Daniel Im's Blog, page 11

Stop Chasing the Platform

“You’re not big enough, smart enough, wealthy enough, strong enough, funny enough, famous enough…”

Ugh, I want to throw up—and it’s not because these messages seem to be everywhere I look. I want to throw up because they’re all true.

It’s true that others are bigger, smarter, richer, stronger, funnier, and more known than you. And it’s also true that you are bigger, smarter, richer, stronger, funnier, and more known than others. But let’s play this out to the end.

Even if you do reach the top and beat out everyone else around you—whatever that looks like—the clouds will eventually clear, only to uncover the fact that there are even higher mountains to climb. And at what loss or expense will you have done this? Only to realize that the success that you apparently achieved is like vapor or a vanishing mist?

Success is like vapor or a vanishing mist. It’s there, but impossible to grasp.
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It.never.ends.

And by “it,” I’m referring to this game of comparison that we always seem to be caught up in. The rat race. And this pursuit for contentment in the very things that never seem to satisfy.

Just consider these words from a famous comedian and actor that seemed to have it all,

I think everybody should get rich and famous and do everything they ever dreamed of so they can see…
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(This is from episode 43 of the IMbetween Podcast that I co-host with my wife.)

Wow. I guess Jim Carrey is finished playing games. I wonder if he’s tired of his mask and God persona.

I was recently interviewed on writing in my thirties and what it takes to get published.

Now if this is something you’re aspiring toward, you’ve likely come across the term, “platform.”

These days, it seems like everywhere you turn, you hear about platform this and platform that. Michael Hyatt even wrote a book on platforms to bring clarity to the concept and help you build one.

And it’s true. Without a platform, you won’t get published. But I believe that an over emphasis on building your platform is actually worse than not getting published at all. I’d rather you stay in obscurity than lose your soul to the very thing that brought the devil down.

Better to stay in obscurity than lose your soul to the very thing that brought the devil down.
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Here’s where we get it wrong.

Your platform is not for you. Yes, you definitely need a platform to get published these days, since without one, it’s nearly impossible to break through all the noise and get your message out. But your platform is ultimately not for you.

Your platform is ultimately not for you.
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In addition, no one else is going to build it for you. There’s no such thing as an overnight success or a silver bullet in life, just as I wrote about in my previous book. Others will help—in fact, you need others to help you—but you still need to grind, hustle, and put the work into building a platform.

And once you’ve built something to stand on, you need to keep on working at building it.

But here’s where we get it wrong. If you think the purpose of your platform is for you, then you’re wrong. Yes, you need to stand on it, but it’s not so that others will look at you and lift you up. It’s so that you can help others up onto your platform, in order to help launch them up higher, further, and faster.

If others are looking up at you as the hero and as the blessed one, you’ve got it all wrong. And you need to be careful because pride comes before the fall. However, if others are looking up at you as the guide, since you’re helping them up onto your platform, you will experience one of the greatest joys of life—that of being a blessing.

Here’s my point.

In everything you do, whether it’s writing, speaking, teaching, coaching, parenting, or helping, make sure you’re doing it to serve, rather than to be served (Matthew 20:28). Don’t let the platform change you, and don’t abandon everyone you trust, love, and care about—especially if God so chooses to amplify your platform.

In other words, don’t chase the platform. Because if you do, you’ll lose your soul and eventually everyone around you.

Don’t chase the platform.
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Don’t Do This If You’re a Church of Under 200

If you’re under 200 as a church, please don’t do THIS

Since my book, No Silver Bullets was published, I’ve received a ton of questions around mid-size communities. And what I’ve come to discover is that they’re not effective if you’re a church of under 200 people.

Mid-Size Communities, or MSCs for short, are critical if you’re over 200, but unnecessary if you’re under 200.

Why?

Well, before I answer why, here are a few bullet points on what they are in the first place:

Mid-Size Communities are groups of twenty to fifty people who journey together to celebrate, grow, and be a blessing to those they live, work, and play with.
A community that is formed around a common affinity, geography, or societal need—and this gathering point becomes the mission focus of the group. They are a community on mission with one another.
A community where you belong before you believe. It’s not just a scheduled meeting, either. Typically, there is a large group gathering every other week, with smaller groups for study and get-togethers in the off weeks.
Not a large small group, nor a small weekend gathering.
An open, inclusive, and safe environment where friendships are formed and you can discover who you could potentially grow a “deeper” relationship with.

I get that this might be a new concept for you, so be sure to read through chapter 4 of No Silver Bullets to get a fuller grasp of the concept, but here’s why they’re unnecessary if you’re under 200 people.

You already have natural social space environments!

When you’re under 200 people, everyone knows each other. You can tell when a newcomer walks into the church, and there are natural environments and spaces for newcomers to get connected into the life of the church.

In addition, when you’re under 200 people, it’s easy to organize and participate in missional opportunites to serve your community and evangelize the lost.

However, once you’re over 200 people, both assimilation and missional engagement become a lot more difficult to do. Why? It’s because those natural social space environments begin to disappear! And that’s precisely when you should begin thinking about starting mid-size communities or other similar social space environments in your church.

