Silos, Politics and Turf Wars

Silos, Politics and Turf Wars? 

You have an innovative outreach idea that has the potential to make a huge impact. You begin to try to implement this wonderful NEW outreach idea knowing it could help build a bridge between ministries to move seekers along on their spiritual journey's. As you move forward, you discover that established ministries within your church are not interested in your bridge? As a matter of fact you watch, as they dig a mote around their turf, call others into their castle and raise the drawbridge around their kingdoms.

Sound familiar? Disillusioning right? Sad? Kind of takes the wind out of your outreach sails aye?

You cast vision and try to build a bridge to the Christians (before you can begin building a bridge to the seekers) You try to dialog, but you get stiff armed, no one answers your e-mails or returns your phone calls. When you do finally connect, you hear comments like: That is not how we do things, we have always done it this way, if we promote this, won't people leave our ministry and attend yours, if we cooperate/partner with you, we'll be out of business, why are you competing with us?

Amazing how we can get so invested in our own kingdoms, that we can totally miss investing in God's kingdom and His mission.

I realize that I can be just as guilty as anyone else. If I am not careful , my focus can shift from God's agenda to my own agenda. It's very subtle, you answer God's call, you step up to lead, you raise up a team, you give sacrificially and spend hours investing in your mission, your ministry and your people. It's easy to start thinking it's yours, but it's not! It all belongs to God, and I need to remember to hold things with open hands offering it all back to Him. It's His kingdom not ours and hopefully change will drive us to our knees and force us to see the bigger picture.

We have the potential to powerfully impact lives with the Gospel if we call an end to turf wars, tear down the silos and let down our drawbridges. People experience God's kingdom when we tear down the walls and serve together, for His kingdom and glory, not our own. Let's remember who bought and paid for the castle, it all belongs to the King of Kings!

Matthew 6:33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.

John 17:20-22 Jesus Prays for All Believers “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one:

Would you like to learn more about how to combat Silos and Turf Wars? Patrick Lencioni is a New York Times best-selling author, speaker, consultant, founder and president of The Table Group, a firm dedicated to helping organizations become healthy. Lencioni’s ideas around leadership, teamwork and employee engagement have impacted organizations around the globe. I heard Patrick give a great talk a few years ago at the Willow Creek Leadership Summit, called Silos, Politics and Turf Wars and it gave me great insights into how to gather people around a common mission.  http://www.tablegroup.com/

Outreach: How Do We Measure Success? Can We Fail?

I have been doing outreach for the past three years, with a team of amazing leaders. They have passion, heart, courage and tenacity. They love lost people and are committed to loving them over the long haul. They stepped out in faith with me in a big way to blaze new trails. They could have played it safe, following the well worn path of others, but they wanted to live life on the edge with God. You know, going to that place God is calling you,  knowing that the whole thing is doomed to fail, unless He steps in. Ever been there? "Evangelists drive the church in a good way" my wise pastor told me," because they are never satisfied, they are always looking for ways to reach just one more" Do you live in that tension?

We have seen and are seeing God at work in amazing ways on our journey together. He is transforming our seeking friends lives as well as our own. We have prayed, worked hard, given and loved. We have poured lots of sweat and yes tears into our mission. But what happens when you pray, build relationships, work hard, promote, train, plan and invite and ... seekers don't come? Has this ever happened to any of you? Time for true confessions. When I work on outreach events/projects this is a huge fear I have to do battle with. Doubts creep in and try to drown out my faith. In our humanness, it is so easy to let the fears take over, to rationalize and justify that it's not worth taking the risk. Oh but it is, it really is!

A defining moment happened for me this fall. While sitting in a meeting, one of our pastors asked, "if we run this outreach successfully, what will that look like"? How do we measure success? Does outreach fail? When I Googled "failed outreach" ... (to learn more about failure)... I came up with nothing, as hard as I searched. Good news right! Because as a wise mentor once told me " An outreach is successful if we GO, the rest is all in God's hands" How do we measure success in outreach... by reporting numbers, setting goals, and making our quotas? Or ... Do we understand that we are successful when we are being obedient and faithful to the mission God has intrusted to us? Do we need to be good stewards, to prepare, and organize? You bet. Do we need to try to discern where and how God is at work? Absolutely! But at some point we have to "GO", and when we go, we are successful in God's economy.

I can remember my heart being broken into pieces many times. I have spent hours weeping in prayer over seeking friends who walked away, still not knowing Jesus.(my own children included) Ever been there? I LOVE that Willow Creek has a crying bench up front near the cross so believers can sit and weep over lost family and friends. They don't sugar coat it or deny it, they expect that there will be pain. Outreach will cost us something, just like it cost Jesus. Our job is to be faithful in loving, praying, inviting, asking, and going. Please feel free to share your outreach experiences as well, I would love to hear from you.
Be blessed as you go, knowing you are already successful.


Philemon 1:6 I pray that you may be active in sharing your faith, so that you will have a full understanding of every good thing we have in Christ.

Hebrews 12: 2-3 Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.

Failure to Launch

I was talked into surrendering my Blackberry last year, and made the leap of faith, with much fear and trembling, to an IPhone. I still have my training wheels on for sure, but I am beginning to get over the trauma and learning curve and have begun to feel pretty pleased with myself.

A few months ago I discovered a new (free) game app for my IPhone called, Sheep Launcher. "Now here's something that will charge my batteries", I thought! The object is to launch a sheep as far into the sky as possible, without letting him fall to the earth and splatter. (I have successfully launched my sheep into outer-space and earned the rank space cowgirl) Silly game? You bet!

But It made me think, "Ohhhh if only mobilizing the church to share their faith could be this easy"! Why don't we sheep launch? Why do we prefer to stay in and get fat? How is it we so easily forget how precious the lost ones are to our Heavenly Father? Why is there a failure to launch?

