A Culture of Truth

“The truth is…”

SO how do you finish that sentence? What is the truth of your life right now? Maybe it’s something really great. Maybe the truth is that right now you’re better than you have been for a long time. You’re sober, your marriage is good, your kid is an honor student, you got a promotion at work, you’re in school and have your life plan securely in place. If that the case, we celebrate, we rejoice with you. I hope you all have some great truths in your life right now. Or maybe the truth is that you’re in a tough spot. You fell off the wagon, your marriage is on the rocks, your kid beat up the honor student, you lost your job, you have this opportunity to get an education and you have no idea what to do with it. If that’s the case, we still want to celebrate God and worship with you! But we also want to mourn with you, and pray for you. But whatever comes to the surface from the depths of your being, the point this morning is this- we want CCC to be a place where people can experience and know truth. We want to cultivate a culture where the truth isn’t covered up, but rather, the lies are cast aside, the masks are taken off, and we get real, we get honest, with get truthful.

Read the rest of the sermon here

The Real Deal

My wife's blog is awesome. I have to resist linking everything she writes. But this one was too good, and has everything to do with church development...

Life In a Fishbowl

See you at the Polls

Just so you are aware, I added a feature on my blog to take polls. I'm hoping this really takes off and a lot of you will respond. If so, I can make writing a new question a weekly routine.
So check it out on the right side tool bar and cast your vote!

This weeks question- how should we get the word out (about the Sunday service at Silver City)? Let me know your opinion on what media works best! Who knows, maybe you will convince me that mailers really are effective (but I wouldn't count on it)

Team Development

So far things have been moving along well with our launch team. I was reflecting with someone how no major conflicts or issues have come up...yet. I'm not a pessimist, but I do live in reality and work with people- conflict will come.

Conflict is necessary, and it can be good. You can't engage a mission, bring people on board, work collaboratively, and hand over ownership without there being differences of opinion and disagreement. This issue in not avoidance- it' s how to you press through.

I've found the following model a very helpful rubric through which to view team development. We are still in the "Forming" stage, but more and more we'll enter the "Storming" stage. With a good foundation we'll see it all the way to "Performing."

Bruce Tuckman's "Forming- Storming- Norming- Performing" model, circa 1965.

Forming - stage 1

High dependence on leader for guidance and direction. Little agreement on team aims other than received from leader. Individual roles and responsibilities are unclear. Leader must be prepared to answer lots of questions about the team's purpose, objectives and external relationships. Processes are often ignored. Members test tolerance of system and leader. Leader directs (similar to Situational Leadership® 'Telling' mode).

Storming - stage 2

Decisions don't come easily within group. Team members vie for position as they attempt to establish themselves in relation to other team members and the leader, who might receive challenges from team members. Clarity of purpose increases but plenty of uncertainties persist. Cliques and factions form and there may be power struggles. The team needs to be focused on its goals to avoid becoming distracted by relationships and emotional issues. Compromises may be required to enable progress. Leader coaches (similar to Situational Leadership® 'Selling' mode).

Norming - stage 3

Agreement and consensus is largely forms among team, who respond well to facilitation by leader. Roles and responsibilities are clear and accepted. Big decisions are made by group agreement. Smaller decisions may be delegated to individuals or small teams within group. Commitment and unity is strong. The team may engage in fun and social activities. The team discusses and develops its processes and working style. There is general respect for the leader and some of leadership is more shared by the team. Leader facilitates and enables (similar to the Situational Leadership® 'Participating' mode).

Performing - stage 4

The team is more strategically aware; the team knows clearly why it is doing what it is doing. The team has a shared vision and is able to stand on its own feet with no interference or participation from the leader. There is a focus on over-achieving goals, and the team makes most of the decisions against criteria agreed with the leader. The team has a high degree of autonomy. Disagreements occur but now they are resolved within the team positively and necessary changes to processes and structure are made by the team. The team is able to work towards achieving the goal, and also to attend to relationship, style and process issues along the way. team members look after each other. The team requires delegated tasks and projects from the leader. The team does not need to be instructed or assisted. Team members might ask for assistance from the leader with personal and interpersonal development. Leader delegates and oversees (similar to the Situational Leadership® 'Delegating' mode).

We're glad you're here...really!

I've been reading through our communication cards from our services and have found one consistent remark. I wish I could say it was, "The message was the best I've ever heard!' or even, "That's the best band I've ever heard." And while many did compliment the music and the message, nearly every card had a comment like, "Loved the friendly atmosphere," or "Very welcoming."