If you’re not familiar with what I’m talking about when I reference the social space, be sure to read this quick synopsis of the concept.

So if you’re under 200 people as a church, please don’t start mid-size communities.

Honestly, it’ll just over complicate what you’re doing. The point of mid-size communities is to get people into community and get them on mission. So instead of adding one more thing, just equip and empower your groups to notice the newcomers, invite them into their groups, and be a BLESSing into the community.

But once you approach the 200 barrier (or if you’re already passed it), you absolutely need to leverage the social space environment. Now, you obviously don’t need to use the MSC concept. But if you’re looking for a way to scale community life, close the back door, raise and release equippers, create a new level of leadership where you have leaders leading leaders, and increase the missional engagement in your church, then it’s something you need to look into deeper.

If, after you’ve dug through chapter 4 of No Silver Bullets, you’re looking for help on how to implement them in your church, just shoot me a message and let’s talk. I’d love to help.

Monopoly for Millennials: Lessons for Boomers, Gen Xers, and Everyone Else

(C) Hannah Yoest / The Weekly Standard
If you were one of the lucky ones to buy Monopoly for Millennials for MSRP consider yourself blessed.

For the rest of us, it’s nearly 5 times the price of the classic edition of the game. And when you look it up on eBay, I think a lot of people are hoping it becomes the most wanted present this Christmas, much like Tickle Me Elmo, Hatchimals, and BB-8 in previous years.

So what is Monopoly for Millennials and why does it matter?

It’s Hasbro taking a dig at millennials. It’s them putting all the stereotypes of millennials into a box and selling it for a profit. I wonder if any millennials were even on the team creating this, or if it was just a bunch of boomers and Gen Xers?

Let’s try and list all the millennial stereotypes that we find on the box:

The tag line is: “Forget real estate. You can’t afford it anyway”
The Monopoly man is taking a selfie of himself
He’s wearing a medal of participation
He has his ear buds in
He’s drinking expensive coffee
There’s free parking
The game pieces are an emoji, camera, bike, hashtag, and a pair of sunglasses
Instead of the classic car game piece, you can choose a bike
And apparently every millennial is a vegetarian since there’s a picture of a cow crossed out

Inside the box, instead of buying property, you can purchase experiences.

“Money doesn’t always buy a great time, but experiences, whether they’re good—or weird—last forever,” says the description on the box. So forget Boardwalk! On this version of Monopoly you get a week-long meditation retreat instead. And instead of Park Place, you can buy a 3-day music festival.

Who takes the train anyway? On this version, you can use bike share instead. And instead of staying at cheap motels, millennials apparently just live in their parent’s basement or on their friend’s couch.

And let’s not forget that avocado toast that millennials are so famous for. Or that live/work loft that all millennials envy—if they can actually afford it.

I’m a millennial

Does that surprise you? Albeit, I’m an older millennial, but I’m still a millennial—so stereotypes like these are getting pretty old. And knowing how long it takes to create a physical product and then get it out for distribution—this wasn’t someone’s side hustle. Hasbro invested a lot into this, they bet big, and it’s paying off.

The game is sold out in most places, so third party sellers are pretty much the only way to get it.

Here are a few comments from the Twitter storm that ensued after Monopoly for Millennials hit the shelves:

Next, Monopoly for Baby Boomers: where you buy property for below value price, only people of color go to jail, and when you pass “Go” you get to complain about Millennials!!! pic.twitter.com/Nb8vSl79AW

— Jon (@jknit135) November 12, 2018

I’m surprised at how many people are upset at @Hasbro making a monopoly for millennials. Is it because the loser doesnt get a participation trophy? #monopoly #hasbro #crybabies

— Sparks (@JMFingSparks) November 14, 2018

@Hasbro Can you provide the URL for the Hasbro-official website featuring “Monopoly for Millennials,” where you trash on my age demographic because baby boomers caused an economic catastrophe that rendered us financially impotent for a decade? Thanks! pic.twitter.com/wmm0WQwnld

— Steven Briggs (@TrnDaBeatAround) November 11, 2018

So why does this matter?

If you’re a boomer or Gen Xer and love making fun of millennials, just stop. It’s not constructive.

Just think about it when others stereotype you or make broad generalizations about you, your age group, ethnicity, or country of origin. Or when they used to do so when you were in your 20s and 30s trying to make it. Did you like it? Did it help you? Or just annoy you?

So please STOP with the millennial stereotypes.

If you’re a boomer or Gen Xer and love making fun of millennials, just stop. It’s not…
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Instead of criticizing, seek to mentor, coach, and encourage the millennials around you.

The gift that you can offer them is perspective. So tell them about the financial mistakes you’ve made. Encourage them for the value they’re placing into family and experiences, but also what financial position they might be in if they’re spending more than saving.

Don’t criticize. Instead coach.

But also, if you’re a parent of a millennial, own up to the fact that your children are the way they are partly because of you and your parenting style.

