Carbon Copy Leaders

This isn't a new concept, but it bears repeating. There are two ways you can go into a conference:

1. "What is your model and how can I copy it?"

2. "Why did you do that and what principles can I learn from it?"

Your community needs an original vision from your church, not one copied from elsewhere.

Comments

[Chilly]

great thoughts ... there's such a danger of looking for formula over faith. I share some thoughts along these lines today on my blog.

[Mike O]

I think there is a happy medium between a total bareface copy and a total foundationally original creation. Reengineering is nice, but we have a saying in industry:

"There comes a time in the life of a project when it is necessary to shoot the engineers and start production."

I think a conference can provide a quick pathway to a solution, and somewhere along that pathway, one has to leave the path and blaze a new trail. A key word here is "vision". Vision is a resource found in all your people, like talent and time and money. Part of blazing the trail is extracting a common vision from all your people.

But, back to conferencing, it does help to have a sense of what your people are (and what kind of people the conference is based on), before you get there. Often, you can ask a speaker details about his decisions, and how he may have made decisions about people like yours. He may have thought about your people, but may have had a smaller percentage than you?

[Jason Curlee]

Love the thought Ben...I have so been the second way for the many years of doing ministry...let me cut the principles that God shows me might work and then tailor them for what we are doing.

[Katie]

Amen! I think this is one of the biggest problems in the church today because it leads to inauthenticity which people see right through and want nothing to do with. Not saying we all need to reinvent the wheel, but we have got to have a reason for doing what we're doing that's better than "the church over there used it."