Monthly Archives: March 2012

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Church Movements, Evangelism, and ol’ Jacques

In the center of town around High Street and Main
five churches were started in 2010.
Two bought out old chapels, one met in a bar
one met at the Bijou and one in the park.

Each sought for a word to distinguish their flock
from the other four gatherings there on the block.
Community, Village and Friendly all worked
some called it a Meeting, still others a Kirk.

But when names weren’t enough to set each one apart
each sought to distinguish the core or the heart
of their groups unique style of spiritual improvement
by coining a term to inspire a movement.

One said, “We’re Emergent and by that we mean
something new coming out from the old Christian scene.”
Another said, “Close but that’s not quite the thing
instead of emergent we are Emerging”

One tied to their heritage lit on Resurgent.
While the ones on the narrow path, they chose Divergent.
The fifth and last church sadly took a long time
Before choosing “Mosturgent” because they liked the rhyme.

Well one fine summer morning ol’ Jacques came to town
to check on the doings and have a look ‘round.
He saw all the churches ensconced at the center
and tried to determine which one he should enter.

Each one’s vinyl banner puffed up by the breeze
declared why their own was far better than these.
The MOSTurgent, Emergent, Resurgent all cried
Divergent, Emerging said, “Please, come inside”

‘Ol Jacques chuckled because he had heard each ones claims
as he took the first letter from each of their names
saying, “I’ve listened to all of you now and I’ve heard
your irregular movements combined into MERDE.”

So ol’ Jacques left the town satisfied in his search
Having never once darkened the door of a church
For he thought, “Now if that is the best they can offer to me
then perhaps I’ll just watch politics on t.v.”

Fin

No hard feeling towards any particular movement, just the competitive nature they’ve all seem to have taken on. What does it say about being “in but not of” and “striving for unity”?

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5 Ways the American Church is like a High School Kid

Turn on any “coming of age” film or nighttime drama targeted at teens and you’ll see all the stereotypical high school cliques we’ve come to know and, well, maybe not LOVE but at least recognize:

  • The popular kids
  • Jocks and cheerleaders
  • Stoners
  • Band geeks
  • Wannabees
  • Gamers
  • Nerds

The themes are consistent over time too. The struggle for popularity, peer pressure, sexual and chemical experimentation, you know the drill. For some high school was/is “the time of their life” for some it is recollected with a shudder typically only reserved for the darkest of nightmares.

What has started to become more and more apparent to me lately though is just how much the church in America is starting to resemble high school. Now, to be clear, when I say “the church in America” what I mean is the closer to mainstream evangelical slice, and even THAT is hard to define or defend, but I think you get the picture.

I’ll offer up as evidence 5 ways in which I think this slice of the church is starting to look, feel, and smell and LOT like high school.

Fitting in

High school kids want desperately to fit in. Wearing the right things, saying the right things, hanging with the right people are all a part of the equation measured against the most popular kids.

It’s sadly comical how hard the church is trying to “fit in” these days with the popular kids. I’ve seen media centric church web sites that are cutting edge snazzy but say nothing about what the church believes or even how to contact them outside of email or text. They look COOL but feel hollow.

Defensive comparison

The constant evaluation against the popular kid standard results in defensive comparisons. “I’m not like her, I’m my own person” or “That guy tries too hard to be like the popular kids. I’d never do that”

It seems like 90% of the “church advertising” I’ve run across lately is based on defensive comparison, “We’re not like those other churches that make you feel guilty, we’re caring, authentic, accepting, etc. etc. etc. “

Shock value

The rise in social media now allows kids to “hide” behind the shield of the internet and say or do things they would never do first in real life.  You see kids who seem to have one personality in real life and a radically more aggressive, shocking one online.

In trying to fit in with a media saturated-what’s the latest sensation-what’s broken through the malaise-culture churches are trying more and more outlandish tactics to be noticed. I read today of a church in Pennsylvania that kidnapped youth group kids at gun point (not loaded) staging what looked like a real life abduction to dramatize what life is like in countries where Christians are persecuted.

