More Stickiness

Twice last week I posted on the influence of Chip and Dan Heath's Made To Stick on how we do ministry and communication at Good Shepherd. You can read about it here and here. Those posts talked about how effective communication is both simple and unexpected.

And it is also concrete. Which means that good communication -- whether radio commercial, print ad, or Sunday sermon -- is full of vivid, tangible images.

This is why Good Shepherd no longer has lengthy statements describing its mission, vision, values, and strategy. Much of that ended up being mere words divorced from meaning. Now we have narrowed what we are about down to two words: Walking Together. Walking: it's concrete, visual, biblical, and something everyone does. Together: it creates a picture in your mind of sharing a stroll with your spouse or even of Dorothy and her friends on the Yellow Brick Road.

Some other examples of concrete communication at Good Shepherd:

• Sunday's message with a story about a preacher, an uncooperative lawn mower, and potential pastoral profanity. Vivid! And very common.
• Our mission trip promotional video with image after image of people serving in Kenya, Russia, Bulgaria, and Missouri. No more "here's what happened on our mission trip" followed by a report full of inside jokes. Just rapid fire visuals that make you want to join the team next year.
• Our next series is on "holiness." Now that's a hard subject to explain in conrete language -- it would be quite easy to describe it in ways that are both philosophical and ambiguous. So we've titled it Oddball -- and gave out 1500 free red "Oddballs" in church Sunday.

So whether you are speaking to your family, talking to your boss at work, or even getting a sermon ready, make sure your language is concrete -- visible, tangible, image-filled.

Then what you are saying will stick.

Habitat Heroes

I spent part of Saturday at the work site for the home Good Shepherd is building with Habitat For Humanity.



About 25 people from the church, as well as some new friends from Selwyn Presbyterian Church, braved uncomfortable weather and uncertain gasoline supplies to help frame the house.



Here's what some of us looked like:

And this:

As usual, it was the caliber of people who showed up that made the biggest impact on me. Several had only been to Good Shepherd twice -- yet heard the call to be heroes. A couple of others are facing job loss or business failure -- and yet gave up a Saturday to be part of something larger than themselves. Still others carried the weight of the team with their skills and their attitudes.

It's good to be around people who recognize that they really are meant for something extraordinary.

Preachers And Attendance

Through the years, I've agonized over situations that might affect church attendance on Sundays. Of course, the vast majority of these are things over which I have no control. Things like:

• Good weather -- Nice conditions mean people will go either to the beach or the mountains for the weekend.
• Bad weather -- Heavy rain, high winds, or, worst of all, a coating of ice, snow, or sleet, will keep Carolinians home faster than you can say "go-to-the-store-and-stock-up-on-milk."
• Panthers Games -- Know what? If I had tickets I'd probably hang out in the parking lot all morning, too.

But this weekend is the first time I've ever agonized over gasoline.

Will we have any? Will people use their last few drops on a trip to church? Are we worth running on fumes to get here?

The Observer says "yes." Maybe I'll stop worrying.

Then again, maybe not.

Because we've got a really good finale planned for Heroes. Really good. I wouldn't want you to miss it.

So see you in church on Sunday.

Or in the gas line.

Didn't See That One Coming

Take a look at this commercial.

Didn't see that one coming, did you?

It's the power of the unexpected, the second hallmark of communication that sticks. I posted about Chip and Dan Heath's book Made To Stick on Monday.

Any time communication -- whether a television ad or Sunday morning sermon -- is predictable, it loses its impact.

That's why we try to do things in Sunday worship and Sunday messages that you don't expect. So in recent weeks and months:

• We gave out 2000 CDs at the end of worship on Easter Sunday;
• We started a worship service with an instrumental version of Pink Floyd's Money;
• I played Do Lord on guitar at the start of a sermon before trying to play the opening riff of Walk This Way. All that was to demonstrate inadequacy!
• I took out my contact lenses in the middle of a message. And put them back in. Three times. Praise the Lord, it worked.
• We gave out breath mints to launch our Things Jesus Never Said series.

I suspect no one attending Good Shepherd on those Sundays expected any of those things to happen. We hope that made them all the more memorable.

That's why we do what we do.

When You Want To Get The Last Word In . . .