I think the dynamic of a good worship experience works like this- you might do a great job welcoming people, but if you don't give them anything else, you're only setting them up for disappointment. On the other hand, you might actually have the best band and best speaker around, but if people don't feel welcomed, forget about it. But I would also venture this guess- if you do a really great job welcoming people, helping them feel accepted and comfortable, letting them know that you really are glad they came- that can cover a multitude of mistakes. People don't sweat the little mistakes in the media presentation, the little buzz in the sound system, the lighting that wasn't quite perfect. Now this is not an excuse for a poor program and presentation, but if you do hospitality well, the other parts come into better perspective.

I've tried to come up with a better word for this, a more contemporary word. But some words just can't be replaced, and hospitality is one of them. You need the word, but more importantly, you need the reality. You need to have a culture of hospitality. I don't mean to slam any churches, but I recently visited a very new church with great facilities and a great program. But I ended up parking in the wrong lot, entering a door without any greeters, walking past people in lobby having conversations, finding a bulletin and seat for myself. I did happen to bump into some people I knew who were likewise visiting, so we ended up together.

As I left I realized that not once did someone who represented the church itself welcome or talk with me.

There are some many small things that can be done to control this: use parking attendants or have lots of signs, station greeters at every door, put name tags on your volunteers. Nobody wants to be hounded when they visit a church, but I think they want to be welcomed by the host. I know connections isn't perfect, and people have probably fallen through the cracks already, but I pray that we really can "Cultivate a Connecting Culture" (our preview series theme) where people experience genuine hospitality- a greeting that let's them know that we really are glad they came, we really want them to have a phenomenal worship experience, and we'd really like to stay connected and see them get involved.

Developing our First Year Plan

Kevin MacGregor, who's quickly becoming a sort of "Executive Director" for Connections, has worked faithfully to lay the groundwork for our first year development strategy. We are working to develop the strategies for our three core areas of focus as a portable church:

(1) Website

(2) Worship Services

(3) Community Interaction - internal (Connections Cafe and Connections Groups) and external (community services)

When we take a step back we've already gone through several stages:

• Idea (should a new church be launched in North London?)
• Study and Prayer (actual needs and leading of God)
• Implementation (organize, fund raise, search for leader)
• Installation (beginning the actual mission)

Or to put it simply: we've gone from a vision to a reality- from the dream of launching a new church, to actually seeing people gather for worship, study, fellowship, service and outreach. It sounds so simple when you put it into one sentence, but it's been a ton of work and prayer!

But now, with a clear mission and a little momentum, we are ready to fully implement a strategy for development. This will allow us to do several things:

1. We can prioritize and track our growth.
2. We can evaluate based on our plans and what actually starts to unfold.
3. We can gather resources.

Let me put it this way- our dream was not fulfilled the day we held our first public worship service; our dream simply became visible to the community. Now we begin to invite the community to get on board and become the flesh and blood that fulfills our hopes and dreams.

We are also going to invite people, churches and organizations to invest in this mission. In sum, we hope to gather a lot of support and turn that around into becoming a self supporting and "church planting" church in three years.

Few new churches reach this level in such a short time. We just hope to be one of the few, and we'll try to do everything we can to make that happen with God's leading.


Below are the sessions we have scheduled for the church community:

Developing A Media Strategy

When: Thursday, October 18th (7:00pm to 9:00pm)

Where: The Navigator's

Audience: All Interested

Agenda: To educate, share media examples, provide a couple of guest speakers on audio and multimedia, and capture a list of what we would like to do at Connections

Objective: To develop a list of strategic elements for possible adoption at Connections

Series Development Strategy

When: Thursday, November 1st (7:00pm to 9:00pm)

Where: TBD

Audience: All Interested

Agenda: Walk-through an outline of a series development model, discuss, modify and gather ideas that might benefit series development planning

Objective: To develop a list of strategic elements for possible adoption at Connections

Community Service Model

When: Thursday, November 15th (7:00pm to 9:00pm)

Where: TBD

Audience: All Interested

Agenda: TBD (i.e. discuss the process of how Connections might discern what community services to dive into...)

Objective: To develop a list of strategic elements for possible adoption at Connections

Developing A Six Month Plan

When: Thursday, November 8th (6:30pm to 9:00pm)

Where: TBD

Audience: Leadership Team

Agenda: Take the strategic elements from sessions- discuss them and prioritize them

Objective: Arrive at a plan outlining specific incremental changes we will make month-by-month, service-by-service over the next six months.

Sharing The Six Month Plan

When: Thursday, December 13th (7:00pm to 9:00pm)

Where: TBD

Audience: All of our attendees/members

Agenda: Share our Six Month Plan with everyone involved or interested in Connections Community Church

Objective: Share the vision and plans of Connections Community Church over the next year.