Lack of confidence

Oh there are the cocky kids to be sure. Even most of them are hiding a lack of confidence behind the bravado. That lack of confidence breeds defensiveness in conversation.

Do I need to say anything here? Yes, I believe the church in the US is under attack. Yes, I believe that we need to be ready to defend our faith but no; I do not think we need to go about that defensively.

It’s funny how attractive the right level of confidence can be. And if we truly believe we “win” in the end why be defensive?

Rejection of parental norms

This is a given in high school yeah? Though most people will say the kids wake up and come back in their lat twenties.

How many examples of this do I really need to provide in the church?

  • “Expository preaching is dead”
  • “It’s about experience more than learning”
  • “None of those boring hymns”

Sad really that there isn’t a parental role over the church in America, someone who could offer up some wisdom and much needed discipline.

What does that say about the notion of being “one body”?

Am I wrong here? Is it ok that the church is going through it’s teen phase? Or am I just missing the point entirely?

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An Exercise in Obedience

Stop, read no further. Do not carry on.
The words on this page are not meant to be read
so leave them alone and be gone.

Do you not understand? You’re here so you don’t.
The following lines are not for you to read,
I’m hoping you’ll stop but you won’t.

Ok, I have asked and I’ll ask once again.
You’ve come all this way without manners or shame
but please do not read to the end.

I know you can read you are doing so now.
So turn your attention and your comprehension
to ending this folly somehow.

How long will you batter proprieties bounds?
A last opportunity, cease and desist
your arrogance simply astounds!

Alas here you are come to sample the fruits.
Can it be that your life is an endless parade
of such stubborn and foolish pursuits?

I wrote this as an experiment in what I sometimes refer to as “visceral poetry”. By that I mean poetry designed specifically to elicit a visceral reaction…intentional provocation. Did I succeed?  🙂

If you made it to the end please leave a comment so that others will know they weren’t the only ones not to follow instructions.

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Denver Broncos: The Thrill and the Agony

Show of hands how many of you can actually hear Jim McKay’s voice when you read these words:

“Spanning the globe to bring you the constant variety of sport… the thrill of victory… and the agony of defeat… the human drama of athletic competition… This is ABC’s Wide World of Sports!”

I grew up with that show. It was part of Saturday afternoons. Too bad there was no good way to record it back in the day!

This past week Denver Broncos fans experienced BOTH, the thrill of victory AND the agony of defeat as we learned that, amazingly, we’d won the Peyton Manning sweepstakes and then quickly discovered that Elway had sent our beloved Tim packing.

Before I go any further let me say this, I love both guys. I think Manning is one of the best if not the best NFL QB of all time. I think Tebow has a lot to learn about being an NFL QB but he is one of the classiest acts of all time, at least to this point.

My personal prejudices having been acknowledged let me say that I now firmly believe John Elway is an idiot. Ok, perhaps too strong on the language there but I think he’s made a HUGE mistake.

Football is, at its core, entertainment. Yes, it is a sport. Yes it is about competition. Yes, it is some weird imitation of medieval warfare boxed into a 100 yard field once a week with men playing a boys game. But it makes money because it is entertainment. So just a couple questions:

  • What Jersey sold the most last year in all cities? Tebow
  • What was the ongoing biggest story in the NFL last year, bigger than the Packers run at perfection? Tebow
  • Who was responsible for Denver being the most entertaining team in the NFL? Tebow

So if entertainment is about merchandising, marketing and market appeal and you have ALL of that in one guy, why do you trade him? And worse yet, why do you trade him for some nondescript future picks?

In week 4 last year the majority of Denver fans had given up. The cry to put Tebow in was not because we thought he’d win a bunch. It was because it was time to start rebuilding, the season was a bust. And then the ride began. It was insane. It was fun. It was ENTERTAINING. And at the end of the day it was some good football. Granted only about 6 minutes of good football out of 60 but MAN was it fun to watch.

So how do you top that?

You bring in the best QB in the game. You start him. You use him to mentor Tebow because Manning is great in all the places Tim needs work. You include some of that option package in your game plan as a change of pace. THE PRESS AND FANS WOULD EAT IT UP BECAUSE IT IS ENTERTAINING!!