Instead of criticizing, seek to mentor, coach, and encourage the millennials around you.
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And lastly, if you’re a church leader, here’s a lesson you can learn from this whole debacle

When you generalize and stereotype an entire generation like the millennials, this might garner a few laughs from the boomers and Gen Xers around you, but you’re actually just hurting your credibility.

Sure, they might not leave your church, but they’re definitely going to stop relating with your examples since it feels like you’re against them and not for them.

Over generalizing and stereotyping kills your credibility.
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Dealing with Conflict: Boxing Gloves or Broom?

Conflict is inevitable—in marriage, with your children, at work, and pretty much in all arenas of life.

How do you deal with it when it comes? Do you pick up your boxing gloves or a broom?

On the one hand, if you deal with conflict by picking up your boxing gloves, then you likely face it head on, talk it out, and push through to a resolution—no matter how inconvenient it might be, or how awkward it is to those around you.

On the other hand, if you deal with conflict by picking up your broom, then you might walk out, ignore it, pretend it never happened, change the subject, or tell yourself that it’s not that big of a deal and to stop acting like a baby.

When it comes to conflict, do you pick up your boxing gloves or a broom?
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So how do you deal with conflict when it comes? And have you ever wondered why you deal it with the way you do?

As I share in my book, No Silver Bullets, we often teach the way we’ve been taught, disciple the way we’ve been discipled, lead the way we’ve been led, and parent the way we’ve been parented—unless we consciously do so otherwise.

But since we’re talking about conflict, let me add one more phrase: We deal with conflict the way we’ve seen it modeled—or we run the opposite way.

We deal with conflict the way we’ve seen it modeled—or we run the opposite way.
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I’m not going to get into all the details, but can you imagine what it would be like to grow up in a house with three older sisters—who were all high school teenagers at the same time?

It’s pretty simple. You just stay out of the way. And if conflict ever heads your way, you pick up your broom and brush it away.

Years and years of seeing everyone around you pick up their boxing gloves to deal with conflict can either make you love boxing or hate it. For me, it was the latter.

How about you?

Do you carry your boxing gloves around with you? Or has your broom become your walking stick?

In Ephesians 4:26-27, it says,

Be angry and do not sin. Don’t let the sun go down on your anger, and don’t give the devil an opportunity.

In order to understand what this passage is saying, we need to first examine what it’s not saying:

It’s not saying to rush into conflict
It’s not saying that conflict is a sin
And it’s not saying that you can’t get angry

Rather, it’s saying that avoiding conflict is what gives the devil an opportunity to divide and conquer.

Sweeping conflict away doesn’t solve anything. In fact, it only magnifies the problem because now you’re giving the devil an opportunity to plant lies, deceit, and division into both of your minds and hearts.

However, as we see in verse 29, boxing isn’t the solution either.

No foul language should come from your mouth, but only what is good for building up someone in need, so that it gives grace to those who hear.

Sweeping conflict away doesn’t solve anything. It only magnifies the problem.
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So what’s the solution? What’s the best way to deal with conflict?

Well, before you can effectively deal with present and future conflict, you need to first deal with any past unresolved conflict.

In other words, you need to examine your past and determine why your default is to either pick up your boxing gloves or broom. Is there unresolved conflict that you need to lay down before God and also resolve with others? If so, start there, otherwise you’ll just end up repeating the past over and over again.

While you’re dealing with the past—because past hurts and conflict don’t often get resolved overnight—consider what it says in James 1:19 the next time you encounter conflict,

My dear brothers and sisters, understand this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to anger.

What if, the next time you found yourself ready to pick up your boxing gloves or a broom, you slowed down and asked yourself clarifying questions instead?

What if, you just misheard what they said, or how they said it? What would it look like if you were quick to listen, rather than quick to respond?

Instead of blaming the other person 100 percent for the conflict at hand, what if you recognized the part that you played in the conflict? What do you think would happen if you laid down your boxing gloves and broom, apologized for your part, and had a posture where you listened instead of accused?

Conflict isn’t bad. In fact, if you never have conflict that’s another issue altogether. It’s just how you handle it that matters.

So let’s stop giving the devil an opportunity to do what he does best—steal, kill, and destroy—by avoiding conflict.

Instead, let’s face conflict head on with humility.

To learn more on handling and resolving conflict, consider listening to Episode 19 of the IMbetween Podcast: How to Handle and Resolve Conflict.

Let’s face conflict head on with humility.
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If you want to shatter the myths that are holding you back and learn what Jesus did and how he did it, then be sure to enter this month’s draw to win one of three copies of The Disciple Maker’s Handbook: 7 Elements of a Discipleship Lifestyle by my friends, Bobby Harrington and Josh Patrick.

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The Influence of Hugh Hefner and D.L. Moody

Hugh Hefner and D.L. Moody—these are two names (and pictures) that you don’t typically see side by side.

In a Chicago Sun-Times article on the most influential Illinoisans, Hefner and Moody were listed one after the other. Here was their rationale:

Hugh M. Hefner (1926-2017), publisher and bon vivant. Steinmetz High School graduate Hugh Hefner was a product of the Northwest Side Bungalow Belt. His imagination and drive forged a publishing empire and changed the social and sexual mores of American society in profound ways during the 1950s and 1960s. Whatever else one may think of him, he was one of the most influential people of the mid-to-late-20th Century.