A Culture of Acceptance

Preview Service Series: Cultivating a Connecting Culture
Sunday, October 14: A culture of Acceptance

Last time I asked you a question- what will it take to trust? To trust yourself, to trust others, to trust God? Today I don’t want to ask you a question, I want to offer you and invitation. But I believe it is a very profound invitation...

- Come as you are.

Read the rest of the sermon at cccsermons.blogspot.com

Come as you are...

Thanks Ben Jolliffe, this is awesome!

Partnerships...

Most readers should know by heart our vision (Connecting with God- connecting with people- connecting with the world) and our time line for launching this vision:

• Fall 2007: Connecting with God (getting Sunday services started)
• Fall 2008: Connecting with People (formally launching our program for small groups)
• Fall 2009: Connecting with the World (becoming a church planting church)

This “third leg” of our vision is to connect with our community and world in positive ways (third in strategic development, not value). Our primary way of beginning this third-leg is through partnerships. We see no need to invent any ministries right now, as there are numerous ways to connect already around us.

One of these partnerships that has already begun is with the Northwest London Resource Centre (www.nwlrc.ca). The NWLRC is a community resource centre creating accessible links to service providers throughout the city. They also provide a wide variety of programs and facilitate community initiatives such as food and basic needs programs, free computer use for those seeking employment, walking clubs, English as a second language groups, tutoring and several opportunities for artistic expression.

Connections Community Church has already partnered with the NWLRC to provide volunteers and entertainment with the Connections band (before we ever held a public worship service!).

The NWLRC is need of supplies for the Emergency Food Pantry. After Thanksgiving their supplies are even more strained. At our next Preview Service on October 14 we ask that everyone who is able bring a donation of the following:

Baby formula or food
Diapers or wipes
Pasta /sauce
Canned fruit/veggies/tuna
Soups (other than Tomato!)
Or just abut any other packaged food that you’d like to eat!

Thanks for your help in making a difference in our community!

Fractals

I would have never guessed in 10th grade that geometry would play such a vital role in church development. And while I believe I did the worst in geometry than any other mathematics course, this has proved to be a very valuable lesson: Fractals.

In colloquial usage, a fractal is...

a rough or fragmented geometric shape that can be subdivided in parts, each of which is (at least approximately) a reduced-size copy of the whole". The term was coined by Benoît Mandelbrot in 1975 and was derived from the Latin fractus meaning "broken" or "fractured".

In church development usage, a fractal is...

a quality whereby each subdivided part of the church is a reduced copy of the whole.

In other words, each part of the church, not matter how small or large, contains all the essential parts of the church. It means that all parts of the church, whether it's our Sunday morning service or a service project, whether it's the worship team or a family ministry team, they all contain all the essential elements of our church. It means that every part knows what the other parts are about, and what they are doing, because we are all serving the same mission- connecting with God, people, and the world.
For us this will mean that as we develop we will need to make sure that each part of the church, even as it grows and matures and takes ownership for it's area of responsibility, will continue to serve our larger mission. It means that someone can jump into any part of our church, and will immediately know what the whole church is about.

The entropy of church development seems to take the various ministries of church in vastly different directions. Now while variety and diversity are great, there has to be a common thread, nay, a common gigantic thick rope that everyone sees, knows, and holds on to, holding the whole church together. Far too many churches find themselves in a place where staff members have very different methodologies and even theologies of ministry. People get into positions of leadership so they can try to usurp and redirect the church. Or simply put, the youth program is completely disconnected from the larger church ministry.

In fractal church development, we will grow into a diversification of ministries, but each of those ministries will be a part of the whole. Simple put, the youth ministry at Connections,
like all ministries at Connections, will be about connecting with God, people and the world.

Profound? Not really. But in practice in will make a profoundly different outcome in the development and continuity of Connections Community Church.

If you build it...

I have said on many occasions-

"If we build it (this church), they won't come. But if we invite them, chances are very good they will."

Of course God has blessed us and we've heard some amazing stories of people finding our website or seeing a t-shirt and coming to our service. For those stories God gets 100% of the glory. We can certainly take no credit.

But the best story I've heard so far was this (I won't use his name)- a man came to the service on Sunday and none of us immediately recognized him. We asked if someone invited him. He informed us that during our picnic two weeks ago he was in the same park. Somebody from our team took the time to walk over and greet him. He handed the man one of our business cards, they talked for just a few moments, and then left with the simple invitation, "Please join us for one of our services."
Two weeks later he did. He then informed one of our team members that he had lived in Canada for 4 years and had never been invited to a church before. He even handed back the business card like it was a ticket to get in!