Years ago, I had a District Superintendent (which is like a pastor to the pastors in Methodism) who taught a group of us: "Any time you want to get the last word in . . . don't."



That's hard isn't it? Especially if you are a know-it-all like me! My natural tendency is to win that argument, to answer with sarcasm, to finish with the verbal upperhand.



But like most things, my natural tendency leads to trouble.



So through the years I have taken my District Superintendent's teaching to heart.



And the great thing is that I have had a number of relationships restored in part because I didn't say all that I wanted to say when those relationships were breaking.



Do you have some "last words" you want to get in today? Don't.

Made To Stick

I am a great fan of Chip and Dan Heath's Made To Stick:



The book's focus is corporate communication -- advertising and product development primarily -- but it more than applicable to the church world. In fact, I would make it required reading if I were teaching a class in preaching and/or worship.

So over the next couple of weeks, I want to highlight some of the book's teachings and how it has impacted what we do at Good Shepherd.

The Heaths contend that effective communication is . . . .

Simple
Unexpected
Concrete
Credible
Emotional
Story-Driven

That spells "Success" if you throw in an extra "s" at the end.

Simple. This one is perhaps my favorite. Made To Stick teaches that if you communicate three things in a given presentation, you have in effect communicated nothing. So we try to communicate one thing each Sunday. Yesterday, for example, it was your flaws are just your strengths in disguise, a truth drawn from the story of Jacob in Genesis 32:22-32. Everything we did, from music to video to message, was designed to hammer that one idea home.

I know that this simplicity works because of the number of times people repeat back to me the one point from a given service. Often several months later. Because we don't overload people with information, what we do communicate has a freshness and an urgency about it.

Later this week, I'll post on unexpected communication. But if I told you which day that post was coming, it wouldn't be unexpected would it?

Clarity, Alignment, Movement, Focus

The Simple Church book tells church leadership that the journey towards simplicity must involve clarity, alignment, movement, & focus.

We do a lot of things wrong at Good Shepherd, but in this current series Heroes, I feel we are living into that powerful simplicity. Here's what I mean:

• Clarity: Everywhere you look around campus, you see Heroes. Banners, T-shirts, bulletins, ministry promotion. There is no mistaking what we are talking about.
• Alignment: Our BigHouse Student Ministries and Destination Discipleship / JAM Children's ministries are both using Heroes (in the case of JAM, it's Superheroes!) as their theme this fall. Our Pathfinder and other small groups and classes are using the message notes and questions as the basis for their studies as well. In other words, we are all looking at and thinking about the same thing.
• Movement: Heroes is all about moving people from one level of commitment to another; from spectating to participating in God's great story.
• Focus: By zeroing in on Heroes during this season, there are no doubt things we aren't doing that we could be doing. But that's good -- we'd rather do one thing and do it passionately than do several things and do them with mediocrity.

The power of this simplicity came during the last worship element this past Sunday. The service had one point (simplicity): the heroes you have determine the hero you become. So we came up with a way to have some of the people of Good Shepherd tell about their heroes. You can see it here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eL7zdg3D5lg

When Life's A Racket

Last week, I posted about the different cars of my life. Almost an autobiography told from the perspective of different cars I'd driven. A lot of you seemed to enjoy it.



So I thought it would be fun to do the same thing . . . except with tennis rackets. Caution: this post will mean the most to tennis nerds.

But here's a flavor of some of the different rackets I used at different ages, and what they meant to me at the time. Getting some of these images was not easy, but the cause prevailed.

My first racket was a handed-down, beat up Jack Kramer autograph. I originally used it to play a 1969 version of air guitar in the alley behind our house. It looked something like this:



That was the racket I used when I started playing tournaments and getting a little bit good. I remember earning my first state ranking with it -- #5 in Texas for Boys' 10-and-under!

My second racket came about because I broke my first. Yes, in a fit of rage at losing to Brad Stoffel, I not only cracked that Kramer, I folded the head completely over. I was 10 and I was mean. So my dad thought an . . . unbreakable racket might be better (I'm lucky he ever let me play again). So I got a Sheffield X-15 Steel racket -- steel was kind of the rage in 1971. Here's what it looked like:
By the way, that ad is from a 1971 issue of World Tennis magazine that I have around the house. The ad is priceless -- if you look in the bottom left corner there is a picture of Clark Graebner, who endorsed the X-15. Except in the picture he's playing left handed and everyone knows Graebner was a right hander. And you wonder why Sheffield went out of the tennis business?