Dwight Lyman Moody (1837-1899), American Christian evangelist, author, publisher and founder of the Moody Bible Institute. Born in Massachusetts, but influential in Minnesota and Illinois. Moody converted to Evangelical Christianity as a 17-year-old in April 1855. During the Civil War, President Lincoln visited and spoke at a Sunday School meeting he sponsored on November 25, 1860. Moody preached on many battlefronts including Shiloh, Stones River and Richmond. After the Civil war he moved to Chicago begin a congregation in the Illinois Street Church. Wiped out by the Chicago Fire, Moody began anew and over the next 20 years he became internationally known, holding many religious revivals in Great Britain and Sweden. Moody led the Chicago Bible Institute, and after his death the Chicago Avenue Church was renamed the Moody Church and the Chicago Bible Church became the Moody Bible Institute we know today.

If influence is measured by your ability to affect someone else—their opinions, character, development, actions, and thoughts—then yes, both Moody and Hefner are influential.

And if influence is what we truly want, then we’re living in the best time of history, since everyone has a voice—all you need is a smartphone or a computer to amplify it. Just take a look at your social media feed and you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about.

— Be sure to enter the book giveaway at the bottom of this article! —

However, what we desperately need to understand is that influence is not neutral.

You are responsible for those you influence—for the good and for the bad.

So if you’re influencing people toward evil, you need to man up, recognize that, and take responsibility for it. Sure, you aren’t forcing anyone to do anything, but your influence may be giving someone the permission that they were looking for.

And in the same way, if you’re influencing people toward everything that’s true, noble, right, pure, lovely, and admirable (Philippians 4:8), then this is great, but recognize that the greater the influence, the greater the fall.

The greater the influence, the greater the fall.
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The Age of Outrage

I first came across this Chicago Sun-Times article when reading my friend, Ed Stetzer’s new book, Christians in the Age of Outrage: How to Bring Our Best When the World Is at Its Worst.

In one particular chapter, Ed compares these two evangelists. Yes, Hefner was an evangelist too—just not quite in the same way that Moody was. In fact, when you examine their lives, both lived in hostile and divided times. Both contended for their faith and their beliefs. And both were essentially missionaries for their worldviews.

You are responsible for those you influence—for the good and for the bad.
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The difference—very clear difference—is whose kingdom each man was trying to build.

Here’s how Ed Stetzer puts it in, Christians in the Age of Outrage:

Over the course of his life, Hefner won millions to his “gospel” and in the process redefined morality and sexuality for many. He was a missionary for pornography, selfishness, and hedonism. His legacy is the ruin of sexual identity and morality he has left behind.

Yet Hefner is not alone. Missionaries fill our world, each selling a different gospel. We must recognize that evangelism is going on every day in countless ways. Our call to engage our mission field of outrage is in part because we, like Moody, are to be lights in this darkness. If we reject this call, not only are we withholding bread from the starving, as Spurgeon warned, but we are leaving the broken and hurting to the missionaries of false gospels that behind them in heavier chains.

“Missionaries fill our world, each selling a different gospel.” – @EdStetzer
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You have a voice, so in this age of outrage, learn how to steward it well.

And don’t forget to enter the draw to win one of three copies of Ed’s new book, Christians in the Age of Outrage, so that you can learn how to steward your voice well.

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Next Steps:

Enter the giveaway to win one of three copies of Christians in the Age of Outrage,
Follow Ed Stetzer of Twitter.
Listen to two excellent podcast episodes on dealing with pornography:

Episode 23: Will Porn Ruin My Marriage?
Episode 22: How to Talk to Your Kids About Porn

A Letter from Eugene Peterson on Christian Celebrities, Transition, and the Megachurch

Eugene Peterson has deeply shaped my outlook on life, spirituality, ministry, and pastoring—probably more than anyone else. He will be deeply missed.

I’m not here to give you a synopsis of his last days, if you want that, you can read it here. If you want to hear ministry lessons on the life of Eugene from a wide range of church leaders, you can click here. And if you want to read about the one sermon Eugene preached, you can be inspired here.

What I want to share with you today is a letter that Eugene wrote to one of his friends after his friend had told him that he wanted to change churches because he felt that his gifts were being wasted where he was. His friend wanted more of a challenge and an opportunity to multiply his effectiveness. He wanted an opportunity that was more promising, so he was going to leave his small church for a larger one—one that was three times larger than his current pastorate.

Letters like this are precisely why I love Eugene Peterson.

When I came back from Korea—bruised, hurt, devastated and in the desert, thinking that I wasn’t called to ministry anymore—God used Eugene to pick up the pieces in my life (you can read about it here). Not personally, but through his lectures at Regent College and his book on the life of David, Leap Over a Wall.

It’s sad that I never got the chance to personally thank him for just how much God used him in my life, but I guess now that he’s in glory, it doesn’t really matter.

I came across this letter from Eugene as I was preparing a talk for an upcoming conference.