My "theory" has proven true several times over now. How amazing- people actually like to feel welcomed and invited. So profound (he wrote with a touch of sarcasm). Invite a friend, invite a neighbor, hey, invite a person in the park! If the invitation comes from the heart, chances seem pretty strong that person will come.

So I teach myself this lesson again today- as things progress with the strategic development of this church (and thanks to the help of others we really have some awesome plans that will soon be presented), as we get busy planning and producing our worship services, as we have so much work than can and will be done- none of that necessarily builds a church. That only builds programs, policy, and structures. To build the church you just can't miss the one and only raw material for construction- people. People connected with God and one another. That's how it's built.

If you care to read about an adventure in missing this point, the following is an obviously satirical story taken from www.larknews.com - but you get the point!

OAK RIDGE, Tenn. — On Sunday morning at Horizon Christian Fellowship, a 15-member worship band cranks out praise songs and the pastor preaches with the aid of stadium lighting and jumbo-size screens. But the church, which is only eight months old, has an average attendance of just 28.
"If we build it, we believe they will come," says pastor Rick Allen, 26, a recent Bible college graduate.
Ninety percent of the people who attend the church participate in the service somehow, either in short dramas, humorous video clips or in traditional roles like ushering. This means that at times there is virtually no audience.
"We sit and listen in shifts," says one woman who is the lighting tech, third camera operator, head greeter and fifth grade Sunday school teacher.
Instead of starting a church in some "depressing little storefront," Allen says he decided to rent the biggest space he could find.
"It reflects our confidence in where we’re headed," he says.
But even at peak usage, the warehouse-style facility dwarfs the Sunday morning crowd. Large, empty corridors and ghostly Sunday school rooms sit unused. With the sermon and music being piped through the facility, it feels like an abandoned shopping mall.
In the massive nursery area, five kids have their pick of toys in a sprawling play room. The high-tech child care includes video surveillance and child-specific beepers, but few actual children.
"Attendance is down right now," says the nursery attendant, who is also the church secretary, missions trips coordinator and assistant to the youth pastor. "Usually we have eight kids, but the Hensons are out of town."
Allen expresses "a little frustration" that he hasn’t yet attracted the congregation he wants. Some in town say the size discrepancy makes the church feel "creepy." But Allen says his market research has identified the perfect place for a mega-church where the population was underserved. He remains confident that it will fill up.
"God honors faith," he says. "He won’t leave this place empty." •

Three Powerful Words

I hope you enjoy the images from our second preview service. As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words. Words can't adequately describe how awesome I thought the service was. Once again the team simply amazed me. We had a great turnout- a little fewer in the worship service, but a ton of kids this time! And a whole lot of new visitors. It was great to meet so many of you.

But for all the value that pictures provide, they actually can't do better than some words. In fact, no pictures can replace three very simple words that I'd like to say now...

We missed you.

For those that joined us for the first service, but did not make our second service, I'd like to tell you that we missed you.
We are not a very large church (just yet) and we really did miss you. We missed your voices singing, we missed your conversation in the hallway, we missed what we believe you have to offer Connections- your presence, your prayers, your connection to our community.

In my experience I've found those to be three of the most powerful words- to know that your presence was noticed, but more, missed. And if we are a church built on connections, then we will truly miss you. We want to connect with you and help you get connected. We don't want a big back-door, we want to get people involved.

So I hope somebody calls you and tells you we missed you. I hope you missed being with us. I hope and pray we will see you on the 14th for worship, or better yet, at my house for a Connecting Point or one of our other home groups. All these can be found on the website calendar. So check it out, call , write, and join us, because we missed you. Really.

Cultivating a Connecting Culture: A Culture of Trust

During the next five services we want to be very intentional about the kind of culture that we are going to cultivate here at Connections in worship, in our home groups, and in our service to the community. We only have one chance to launch this thing for the first time- and we want to do it well. We want to do it with creativity, with authenticity, and with excellence.

And we get one shot at trying to create the DNA of this organism. One shot at infusing into the soil of this church the kinds of nutrients we think are essential. There are many many good things good nutrients, quantities, values, hopes, dreams that we can talk about. There are also many bad nutrients, attitudes and agendas that we believe could derail our vision. But we’ve narrowed it town to five major nutrients to cultivate a connecting culture: trust- acceptance- truth- healing- connection. I want to break that down for us this morning....


Read the whole sermon at cccsermons.blogspot.com