Of course I’m sure those who support the Elway position will say that winning is the ultimate entertainment. I probably don’t completely agree with that but even if I did the Broncos have to make it to the AFC championship game at a minimum next year or the gamble doesn’t pay off. Anything less is a wash. A 95 million dollar wash.

I can’t begin to imagine what it would be like for a defensive coordinator to have had to prepare for an offense run in the classic Manning style AND the possibility of a Tebow style game IN THE SAME WEEK. Now we’ll never know because Elway forgot that football isn’t just about winning, it’s about entertainment.

That sound that you hear as you drive through Denver is the sound of opportunity scrambling off John Elway’s lap and disappearing into the woods.

What opportunities are sitting in your lap at the moment disguised as difficult choices?

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Leadership 101: Pronoun Guidelines

It’s funny how powerful mere words can be in shaping reality. From the Little Engine that Could, “I think I can, I think I can, I think I can, I think I can”, to God’s opening line in the Bible, “Let there be light!”, words shape not only our understanding of the world around us but in just as many cases the world around us as well.

It’s become a bit of a nitpick of mine lately to catch myself on pronoun use and as a result I find myself checking other folks around me as well. Pronoun use can be a HUGE indicator of insecurity or confidence, risk or reward, credit or blame. Don’t get me wrong. I’m definitely NOT the pronoun police whistle blowing and yellow carding my way through meetings. I just listen and make mental notes…copious mental notes.

Allow me then to suggest some simple guidelines for leaders who find themselves choosing which pronoun to use when communicating publicly.

Credit or Blame: Credit should always be “we”. Even if your team did nothing bringing them in on the credit speaks of confidence and, IF they did nothing, puts pressure on them perform next time.In the case where all you did was supervise and the team did all the work turning that “we” into a “they” also speaks volumes.

Blame should always be “I”. One of my greatest leadership memories of all time was being at a CU Miami football game that literally came down CU being a foot short on the last play. A bench clearing NASTY brawl ensued with players and coaches from both sides attacking viciously across 30 yars of mindless melee.

In the post game interview, before the first question was asked, coach Bill McCartney stepped to the mic and addressed the press by saying that he took full responsibility for the actions of his team, players and coaches alike, that it was HIS fault that they behaved that way and that while their would be internal discipline for some specific actions the bulk of the blame should be laid at his feet.

whoa

Risk or Reward: This one is easy to remember: When the risk is high use “I”. You can see you’ve talked it over with the team but that the decision, the risk, the iffy proposition, is your call.

Reward I tend to go straight to “they” if I can…at least in my good moments.

I’ve told my teams for a long time that when we succeed they get the credit, when we fail I take the blame, at least publicly…we WILL have a private conversation.  From experience I can tell you that that one has come back to bite me a time or two. But in the end it still made me a better leader of people.

A few more examples:

  • Innovation: They, or you
  • Difficult change: I, or me
  • Challenging authority: I…do it probably too often.

I adopted a leadership mantra from my good buddy Kurt who always says, “Listen, if I make everyone of my people successful then I’ll be successful by accident.”

The words you choose to use, even down to the smallest pronoun, have profound effect on how successful those people can become. It is also a great barometer of a leaders level of confidence, security, or ego. Who was it that once said, “I took the initiative in creating the Internet.”?  Listen to the leaders you’re around on a daily basis and see where they land in pronoun use. It’s an interesting pastime to be sure.

What other examples can you come up with where pronoun use can effect team performance?

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Four Tips for Helping People Understand You Better.

How often have you heard someone say, “I know that’s what I said, but what I meant was…” or some variation thereof?

Communication is an interesting animal. We use words to convey ideas and often struggle to find the right ones. Speaking of course is the worst because it is real time. All the editing typically happens between the head and the mouth.

Now, if you’re a poor conversationalist the tips I am about to provide probably won’t help you much. You’re better off renting The King’s Speech. What I want to work on here is how to be better understood in a more formal speaking setting. That being said, three tips:

1. Have a point.
Your point is NEVER “to provide information”. You always provide information FOR A REASON…and that reason is your point. If I just say, informationally, “You know you should always have a point when you open your mouth to speak”, you would nod and agree and still often be pointless.