I’ll be speaking at Exponential—a conference for church planters, pastors, and ministry leaders. So while I was writing about the shift that needs to take place so that we can move from being the hero to becoming hero-makers, I immediately thought of this letter that he had written to a friend in his Memoir.

Although it had been several years since I read the book, for some reason, this letter had been seared into my soul as a warning. And am I ever glad that it was—and is—because I don’t want my story to go the way of the recent implosions of pastors that you might’ve come across in the news.

Here it is, it’s from page 156 of his Memoir:

Dear Phillip,

I’ve been thinking about our conversation last week and want to respond to what you anticipate in your new congregation. You mentioned its prominence in the town, a center, a kind of cathedral church that would be able to provide influence for the Christian message far beyond its walls. Did I hear you right?

I certainly understand the appeal and feel it myself frequently. But I am also suspicious of the appeal and believe that gratifying it is destructive both to the gospel and the pastoral vocation. It is the kind of thing America specializes in, and one of the consequences is that American religion and the pastoral vocation are in a shabby state.

It is also the kind of thing for which we have abundant documentation through twenty centuries now, of debilitating both congregation and pastor. In general terms it is the devil’s temptation to Jesus to throw himself from the pinnacle of the temple. Every time the church’s leaders depersonalize, even a little, the worshipping/loving community, the gospel is weakened. And size is the great depersonalizer. Kierkegaard’s criticism is still cogent: “the more people, the less truth.”

The only way the Christian life is brought to maturity is through intimacy, renunciation, and personal deepening. And the pastor is in a key position to nurture such maturity. It is true that these things can take place in the context of large congregations, but only by strenuously going against the grain. Largeness is an impediment, not a help.

Classically, there are three ways in which humans try to find transcendence—religious meaning, God meaning—apart from God as revealed in the cross of Jesus: through the ecstasy of alcohol and drugs, through the ecstasy of recreational sex, through the ecstasy of crowds. Church leaders frequently warn against the drugs and the sex, but, at least in America, almost never against the crowds. Probably because they get so much ego benefit from the crowds.

But a crowd destroys the spirit as thoroughly as excessive drink and depersonalized sex. It takes us out of ourselves, but not to God, only away from him. The religious hunger is rooted in the unsatisfactory nature of the self. We hunger to escape the dullness, the boredom, the tiresomeness of me. We can escape upward or downward. Drugs and depersonalized sex are a false transcendence downward. A crowd is an exercise in false transcendence upward, which is why all crowds are spiritually pretty much the same, whether at football games, political rallies, or church.

So why are we pastors so unsuspicious of crowds, so naive about the false transcendence that they engender? Why are we so knowledgeable in the false transcendence of drink and sex and so unlearned in the false transcendence of crowds? There are many spiritual masters in our tradition who diagnose and warn, but they are little read today. I myself have never written what I really feel on this subject, maybe because I am not entirely sure of myself, there being so few pastors alive today who agree. Or maybe it is because I don’t want to risk wholesale repudiation by friends whom I genuinely like and respect. But I really do feel that crowds are a worse danger, far worse, than drink or sex, and pastors may be the only people on the planet who are in a position to encourage an imagination that conceives of congregation strategically not in terms of its size but as a congenial setting for becoming mature in Christ in a community, not a crowd.

Your present congregation is close to ideal in size to employ your pastoral vocation for forming Christian maturity. You talked about “multiplying your influence.” My apprehension is that your anticipated move will diminish your vocation, not enhance it. Can we talk more about this? I would welcome a continuing conversation.

The peace of Christ,

Eugene.

Christian life is brought to maturity is through intimacy, renunciation, and personal deepening. -…
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We warn against the drugs and the sex, but almost never against the crowds. – Eugene Peterson
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Why are we so unsuspicious of crowds, so naive about the false transcendence that they engender? -…
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Just so that we’re clear, I’m not anti megachurch.

In fact, I’ve pastored at two.

The reason Eugene’s words here are so poignant and applicable to us today is precisely because church size is such a temptation for pastors to place their identity in.

But pastor, your self-worth is not tied to how many people are at your church.

The size of your church is a not a reflection of God’s favor on your life.

And opportunities to pastor at bigger and better churches, while they might seem like opportunities from God, could actually be invitations from the devil.

Remember that phrase “Expect great things from God; attempt great things for God” by William Carey?

Yeah, that’s not about you being the hero. It’s a call for you to rise up and become a hero maker.

The reason we know about William Carey today is not because he was a great evangelist. In fact, over the course of 41 years in India, he only saw 700 people make a commitment to Christ in a nation of millions.

The reason we know of him today is because he was a hero maker—missionaries like Lottie Moon, Hudson Taylor, and David Livingstone, among many others, were inspired and influenced by his dedication and commitment to the harvest.

And the reason generations of Christians will know about Eugene Peterson, for centuries to come, is because he was a hero maker.

Thank you Eugene.

How to Develop Servant Leaders

Have you ever tried to change something in your church, only to be met with skepticism? Or with responses like these?

We’ve tried that before!

What makes you think that this will work better than the last idea?

Why can’t we just do things the way we’ve always done them?

