The Church is not perfect; neither are we

"and that's the amazing thing about grace.  Regardless of how we struggle or how we fall, regardless of how many people are affected by our actions, God is a God of healing.  God is a God of restoration and life."  - Anne Jackson

The Church isn't perfect; neither is Grace; neither are you.  Yet some Non-Christians (and Christians) hold us (or each other) to that standard and chastise us when we [the church] fail.  On the flip and more importantly, some Christians need to stop acting like the picture of perfection while positioning themselves as anointed judges for those outside the church while critiquing every move of those leading the church. One of the most beautiful creations God has given us is the Body of Christ; His Church.  Isn't it unbelievable how much we can fail others, yet how beautifully God builds his Church with all of us that fail each other? I think He wants to see our responses each other as we fail and to understand how He responds to our failures everyday in the most beautiful and humbling way. As a human, man - I find this difficult as I am sure you do to. 

If we say we have no sin, we are only fooling ourselves 1 John 1:8

There are really 2 groups here:  those of us who have accepted the love of Christ, the gift of salvation and the most undeserving blessing of grace and those who haven't.  I hold those who have accepted His grace to a higher standard of responding to failure than those who haven't. 

I am humbled every morning to wake up an imperfect father/husband/leader/child of Christ to help lead a group of imperfect people who help lead a group of imperfect people to serve and worship God in a way that is honorable to Him, not ourselves or others.  And all of this is under the umbrella of grace, love, mercy and forgiveness granted us through the death and resurrection of Christ.



The Church has led poorly in the past and will again.  We lean on our own understanding too much and we are a group of people struggling with sin. We have made some bad decisions in the past year and we will make bad decisions again.  We will fall and we will fail in our pursuit of Jesus.  None of that changes the beauty of what God designed the church to be.  Its not a good enough of a reason for some of us to bounce around from church to church.  And it's disheartening to know when some of us act the way we act it invites hypocrisy statements from those outside the church. 
 
It also means that if God accepts me in the imperfections I struggle with, He also accepts others and the imperfections they struggle with; so should I; so should we. 

So let all imperfect people accept the gift of grace and mercy and pursue Jesus together with a passion from us that only He deserves!  That is a beautiful picture of the Body of Christ!

We will fail each other at times, but our Lord never does - "It is better to trust in the Lord, than to put confidence in man." - Psalm 118:8

Perfect Timing, or is it?

If you enjoyed the quick animated video by Daniel Pink on Motivation (in the previous post), then you will be sure to enjoy this animated video on the different perspectives of how we view time and how it influences who we are.
Take a listen especially to the part at the end with how we currently educate students.  What do you think?

Defending the 1st Impression

This past weekend, I had the joy of a weekend retreat with my wife to Niagara Falls.
We stayed at the Sterling Inn and Spa and had the most amazing time. It was a relaxing rare treat to have my every need anticipated from the moment we pulled into the parking lot. You have probably experienced this type of service while vacationing at a resort or on a cruise.

This was the type of service that anticipated my needs before I did. They thought of every detail so that my 3 day retreat from reality was not flawed by any distractions. The facility was clean, it felt safe, I felt cared for and my favorable first impression lingered with me throughout the entire stay without changing.

So then I began to evaluate our facility.

• What do guests experience from the moment they drive up? Is our parking lot inviting? Is our facility clean? Do guests feel safe here? What is your plan for the future to fix these if you lack the funds now? How are you counteracting distractions you can't immediately fix?
  
• How are you anticipating guests needs in the lobby? in the cafe? in the children's area? in the youth area? in our verbiage from the platform?
• Are you removing every and any distractions for the guest, as they construct their 1st Impression? As Jon McDerment once stated, "The building needs to be the last distraction to anyone searching for God-change."

The point is, guests are walking into your church every weekend with a million distractions and suitcase full of hurts and needs. If your ministries and facilities don't mirror your mission and vision for guests, they are going to be a distraction to the Gospel guests will hear once they are in your worship service. The style and quality of your 1st impression dictates the guests that stay or go elsewhere.