My point here is to help you be a better communicator. To be clear here, when I say ‘have a point’ I mean something you can articulate in a single sentence. “The reason I am speaking to these people is…”

That sentence will become the anchor to which I attach all the information you are about to provide. Without it the information becomes overwhelming and floats off into the sunset like a boat one the waves.

2. Stick to the point.
If you’re being asked to speak you have information. You probably have enough information to speak for hours. But how much of that information supports your point?

In business setting I typically find that something like 50-60% of the information in any presentation really belongs in an appendix, stuff that supports the talk but isn’t directly connected to the main point. Leave all THAT stuff out. Save it for the Q&A at the end.

3. Consider you audience.
Whatever it is you’re communicating should have some relevance to why the audience is there. Otherwise your point becomes one of trying to prove how smart, or funny, or important you are.

I was struck by a thought today, and I confess I may have read this somewhere but if not then I want full credit:

“No one cares what you know until they know that you care.”

Granted there are exceptions to this. If the plane is going down and you know where the parachutes are I don’t care if you care about me, I just want to know what you know.

4. Sharpen your message to match.
Case in point: I hate the title of this post. It started as “The Power of Clarity” the morphed into the grammatically poor., “Four Reasons Why You Need to Be More Clear”.

Here’s what I know about my audience at this point. In general a phrase like “The Power of Clarity” is interesting, but it does not generate page views. If I want my audience to benefit from what I think I have to provide I have to start with a hook, something that will prompt YOU to read the post.

“The Power of Clarity” is informational. “Four Tips” conveys the notion that I care about helping you be better. Same information, same point, better connection to the audience.

What do you find to be the biggest challenge in being completely understood?

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What will make today different?

For those who missed it I’d like to briefly share the history lesson from the 15th:

It is a little known fact that the term “March Madness” is borrowed from the madness that ensued when Julius Caesar was murdered by a group of senators, including his friend Marcus Brutus, (Et tu Brute?) on March 15, 44BC. This is also the reason the tournament starts on the Ides of March, “the day the madness began.”

In another interesting twist, the first time the term “March Madness” was used to describe the spring basketball classic, the tournament had a corporate sponsor: Brute aftershave.

Feel free to amaze the entire bar with your knowledge of these facts as you watch the tournament, just don’t bet any money on them. 😉

This was an insane week.

My iPhone all but died Wednesday. I had to do a factory reset. Took multiple attempts. Thought I’d lost everything. Fortunately my contacts and pictures were saved even if my ringtones and apps have to all be reloaded.

My work laptop died today. This is the second laptop death in a month. Fortunately I am scheduled to get a new one in a few days anyway…but several urgent documents are now trapped in a digital no fly zone ensconced in heartless black plastic.

On top of it all I feel like I’ve been stuck in about a 4 week rut. Been sick for most of that. You ever have a stretch like that?

Tomorrow it all changes.

Why? Because I decided it will.

You see today I set the stage. I edited about 100 photos that were sitting on my home computer while on a conference call. I finished the rough draft of a white paper for work. I created about 6 ringtones from songs I’ve had stored forever. And that was just the warm up act.

In short, I created.

When we create…anything…we tap into that bit inside us which desperately wants to stay out of ruts. When we accomplish, even small feats like creating a ringtone, we put a notch in the creativity belt.

The picture above is from an all day meeting. Oh MAN do I dislike all day meetings. We had the table full of “creativity” goodies, silly putty, colored pens, pipe cleaners. Some people get into that sort of thing. I tend to immerse myself in it. Why? Because if you want to “think outside the box” on the work stuff you can do it by moving WAY beyond with the creative goodies. It’s funny too how far other people started taking their creations after I had “given them permission” by being so oddly out there.

So if you’re stuck in a rut, or feel one coming on, what will you do TODAY to get out of it? Not later, not when (fill in the blank) happens, not when you get time…today, now.

Drive a different way to work, go without socks, create a fake history lesson, ANYTHING different and moderately creative will tap the keg on your creative juices.

