the biggest threats to a healthy culture?

Craig: Turnover. If you don’t keep staff long-term, you can’t build a culture well.

People need to be a part of your team for about six years before they start to fully experience your culture. If someone stays on your staff six months or three years and then punts, they never experience the benefit of being a part of the culture. If they could have just stuck it out a little bit longer, they would have experienced the pay off.

That applies to the turnover of volunteers also. Say your volunteers rotate through your children’s ministry once a month. That’s twelve times a year. They have no chance of assimilating your culture.

Larry: What are the “push buttons” that you use to get at your culture and shape it?

Craig: Story telling. Every culture needs those “tribal story tellers” who preserve the important milestones in every organization. Every healthy organization needs a historian.

Around here, one of our most important culture-building phrases is “remember when?” It’s important that we take time to remember our history. It might be a time when a staff member got stuck in the basket of a “cherry picker” machine, and we all had a good laugh. Or a time when we overcame a massive challenge.

“Remember When’s” are important culture-builders because they capture culture defining empowering moments.

Right now, in my office, I have a bucket filled with what looks like junk. It’s not junk, it’s history. There’s a piece of sheet rock from our old modular [the old children’s ministry building]. There’s also a piece of concrete core pulled from the new building. On the wall, I have a registration sheet framed with the first fifty children checked into the children’s ministry on the opening day of the new kid’s building. You can also see framed pictures of the first seven annual themes that we used to train our children’s ministry volunteers.

You also need to guard the health of your ministry. If you see a bad attitude, you need to go right after it. Recently I had too many staff members that weren’t getting along. They started out antagonizing each other and then went to not talking each other. I had to set them in my office and facilitate reconciliation. You can’t let this stuff go on unchecked.

Larry: How do you go about getting your staff and volunteers to take ownership in your culture?

Craig: I’d change that word “ownership” to “empowerment.”

It’s like bowling. You tell your volunteers that they will be bowling in Lane 9. You don’t get to choose the values, mission, or curriculum of the children’s ministry. Those decisions are what make up Lane 9—and they’ve already been determined. But you give your volunteers freedom to bowl within that lane. You give them the ability to make decisions on how to knock the pins down. You need to give your volunteers freedom to execute with a defined set of values.

Larry: What percentage of your workweek is involved in cultural architecture?

Craig: Not that much any more. Now I have a team that propagates the culture. But the first six years I was at Saddleback I was obsessed with the culture.

The first three years were very hard. I changed the music, several leaders, the curriculum, and a lot of “how” and “why” of children’s ministry—you know, those iconic things that no one wants to see messed with.

“I actually had one parent tell me that they prayed that I would come under attack from Satan—that I would be the demise of children’s ministry at Saddleback.

To change a culture that is engrained takes an awful lot of octane. The first year I was at Saddleback I listened. The second year, I rolled out the plan. The third year, we began to execute that plan. It took an amazing amount of octane to change the culture of this ministry.

You have to be so careful with your culture. It’s like golf. You can control your swing, but once the ball leaves takes off—it’s over. There’s nothing more that you can do but watch. It takes more octane to redo a culture than it does to build it right the first time.

Since those days, Craig left Saddleback and went on to expand his business Empowering Kids .

…

Today, we’ll have one of Craig’s ministry partners, Joe McGinnis, review Lead the Way God Made You at his website, Family Regeneration. Be sure to enter his contest for a chance to win a copy of Lead the Way God Made You.