Episode 081: 10 Hopes and Prayers Pt. 2

In this episode we sit down to conclude our conversation on Andrew’s article “10 Hopes and Prayers for the next 10 years.” (The original article can be found here.)

Church is at once the most mysterious thing on planet earth and also the most ordinary thing on planet earth… the way that we live together is itself a testimony to the world of what the world will one day be when God is all in all…

The church is an embodiment of a new possibility for living… but it can’t do that if what it’s exporting to the world is just a couple finely tuned religious goods and services… we actually have to DO LIFE together…

Our isolation is not good for the human soul… the church is the one place where face to face, voice to voice interaction is required…

Winning and losing are rampant in our culture, but in the church this need not be… the cross has leveled the playing field… and so there is no need to sequester resources or power…

The church is the one place where power can be used in the right way, where power is used to lift and not control, not to dominate, not to be abusive…

The places of deepest pain and brokenness and shattering can become the places of greatest strength… but you have to learn to rest in that…

We have a hard time with this in the church… so what we do is try to shore up weaknesses and amplify strength… we want supermen and superwomen and super-pastors… it was the same in Paul’s day…

One of the most powerful things that happens in the church is water baptism… another person is placing you under the water and bringing you up… it’s a symbol of vulnerability…

One of reasons we have siloed leadership is because we’re afraid to show our weaknesses… when we embrace our vulnerability it creates the possibility of our leading together…

We need to learn once again the ancient wisdom that God is our all… too many leaders are trying to achieve something existentially inside the church that only God can fill, and that’s driving their leadership into bad places…

Episode 080: 10 Hopes and Prayers Pt. 1

In this episode we sit down to talk about an article written by Andrew on 10 hopes and prayers for the next 10 years. (The original article can be found here.)

I would love to see the church become more spiritual… there is a vacancy of mystery in the church… we reduce everything to five easy steps, and it doesn’t satisfy the deepest thirst of the human soul…

The church needs to not be ashamed of the one thing it can offer that no one else can…

We need to recapture wonder… I think that we’re not surprised enough in church… the Holy Spirit is right here, and right now, which means that anything can happen…

The late Robert Jenson said that the basic difference between a living God and dead god is that a living God can still surprise us, and that’s what we see in the New Testament…

Our services are not unplanned but they are unscripted… we know that there are elements that will always be there, but it is the unscripted element that brings it to life…

Structure can and should have wonder in it… our way of holding the Creed and the Lord’s Prayer ought to be full of wonder…

In order to do this, we are going to have to slow down… I want the church in North America to swear off the haste that has become characteristic of its life…

God takes time, and we can too… sometimes when I am sermon prepping, the most effective thing I can do is just to leave it alone… go for a half hour walk, take some deep breaths, take in the landscape, and remember the Story…

When we are moving too fast, we don’t listen well, and when we don’t listen well, we don’t engage deeply in relationship, and we miss too much…

We are living in a time that is incredibly angry… the volume is so high and so many people are just talking past one another… it is a symptom of the haste that is in our hearts…

The frightful despotism of “I have to win” where life is a zero sum game is so destructive to our commonwealth, and I think that the church can lead the way on (changing) this…

Episode 079: Four Rules for Teams

In this episode we discuss four rules for how teams should function in their meetings.

Rule number one is you have to tell the truth… if it’s a bad idea, we want to hear about it… I need people in meetings who will tell the truth…

I would rather hear that something is a bad idea on Tuesday rather than on Sunday after my sermon… if you are thinking it in a meeting, don’t walk out carrying it with you…

If we can’t tell the truth in meetings, over time it will weaken the organization…

Rule number two is that you need to share the best ideas… I want creativity in the meetings… if people aren’t sitting in the meetings exploring and pushing the envelope, they don’t need to be in the meeting…

I want there to be a tension in the room that we challenge the status quo… I do not want people sitting there holding onto all their best ideas…

There needs to be robust debate in meetings for them to really work… I want my team members thinking outside their boxes, looking at everything with a fresh set of eyes… the best meetings are when there is really good debate… the best idea always wins…

Rule number three is that you can’t be in the meeting if you are afraid of being decisive… we have to make a decision…

I like to be around people who don’t get bogged down by data… at some point we need to make a decision…

A good leader with good instincts recognizes that if there is division in the room, we can’t move forward… we need to come to unity…

Rule number four is that if we make the decision, the people in the room all need to own it in public… but this is impossible if people haven’t been given an opportunity to weigh in…

The cardinal sin of team is to walk out of the meeting and say, “Well, you know I had a different perspective on this”… you can’t go out of the meetings nodding yes with your head but no with your heart…