Believe it or not, situations like these shape us more than we know. Resistance after resistance, shut down after shut down—they just stock pile on top of each other until we wake up one morning being the one that is now resisting change.

After all, isn’t it easier just to keep the status quo? To let things roll? To continue as is?

Change is difficult to implement in our churches because the immune system of our church body knows when we try to transplant foreign ideas. And not only does it detect the new idea, it sees it as bad bacteria, a virus, or foreign material—thus resulting in its rejection.

In your church, is change usually detected as bad bacteria, a virus, or foreign material?
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But as a leader, you know that change is not only inevitable; it’s necessary to reach a new generation with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Although the Gospel is timeless, methods aren’t. After all, when’s the last time you saw teenagers or young adults in your church using a pay phone or hand writing a letter?

If you want to raise up the next generation of leaders in your church, you can’t just do what you’ve always done. Just because something worked in the past doesn’t mean that it will continue to work. The rate of change in our culture has sped up to the point where we are now measuring cultural shifts, not by the century or decade, and not even by the year anymore. But now by the month, the weeks, and in some cases, minutes.

Just because something worked in the past doesn’t mean that it will continue to work.
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Rather than feeling overwhelmed or suffering from a paralysis of analysis, I want to suggest three shifts that will change the trajectory of your church so that you can raise up a new generation of servant leaders, or harvest workers as Jesus mentions in Matthew 9:35-38.

Shift #1: From Destination to Direction

Are leaders developed (or produced) when they arrive at a destination? When they complete a class? When they receive a certification? Or, are leaders developed (or formed) over time when their trajectory is set in the right direction?

Whether you’re aware of it or not, your church has a distinct posture on this. For example, your bulletin, announcements, programs, studies, sermon illustrations, and events are either influencing your church to be destination focused or direction focused.

When’s the last time you assessed your posture on this? And your church’s posture on this? In my book, No Silver Bullets: Five Small Shifts That Will Transform Your Ministry, I unpack this shift and the following ones with stories, principles, assessments, and audits.

Are leaders developed (or produced) when they arrive at a destination?
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Shift #2: From Output to Input

What are the qualities or attributes of a leader, or of a mature disciple? With the pace of life and ministry, it’s so easy to focus on the results, or the outputs of our efforts in discipleship and development, that we often forget what inputs led to the outputs we so desired.

Leaders aren’t born. They’re nurtured and developed. So take time to assess whether or not the things you’re doing to shape leaders (the inputs) are actually producing the type of leaders (the outputs) that God would be pleased with.

Leaders aren’t born. They’re nurtured and developed.
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Shift #3: From Sage to Guide

We teach the way that we’ve been taught, we lead the way that we’ve been led, we parent the way that we’ve been parented, and we disciple the way that we’ve been discipled (if we were even discipled)—unless we make a conscious effort to change. As a result, the methods we are using to develop leaders are often unengaging and ineffective for the times that we are now living in.

Thus, in order to engage the next generation, we must move from being the sage on the stage to being a guide on the side. One way that we can do this is by adopting new ways to train, like flipping the classroom. Just imagine if every one of your leaders was not only trained immediately, but also in an ongoing and personalized way in the areas they needed the most help in? Either in a specific skill or in a broader leadership competency? I want to encourage you to check out a tool like MinistryGrid.com, which was designed to do just that.

We teach the way that we’ve been taught, we lead the way that we’ve been led.
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Conclusion

Thank God that he cares more about the long-term health of your church, than you or I ever could.

Remember, the Church is His bride, not yours. So may we be good and faithful stewards by raising up a new generation of servant leaders.

 

My article here was originally published in the Fall 2018 edition of Deacon Magazine.

3 Wrong and Right Ways to Change and Grow Spiritually

There are wrong ways to do things, and then there’s my way to do things—so make the right choice.

Have you ever said that to your children or to those you’re discipling? Or perhaps you’ve thought about saying it to your spouse, but quickly made the wise decision to keep your mouth shut?

When it comes to change, we often forget to take our own advice.

We end up telling others to do as we say, not as we do. The reason we’re hypocrites is because of the habits that are already ingrained in our hearts and lives.

When it comes to change, we often forget to take our own advice.
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In Darryl Dash’s book, How to Grow: Applying the Gospel to all of your life, he describes this dilemma aptly: “Growth is possible, and God promises He will change us. But we’re often frustrated because we’re not changing as quickly or as much as we’d like. Is it possible we’ve been going about it in the wrong way?”

In his book, he lists a few wrong ways that we go about change:

“New information—We read books, watch videos, listen to sermons, and attend Bible studies. We think that new information will change us. When this doesn’t work, we go looking for even more information. We become knowledgable, but we often don’t change. We become educated beyond the level of our obedience.”
“Big goals—We also set big goals to start or stop behaviors. We want to read the Bible every year, but then get stuck in Leviticus. We want to stop surfing social media, but find ourselves scrolling through once again in a moment of boredom, avoidance, or procrastination.”
“Willpower—We think we need more willpower, but find it doesn’t last as long as we’d like. Some argue that willpower is quickly depleted. Others argue that we can learn to increase our willpower, and boost it when it’s weak. Either way, willpower can help us, but it can’t create the consistent, sustainable change we want in our lives.”