When I turned 11, I upgraded to the Head Master. Great racket. Almost a space age feel. I should have stayed with it longer. Here it is:


But when I got to be 12, everyone was switching away from metal and back to wood. I thought it would give me better control. Plus, I heard that Spalding had a "free list" for players with a good state or national ranking. At the time, I was #2 (behind that Brad Stoffel) in Texas, so I wrote to them. They said yes! So with my first "free" rackets, I switched to the Pancho Gonzales Autograph and back to wood frames:
I stayed with Spaldings from when I was 12 to when I was 16. The most interesting Spalding I ever used was called the La Vitesse -- French for "The Speed." It was narrow, flexible, and had a small slit in the side. Unfortunately, that slit made it so they warped very easily. But I did love that racket and played reasonably well with it in the 14-and-unders. I think I switched to it when I played so badly with the Pancho Gonzales that I thought of quitting (because it had to be the racket's fault). Here's La Vitesse:
The final Spalding was the World Open, which Aussie pro John Alexander used in the mid-1970s. It was supposed to be Spalding's answer to the Jack Kramer. It wasn't.
But you know, there's a reason Spalding doesn't make rackets anymore, either. So when I was 15 or 16, coach Danny O'Bryant was able to get me on Wilson's Free List and I came back to the place I never should have left: The Jack Kramer Authograph. Man, those felt great. Strung tight with VS gut. Smooth leather grip. I used this when I had my best results as a teenager, including winning the tournamet to be ranked #1 in Texas for Boys' 18-and-under. I still have a couple at our house, and they still look good:


Unfortunately, by 1980, oversize rackets were all the rage and I felt I had to keep up (because poor results had to be the fault of the racket, right?). So just before I went to college, I switched to the Prince Woodie (can you believe they named a racket that?). It was supposed to give the advantage of the new "big" rackets with the feel of wood. Sadly, for my game it did neither. Here's what that frame looked like:
I only used it for like six months. Then mid-way through my freshman year at college our coach suggested the Head Graphite Edge to me. It was smaller in the head, which worked better with my strokes, and it was graphite so it was cool. Plus, Princeton's team had a nice arrangement with Head. So I switched and it helped:
I used the Graphite Edge until my senior year when another crisis in confidence led to another change. It was 1984, and I became convinced that I needed to switch back to a standard-sized (like wood size) racket. I believed the smaller head would help my backhand. That's how I found the Rossignol F100 -- graphite, small, and with a grip shape that felt like it was part of my hand. I played my best tennis ever with this little racket:

Rossignol stopped making the F100 shortly after I started using it. But I stocked up on some frames and then after graduating from college began playing less and less.

The next switch happened with the "widebody" phase of rackets in the late 80s and early 90s. I got hold of the Rossignol FT580, which had that good grip shape, a wider head frame, and good backhands stored up inside it. So I gathered up a bunch of them which I still have and still use. I played several tournaments with it in the early 90s and like it a lot. Take a look:
Then last summer I figured I could no longer use obsolete,18 year old rackets. So I bought a new-fangled, high-tech Head Prestige. It looked great -- but for the first time ever I got tennis elbow. Had to be the racket's fault, right?
So now I'm back with an obsolete, 18 year old, low-tech Rossignol.

What's next? A Jack Kramer Autograph of course!

Communication Or Vanity?

I used to think that if I said something once, people would get it.

These days I realize that's not communication; that's vanity. It's a bit arrogant of me to think that just because something comes out of my mouth one time, it will have lasting impact.

Advertisers say that people need "seven sticks" before they will buy a product. Seven exposures to something before it will sink in.

If that's true of something physical and tangible like toothpaste, how much more for theology, leadership, and church culture -- things that are often intangible and invisible?

So now if there is something the people of the church really need to hear, know, and feel, they will be exposed to it at least seven times. Hopefully in different ways and through different media, but they will have seven exposures to meaningful truths.

Same with the staff I lead. I need to be about pouring just a few things into them about how we should shape the church and pastor the people. But I need to pour those same things in over . . . and over . . . and over.