How we are changing our late culture at Grace

Below is our solution to.....
The Changing of a Culture (part 1 of 2) 12.18.08

The issue: The late culture at Grace

• The disruptions latecomers bring to the beginning of a worship service when not managed appropriately.
• How do we change a culture that is so prevalent in the country to not be the culture in our small little corner of the world.
• Who is negatively affected by our mismanagement of the distractions late guests/members/attenders bring. Apart from guests, as we start a service; are we valuing those that are timely in their seats and ready to begin worship more or are we paying more attention to those who are late thus enabling them to be a distraction?
• In general, our staff's strengths and weaknesses tend to rub off on most of our ministry leaders and members. If we all dressed sloppy, we would have more attenders that dress sloppy. And so it is with being timely. If we start everything late, won't people stop coming on time? How has our staff enabled this culture? How do we empower the staff to lead by example when they are serving on Sunday mornings? During the week, do we start meetings on time and finish them when we say we are going to finish them?

The collective solutions:

• We began a 10 minute countdown on all our TV media screens to help grab the attention of those in the lobby and sipping java in our cafe.
• At 4 minutes until service begins, we have live music specials begin playing in the Worship Center and close 3/4 of our doors to drive outside traffic in. The doors closing are a good sign to people not wanting to miss something. If you were in the parking lot at Disney and the gates began to close - you would probably sprint to make sure you get in. We want the same effect here. The music helps set the tone and make the 1st worship song more meaningful. Before we changed this, it seemed as though the first song was practice due to all the distractions from those who were late.
• As the countdown ends, all the main doors close and attenders are the escorted to the side entrance to prevent less distraction to those worshipping.

Has it worked? So far - yes. As long as your greeters and ushers deal with those that are late in a sensitive and welcoming fashion. This is one of those initiatives that needs sold well from the top down. If your ushers don't buy into a standard like this, those walking in 5 minutes late will not buy into it. The last thing you want is for one of your volunteers to be agreeing with someone that may question the new initiative or seem frustrated with it. You want everyone to understand you have many people that have put a lot of energy into making a 75 minute worship service valuable for all 75 minutes, not just the last 60 minutes.

One crack in a dam can lead to a flood. Make sure you communicate everything well and lead by example. Empower your volunteers to excel at making this work.

How has your church solved or not solved the late culture?

Voting with your feet (repost from my other blog)

For those of us in Office Country or Cubicle Land that have an influence on customers, guests, visitors, etc. I have one question for you:
What is your organizations, business or non-profits "dirty dining room"?

In the world of Restaurants, most people vote with their feet when they visit an establishment that lacks care for cleanliness. Sure, some patrons make a comment to an employee or the manager, but most just don't return. Dining room and bathroom cleanliness is most likely on the restaurants core values list, but lower than the value of something like quality food.

In search of quality food, most diners will complain over a bad meal because they perceive they are paying for quality food and not necessarily cleanliness.

Some thoughts:

• So your customers/guests pay for a main service or product. Your customers may be thrilled with that or at least willing to tell you when they are not. What is your company's "dirty dining room" that they may not be informing you about?
• Are your employees holding this "dirty dining room" to their standards, yours, OR the customers?
• Does your organization have a good avenue for customers/guests to voice their opinions about the "quality food" and "dining room cleanliness" or other values your company considers when marketing their product/service and building repeat business?
  

The Changing of a Culture (part 1 of 2)

For the last few weeks, I have had some constant and multiple thoughts on cultural changes that we need to start to do some thinking on.

For the last few weeks, I have had some multiple thoughts on cultural changes that we need to initiate brainstorming solutions for.
1. People at Grace tend to carry a late mentality. I am talking members, attenders and even staff. I know this is in part a reflection of how the world is, but how do we change a system that enables people to be late? Furthermore, how much of this is derived from our staff not being timely in their weekly connections with volunteers? We show up late to services, buy tickets late for events and don't end our meetings when we say we are going to end them.
I suppose maybe we need to create fences and draw clearer lines from the top on down. Start everything on time, no matter what. We do this pretty much for services, but what about meetings and volunteer trainings during the week? Do we create a culture where we just wait for everyone to get there? The trick is creating a balance of making the guests feel welcomed and making those who show up to the service late feel as though they are missing something. Apart from guests, as we start a service; are we valuing those that are timely in seats more or are we paying more attention to the late ones? Thoughts?

I have 2 more to post and will do those in part 2.......