———Be sure to enter the giveaway at the bottom of this article for a chance to win one of three copies of How to Grow: Applying the Gospel to all of your life by Darryl Dash———

So how do we grow?

Darryl suggests three core gospel habits, which are consistent with the input goals and research on growth and discipleship as outlined in my book, No Silver Bullets.

Core Habit One: Reading or Listening to the Bible

To build a habit of reading the Scriptures, Darryl suggests to find the why, start small, pick a format, use tools, and read or listen with others. After all, without spending time with the Lord daily in His Word, how can we ever expect to change?

Without spending time with the Lord daily in His Word, how can we ever expect to change?
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Didn’t the Apostle Paul put it aptly? “For the desire to do what is good is with me, but there is no ability to do it. For I do not do the good that I want to do, but I practice the evil that I do not want to do.” (Romans 7:18-19 CSB).

When we spend time with the Lord in his Word, the Holy Spirit will change us from the inside out.

Core Habit Two: Prayer

I love the way Darryl puts it,

I’m learning that prayer is about coming to God with our helplessness and the mess of our lives. It means telling God exactly what’s on our minds and asking for His help. I want to come to God all put together; God wants me to come to Him as I am. Jesus died for the real you, so come to God with the real you. Come with your temptations, struggles, doubts, and anxieties. Come confessing that you don’t want to pray. Come as you are….Our mistake is that we tend to see prayer as duty rather than a delight. We should approach God not because we have to, but because we get to. He loves us. He cares for us. He invites us into relationship with Him. God actually wants to hear what’s on our minds.

We should approach God not because we have to, but because we get to.
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Core Habit Three: Pursue Worship and Fellowship Within a Church Community

This last habit is so important, especially in our day and age where church attendance is being increasingly seen as an optional matter—coming second place to vacation, sports, and time on the lake. If it’s true that a healthy church is the hermeneutic of the gospel, as Lesslie Newbigin put it, how can this lost world ever taste and see the gospel without the people of God gathering regularly and living out the one anothers as the Church?

A healthy church is the hermeneutic of the gospel.
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I love how Darryl sums up these three core gospel habits by talking about the core:

It’s not enough to read or listen to the Bible, pray, and pursue worship and fellowship within a church community. If we miss the point, these practices can be dangerous, not helpful. If we read Scripture just to check off the box, pray without pursuing relationship with God, or attend a great church out of routine or obligation rather than intentional engagement, we won’t grow, and we’ll conclude that these practices don’t work.

Of course we should still read our Bible and go to church even when we don’t feel like it, but we should be aiming for genuine, heartfelt, and earnest (internal) engagement with these core habits that goes far beyond going-through-the-motions (external) engagement.

Don’t just practice these habits by going through the motions. Engage your core. Seek God, not just the habits themselves.

If you feel stuck or stagnant in your spiritual life, or you have others around you who are, then be sure to enter this month’s draw to win one of three copies of How to Grow: Applying the Gospel to all of your life by Darryl Dash.

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Next Steps:

Enter the giveaway to win one of three copies of  How to Grow: Applying the Gospel to all of your life by Darryl Dash.
Read more from Darryl here.
Follow Darryl on Twitter or Instagram.

The Experience Economy and the Church

When was the last time you bought a mattress?

Did you walk around a showroom and awkwardly lie down on several of them? Did you close your eyes, try to get comfortable, and imagine what it would be like to sleep on it day after day? Did you then pay too much, and wait too long for it to be delivered to your house?

No wonder the mattress industry was ripe for disruption. In the same way that Amazon disrupted brick and mortar retail, Uber disrupted the Taxi industry, and smart phones disrupted camera, calculator, and flashlight sales, Casper has done the same for mattresses.

Casper, an online mattress retailer, has been so effective at upending a $29 Billion industry, that other companies have quickly followed suit. And just last month, they took things to the next level by building their first brick and mortar store—except, at this one, you can’t buy a mattress.

You buy a nap instead.

Instead of designing their store like other mattress retailers, such as Mattress Firm, The Brick, or Ikea, they decided to create an experience, where the mattress was secondary. It’s called the Dreamery in New York City. Here’s how they describe it on their website,

At Casper, we want everyone to sleep better and live better. So we created The Dreamery, a magical place in NYC where you can rest and recharge whenever you want. Because when you snooze, you win.

Here’s how it works:

Book a nap session: Choose a 45-minute time slot whenever you could use a boost. Walk-ins are welcome, too.
Get some rest: Wind down in the lounge, change into pj’s, and lie down in your own Casper Nook—a perfectly private, quiet pod with an outrageously comfortable bed.
Feel recharged: Embrace your post-nap pep. Freshen up and enjoy a coffee before taking on the rest of your day (or night).

Do you see how the mattress is peripheral to the whole experience? The point is the nap, not the mattress. But what’s genius about this strategy is that they’re actually creating the ideal conditions for customers to fall in love with their mattresses, without having to box it up and ship it back to them if they’re not satisfied.