Matthew 18: 12-14 “What do you think? If a man owns a hundred sheep, and one of them wanders away, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the hills and go to look for the one that wandered off? And if he finds it, truly I tell you, he is happier about that one sheep than about the ninety-nine that did not wander off. In the same way your Father in heaven is not willing that any of these little ones should perish.

Jesus loves lost sheep.

Spiritual Questions?

Losing My Religion: If I'm So Done With Faith, Why Do I Still Feel Its loss?

That was the Huffington Post headline that met me head on when I opened my email yesterday morning. It got my attention because I think it's a question that many people ask themselves today. The article was written by Margaret Wheeler Johnson, the Women's Editor for Huffington Post. In it she chronicles her journey of faith, her departure from religion, her life without faith, and the aching loss she still feels despite her negative experiences with religion.

A few things struck me profoundly:

• It reminded me of my own faith story and my journey from religion to relationship.

• It gave me hope because she was still wresting with and questioning that loss.

• It drove home how few safe places there are in the world today, even within Christian community, to discuss questions about faith and life.

• The depth of the anger, pain and disillusionment expressed by those who left comments was overwhelming.

• Christians who commented tended to argue/pick fights, and in so doing, missed opportunities to extend compassion, to listen, and to step in the gap to apologize (acting as agents of healing)

•  It gave me a glimpse into the hearts and minds of those who live life apart from God and I began to grieve deeply and pray specifically for our communities, our nation, our faith communities and our world. (I was convicted that I don't pray for the lost enough)

I did leave a comment: “I believe there is a God sized hole in each human heart, that only He can fill. Religion and tradition will always disappoint and disillusion. A relationsh­ip with the living God is all that can satisfy and make us complete. He designed us with that yearning so we would seek after Him, though it seems, He is already seeking after and pursuing us...”

And I did receive many sad, angry and hate-filled responses from folks interacting on her page. I won't bother posting all of them but here are two in particular:

"Nice pretty words, there, but meaningless."

"It's kind of like missing the Parent that beat & abused you, and who you still hate even though they're now dead.... It's wishing things had been different, wishing you had, had a parent like the great parents one of your friends had. Even if you still miss your hateful parent, you still long for what could have been."

I believe that people are still searching hard to find purpose and meaning for their lives, they wish their experiences with church and religion had been different and they are still longing for what could have been. How will we, the church, respond to these kinds of opportunities? Will we get it right? Are we willing to listen as they tell their pain-filled stories? Can we listen without judging? Will we validate their pain or try to minimize it? Where will they go to ask spiritual questions? If they come to you, will you respond with love?

Lord help us, Your church, to be that safe and loving space for people to come, just as they are, with their spiritual questions. Help us to love them with your strength, mercy, wisdom and compassion, so that they might encounter You.


Link to view the full article
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/margaret-wheeler-johnson/atheism-religion-doubt-faith_b_1172849.html?ref=tw

Creating Safe Spaces to Explore

Creating safe spaces for conversations has become a reoccurring theme on several ministry projects I'm currently involved with. When I think of safe spaces for deep conversations the words intentional, honesty, trust, mutual respect, love, humility, authenticity, gentleness, and confidentiality all come to mind.

It made me wonder how many faith communities intentionally create safe spaces for those who are not Christians to stop in and engage in conversations to explore, experience, debate and perhaps even disagree with the claims of Christianity?

One of the things I often help church leaders think through is how they might help people move forward on their spiritual journey's: from being outside the church, to actively seeking , to surrender to Christ, on to growing as a believer. Does your church have a path in place to help people move from place to place as they grow?

Interesting Facts:

• One of the biggest barriers for people outside the church: their own negative experiences with church, Christians and/or those they considered to be religious people. 

(based on eleven years of my own experience, engaging non-Christians in conversations about spiritual questions: 80% of the people I spoke with had a bad religious/church experience)

• The first step for many seekers who came to faith in Christ learning to trust a Christian

(2000 new converts were interviewed about their spiritual journey in Don Evert's book

I Once Was Lost: What Postmodern Skeptics Taught Us About Their Path to Jesus) A great read by the way!

Safe spaces for seekers to engage in no pressure conversations about spiritual questions, often allows God the freedom and space He needs to break into individual lives. Can you locate those safe spaces within your faith community?

Who Cares

Last year I was on retreat with our Alpha National Team in sunny Sarasota Florida. As a rookie missionary I soon learned that the word retreat in ministry, does not necessarily mean hanging out together with God, quiet time, or solitude. This was a working retreat and we were pretty busy working together in teams from the time we arrived, till the time we left.

One very profound moment for me was on Sunday morning, when I heard a sermon that contained the story of the founder of the Salvation Army, William Booth. William received a vision from God. It was a vision of Christians going about their business resting, relaxing and enjoying life safely on the shore, while 1000's who did not yet know Christ, were sometimes only an arms length away drowning in a stormy sea. The Christians ignored them, and many met their peril. This God given vision drove the man in His calling and mission for the rest of his life. This picture is sort of a modern rendition of his dream.

This story had a profound impact on me. I began to ask myself, do you notice people? Do you make time to notice those the Lord has placed around you every day? Are you willing to make time, to turn aside, to reach out, to pull someone who is drowning to shore? Or are you to busy doing Christian things to see those who are still in the water? Do you pray for them, make time for them, invite them? Or do you let them drown?
I saved this picture so that I could look at it often to remind myself of what our mission is while we are here on earth. Its an urgent mission and I pray that I never get too busy doing Christian things, to hear, to see, to notice, to love, to go. Who cares?

 ⁸ Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?”
   And I said, “Here am I. Send me!”Isaiah 6:8