Because I want to choose communication over vanity.

Kinetic Christianity

Kinetic is a fancy word for movement. I know this because my wife works for Kinetic Concepts, Incorporated (KCI), a leading edge medical device firm originally focused on movement therapy.

But we at Good Shepherd are emphasizing kinetics in this season of our life. As part of our Walking Together motto, we always want people to take their next steps towards Christ. In other words, we want them moving in their faith.

That's what Heroes is all about: moving people out of their seats and into the ministry of the kingdom.

That's also what our Pathfinder groups are about: moving people out of isolation and into conversation; out of of complacency and into bible study.

Previously, I've counted our "success" by how many people move into the seats on a Sunday morning.

Now I'm counting it by how many move out of their seats and into their next step towards Jesus.

What is your movement like today?

Is your faith stagnant or . . . kinetic?

Back Where It All Began

Tomorrow night we will hold the season's last Thrive Alive event back in the place where it all started in July: the fountain at the center of the RiverGate Shopping Center.

Here's what you can expect:



It starts at 7 p.m. and ends at 10. Feel free to stay for the entire time or to come and go. Bring a lawn chair and some friends who don't yet know what Good Shepherd is about. And you'll be able to reconnect with other friends who already do.

Driver's License Day

Today my 16 year old son Riley goes for his Driver's Test. If he passes, he'll be driving our 2000 Toyota Camry with something over 100,000 miles on it.


But Riley's rite of passage got me thinking about some of the cars I've driven through the years.


When I got my license back in 1978, my first car was a 1977 Plymouth Arrow. I still remember the purchase price -- $3,000! My dad had a lifelong affinity for Chrysler products, so that's why we got the Arrow. The only problem was that it wasn't fast, didn't have much room, wasn't very good looking, and didn't get good gas mileage. Other than that, it was a great car for a 16-year old. Here's how it looked:







Not long after that, I hit the jackpot. My dad also liked Mazda products and when the then-revolutionary RX-7 came out, he got one of the first ones in Dallas. Turned out he didn't like driving it so much, so I got to tool around town in it. Now that was a cool car. Here it is:

We sold it to pay for my first year of college. :(


After graduation, there was an old Mazda 626 for a year or so and then, since I had my first real time job (the one with the USTA that I posted on here), I bought a true love: a 1986 Toyota Celica GT. Yeah, GT! Five speed manual transmission! It survived being rear-ended by a drunk driver on a Connecticut highway, moves to Kentucky and North Carolina, and the birth of two children (not born in the car mind you). I got it to 160,000 miles. It still looks good, doesn't it?

By 1996, I was over 30, had two young children, had grown tired of changing gears, and figured it was time for four doors. So I spent a Saturday at the Nissan dealership on Independence Boulevard and came home with a new Altima. Teal green, just like the Charlotte Hornets:

After eight years, I was ready for an upgrade to the next generation Altima. It was January of 2004, and the Panthers were headed for the Super Bowl, the church was at last averaging 1000 in attendance (barely), and so I moved from teal green to burgundy. The first car I ever had with a CD player! So in 2004 -- like 10 years after everyone else did it -- I ditched my cassette tapes and entered the digital era. I'm still driving this one:

So what's my next ride?

This?

Or this?

Hold On Loosely

I heard someone teach not too ago that "Leadership is stewardship -- it's temporary and you are accountable."

There's a lot in that one sentence. But the word that draws me in is "temporary."

I believe that leadership is at God's discretion, not ours. I serve at Good Shepherd in spiritual leadership because it was God's idea long before it was my idea. In a sense, I hold this leadership position "in trust" -- I simply manage the leadership that ultimately belongs to God.

So this leadership position is not mine. It is God's.

That's why I remind myself and other leaders to hold on loosely as the old song says. Leaders who hold on to their positions too tightly or too long mistakenly believe that leadership is theirs more than it is God's.

In the short run, this outlook helps me not to define my identity by my occupation (I've got a ways to go there, though).

In the long run, it ensures that God rather than a single individual leads and guides His church.

Leadership is stewardship -- it's temporary and you are accountable.

Seminary At Church

I loved my time at Asbury Seminary. I loved the classes, the teachers, the friends, and everything that school stood for and stands for.