Don’t wait, do something different today. The first thing that comes to mind? That thing you just dismissed? Do THAT one.

What will you do different today that will spark your creative energy?

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No, I’m NOT “Tolerant”, and Here’s Why.

Did that get your attention? Why? What are you expecting will come next? A rant perhaps?

Hmmm…maybe I should confess that I belong to the demographic group that is stereotypically characterized as the least tolerant of all: Middle aged, white, upper middle class, probably in the 1%, male, registered republican,Christian. If you didn’t already know that you’re now probably tempted to stop reading. 🙂 Chicken.

For me the notion of tolerance is silly really, dangerously silly. You see most calls for tolerance have somewhere in their roots the notion that we shouldn’t label people. But then as soon as the conversation moves from a mere word to a sentence the labels begin to fly.

  • I must be tolerant of Blacks and Hispanics and people of middle eastern or oriental descent.
  • I must be tolerant of Muslims and Atheists and anyone who doesn’t espouse Christianity.
  • I must be tolerant of homosexuals and bisexuals and extra-marital-sexuals.
  • I must be tolerant of the disabled and the disenfranchised and the dissatisfied.

Of course because of my demographic grouping I am readily accused being:

  • As regards race, bigoted
  • As regards religion, elitist
  • As regards sexuality, homophobic
  • As regards social justice or global warming or the plight of the poor or affordable medical coverage, ignorant

Labels, labels, labels.

And that is the dangerously silly part. All the things I am expected to be “tolerant of” are labels. So in effect the “tolerant” camp is asking me to not label people and accept them for their label. Which conveniently allows me to completely ignore them as a person and focus on the label!

I’ll tell you straight out I will never be “tolerant” of anyone because of some specific label.

In the same way that it is a shameful thing for me to label someone and thus dismiss them it is equally shameful for me to have to accept anyone because of a label. What’s really comical is how often folks who want to play to tolerance card also, at the same time, want to play the “treat me like everyone else” card.

Yes, I confess, I have made jokes about peoples race, religion, sexual orientation, and  even physical handicaps. In EVERY case those were people with whom I had great relationships.  There was no hurt intended and none taken. They shot right back and we both laughed.

But if I were to put those words into print I’d be accused of being all those labels listed above.

And that is where tolerance moves from silly to dangerous when people start getting up in arms and offended “on behalf of” someone else. Just a show of hands, who got uncomfortable when I said I joked about someones sexual orientation or physical handicap? You see unless you understand the relational context you have no excuse for being offended “on behalf of” someone else. Relationship trumps label every time.

Focusing on diversity and tolerance is a focus on what makes us different and potentially separates us. Focusing on relationship is a focus on what pulls us together and labels get in the way of relationship.

So don’t ask me to be “tolerant” or to “co-exist” for the sake of all the labels you have on your bumper sticker. Ask me instead to sit down for a beer, some decent music and some intelligent dialogue and I’m there every time.

 

As an American doing business in Europe I get labeled. As a Christian performing in local community theater I get labeled. How about you?

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Why I Love Picasa 3, Google’s Image Management Tool

One of the things I absolutely loved about using a MAC at my last job was iPhoto. It was such a great tool for managing digital photos, uploading albums, facial recognition etc that I found myself managing a ton of personal photos on my work computer. I knew that probably wasn’t a great idea so…

A year or so ago I started looking around for something akin to iPhoto that I could use on my Windows machine at home and landed on Picasa 3 from Google. For the past year or so I’ve been managing my photos in Picasa and enjoying it, until today. Today I discovered I love it.

I take a ton of pictures. The photo above, from my son’s rugby game last Saturday,  is one of about 500 I took at the game. Obviously I need an easy way to manage that many pictures. So why do I love Picasa? Let me tell you…

1. Organization
Picasa imports my photos into folders grouped by when the pictures were taken. Even if my memory card has several events still on it Picasa separates them into unique folders. It even groups folders by year. This makes is easy for me to either allow Picasa to give the folders names by date, or for me to create unique folder names based on event. Downloading from my cameras memory card into multiple folders takes all of about four clicks.