Welcome to the Experience Economy

Joe Pine and James H. Gilmore have a term for this newfound cultural emphasis on experiences, they call it the Experience Economy.

Here’s the progression that has occurred over the ages: We’ve moved from commodities, to goods, to services, and now to experiences. They use an example of a birthday cake to describe the shifts. Here’s my take on it.

We’ve moved from commodities, to goods, to services, and now to experiences.
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Once upon a time, when we all lived on farms, if someone had a birthday, you’d eat a cake that was made from scratch with locally sourced and farm fresh ingredients. It sounds hipster, but that was actually the only way you could get cake. You had to harvest your own grain and grind it into flour. Raise your own chickens to get eggs. Milk your own cows to get milk and make butter. And grow your own sugarcanes for the sugar. In other words, you had to work with your hands and the commodities to get a cake.

Eventually, Betty Crocker came around. Her cakes tasted better, were more consistent, and she had access to more ingredients. Let’s face it—buying her cake mix for your next birthday was a lot faster and simpler than farming all of the ingredients on your own. Sure, it was more expensive, but paying for this good, as in the cake mix, was better than working with commodities.

Grocery stores eventually tuned in and figured out how profitable it would be to bake birthday cakes and sell it themselves as a service. Of course, anyone could now buy the ingredients themselves without having to farm them. And sure, you could also buy the pre-made Betty Crocker cake mixes as well. But why do that when you could buy a birthday cake pre-made, pre-iced, and pre-packaged?

This leads us to present day. When my children were young, for their birthday parties, we sometimes bought pre-made cakes, and other-times my wife, Christina, made them herself. Heck, even I’ve baked a gluten-free cake before. But generally, we hosted our children’s parties at our house, at the park, and a few times at our church.

Not anymore. As our children are getting older, and life is getting busier, we’ve now resulted to outsourcing the party. Our girls had a joint-party at a local jumpy house franchise that took care of everything—even writing the names down of who gave what for a present! Our son had his at Chuck E. Cheese, and the funny thing about this experience was just how ancillary the “thing” became—I’m referring to the birthday cake. 

Experiences have become the new currency. In other words, amassing stuff and getting things aren’t as valuable as experiences anymore. And even when we buy those new things, we’re often buying it for the experiences that they will help create.

Experiences have become the new currency.
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What does this have to do with me?

The rise of the experience economy has caused us to over identify with our experiences and fall into the trap of believing the myth that we are what we experience. This is the second myth that I explore in my upcoming book.

Here’s an example that I’m not particularly proud of.

A few weeks ago, I was listening to “One Sweet Day,” a classic duet from Boyz II Men and Mariah Carey—I know the song is from 1995, but it’s amazing. When I heard my wife, Christina, coming downstairs, I called out to her from my office, turned up the music, and then invited her to dance.

I don’t know what it is, but anytime I hug, kiss, or dance with my wife, our children always seem to appear out of nowhere and attempt to join in. This time, it was our son, Makarios. He came into the office and started dancing beside us. Initially, it looked like he was dancing to some punk rock song, so when I told him to slow it down, he closed his eyes, started bending his knees, and began moving with the rhythm of the beat. It was adorable

I wish I could’ve told you that I just smiled and continued to dance, but I didn’t. I grabbed my smartphone and hit record. I don’t know why, but I felt compelled to share this private experience publicly with others. Unfortunately and unintentionally, I exchanged a potentially romantic moment with my wife, for hundreds of views and likes on Instagram and Facebook.

It’s a cycle, isn’t it?

Go on an experience, snap a picture of it, and share it online. The more likes and followers you get from that picture, the more you want to go on another experience, so that you can get even more likes and followers. And on and on it goes.

Now here’s my question to you, “Is snapping, sharing, liking, and repeating appropriate behaviors during worship?”

When someone has come to the altar and is confessing their everything to the Lord, is it okay for you to take a picture of them and share it online? When people’s eyes are closed and hands are raised during worship, is it kosher to Instagram it? Or are we prostituting our church members for the sake of likes and follows?

When people’s eyes are closed and hands are raised during worship, is it kosher to Instagram it?
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Sure, we’d never put it this way. We often sanctify our photos by saying that we’re trying to help others learn about our church—and don’t get me wrong, I’m not advocating a ban on photography and social media during worship—I’m just asking the question because this behavior carries unintended consequences.

Are we perhaps cheapening the worship experience for newcomers when we only take and post photos of people crying, kneeling at the front of the stage, and lifting up their hands in worship? And if those are the only photos we have on our social media accounts and website, what if someone worships at your church for the first time, and doesn’t have those same experiences? Is it their fault?

Are we perhaps cheapening the worship experience for newcomers?
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Friends, the Experience Economy is all around us, so how shall we respond as the Church?

If you’re interested in learning more about this myth and the six other ones that I’m writing about in my upcoming book, click here.

 

*My article here was originally published on August 11, 2018 in Christianity Today.

https://dreamerybycasper.com/

To learn more, you can read their book, The Experience Economy, or check out an article they wrote on the subject https://hbr.org/1998/07/welcome-to-th....