That's why it's so cool that we have a mini-seminary at our church. We call it Passage (part of Walking Together, with the double meaning of a passage that you walk through and a biblical passage that you study).

Passage classes are heavier on content than the Pathfinder community groups we launched last week. This semester, we have classes on Galatians, a New Testament survey, Genesis, as well as the old standard, The Bible For The Rest Of Us. We've got some top-notch teachers willing to share their time and wisdom, so it makes for a strong ministry.

You can find out more about Passage and even sign up for a class by checking here.

Because the only thing better than going off to seminary is having one come to you.

Heroes Takes Flight

Yesterday was one of those days that makes me love being a pastor.

The look and feel of the service was just right. The music was strong. The visuals made it so you didn't just "hear" the message; you "saw" it as well.

But most importantly, many, many people responded to the call to unleash the hero within. Our different ministry areas are now full of people willing to step in and make a difference.

Because the people of Good Shepherd really are meant for something extraordinary.

Here's what it's like:

The Hero Within

I know I always get excited about new series around here.

And Heroes is no exception. In fact, I think it might be the best one yet.

You'll love the videos, the banners, the T-shirts, the music.

And oh yeah. You'll love the truth.

The source of this week's truth is John 1:35-42. Check it out.

This Sunday. 8:30. 10:00. 11:30. Unleash the hero lurking inside of you.

Pathfinder Launch

The Pathfinder launch was terrific last night. I had given a description of it and prediction for it here.

It showed the power of simplicity: we promoted this one thing and promoted it heavily, it is now our one way of starting new small groups, and it has easy on-ramps and off-ramps. Because of all that, people really responded. We now have over 150 people in Pathfinder groups who had no small group connection to Good Shepherd before.

One of the best things about the evening was . . . how many people I didn't know. There are more people getting connected to the move of God at Good Shepherd than I realized.

Rebecca Grayson and James-Michael Smith did a marvelous job as MCs / Comedic Relief:



The room was packed:



Conversation and connection happened:



And now these table groups will turn into home groups for the next six weeks.

Feel like you missed something? That's OK. The next Pathfinder launch is October 22.

Because you weren't meant to walk alone.

Inspiring Confidence

Not long ago, I ran across a two part quote that I'll actually touch on this Sunday:

Good leaders inspire people to have confidence in them (the leader).

Great leaders inspire people to have confidence in themselves.

Whoa. In my dealings with the other staff here at Good Shepherd, do I want to inspire them to have confidence in me or in themselves? In my leadership of the church body as a whole, do I want to inspire people to have confidence in me as a pastoral leader or in themselves as Jesus followers?

I wish I could say with simplicity and clarity that I want to inspire people to have confidence in themselves. But reality is neither that simple nor that clear. I can have mixed motives when it comes to exercising leadership and inspiring confidence.

But now that I have this new way of looking at the issue, I know what question I'll be asking myself each morning: who can I inspire to have confidence in themselves today?

An Inconvenient Truth

Job puts it this way:

[God] wraps up the waters in his clouds;
yet the clouds do not burst under their weight.

By his power he churned up the sea;
by his wisdom he cut Rahab to pieces.
Byhis breath the skies became fair;
his hand pierced the gliding serpent.
And these are but the outer fringe of his works;
how faint the whisper we hear of him!
Who then can understand the thunder of his power?
Job 26:8, 12-14

The implication of those verses is clear: God is sovereign over weather. Weather happens at his discretion. That includes Katrina, Gustav, and Hannah.

It's a difficult concept. An inconvenient truth. I'm not always sure what to do with it. We Methodists sometimes shy away from God's sovereignty, leaving that teaching to our Presbyterian and Calvinist friends. But Scripture is clear. God really is in control whether we believe it or not.

This time, I prayed hard that New Orleans would be spared . . . but what about the towns that were more impacted because the storm moved west? Like Lake Charles, Louisiana, where my brother lives? Or north and east Texas, close to where I grew up?

I don't have answers to those kinds of questions. And I definitely want to avoid declaring that God sends storms on certain cities as an act of judgment -- because that might mean Charlotte is next! I'll let God speak for himself.

It's the truth. An inconvenient truth, but the truth nonetheless.