Not only that, Picasa will also look for images folders already on your computer and index those for you as well. Taking pictures with your iPhone? No worries. Picasa easily imports those too.

2. Editing
Now don’t get ahead of yourself here. I love Photoshop and will always use that for precision creative stuff. But Picasa has some quick editing tools that are pretty powerful.

I got this shot as part of a series when my son had a breakaway run through the opposing team. I’m still earning the customs setting on my new camera so some of the series were under-exposed. Bummer…

With a couple of clicks and some sliders bar adjustment in Picasa I was able to crop and correct to get a half way decent edit of the same image.

What is GOLDEN about this though is that while I could do the same thing in Photoshop I would have to save it as a separate image, doubling the space taken up on my hard drive.

With Picasa I do the edits in the software digitally. Picasa shows me my edited version, which I can export as I did for this post, but it doesn’t change the original. That means I can fiddle with edits all I want without doubling up on memory OR losing the original.

3. Sharing
Obviously photo sharing is a huge deal these days. For the rugby parents I created a group room on Walgreens Photo so that anyone could easily order pictures of their son without having to get hold of me to provide it.

Picasa has a share button that connects you to multiple options, Walgreens Photo being one of them, which allows me to, with only about three clicks, upload my edited album to the web.

I was able to crop, color correct, and edit around 85 photos today in just under two hours, including uploading the album to the web. I didn’t lose ANY of my originals and I didn’t have to create multiple folders on my image hard drive.

I thought I just needed Picasa as a viewing tool. Now it is a central piece of my work flow and I think I have probably only just scratched the surface. What more can you ask for for free?

What do you use to manage images on your computer?

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4 Reasons to Recognize Milestones

Today we reached the end of an era in the Fletcher household…we’ve most likely seen our last minivan.

With the price of gas continuing to rocket upward we traded in ol’ blue for a used Honda Civic Hybrid.  The small car payment and a month’s gas will still cost us less than we were paying per month for gas in ol’ blue. I have to admit I’m kinda sad.

I’ve been thinking about random milestones all day.

Way back at the turn of the century, funny when you put it that way, I was working as the Director of eCommerce Marketing at Corporate Express. During my tenure in that position we saw a pretty cool milestone heading our direction. We knew, probably 4 weeks out, that we were going to hit our first million dollar sales day on our eCommerce site.

As the marketing director I wanted to recognize the efforts of everyone who had made the site a success as well as generate excitement and so we started a pool to see who could pick not only the right day, but closest to the right dollar amount.

Our final sales numbers from the previous day typically came in between 10 and noon and on the day we got the news that we’d hit the mark we went crazy. Most of us has seen the first day the site launched, bringing in I believe a total of five dollars, and here we were at a million dollars in a single day!

We sent announcements out to our field offices congratulating the sales folks and throughout headquarters lauding the team that had built and maintained the site. By 3:30 it was time to really celebrate so I invited the entire eCommerce team to happy hour. Several VP’s came over to join in the fun and the CEO even came by for a beer and some congratulatory words.

As a corporate leader I learned the importance of recognizing milestones that day.

1. It honors accomplishment
Our guys were beaming that day from the newest support person to the senior most developer. They knew and understood anew that their work had created significant value for the organization.

2. It measures success
Milestones are stakes in the ground that are tangible measure of success, a goal line crossed. It’s one thing to say, “good job”. It’s another thing to have a measure of just how good.

3. It shows engagement
For a leader to pause and recognize a significant milestone shows that they’re engaged in the business and the efforts of their people. Celebrating even in small ways says more than just “attaboy” it says, “we’re in this together.”

4. It inspires effort
We hadn’t finished even the first round of libations before people were asking when we’d hit a 2 million dollar day. We didn’t dwell there, but we had already started setting our sites on what it would take to get to the next level.

Whether you’re running an organization, leading a family, or building customer loyalty recognizing milestones along the way helps inspire your people to follow your lead and strive for the next level.

What milestones do you have on the horizon? How do you think they ought to be celebrated and, more importantly, with whom?