History in the Making

Wednesday Morning Run-Down

• My book Church in the Making is out TOMORROW
• The early bird deadline for Whiteboard is TODAY
• Cannot wait for you to hear the completed stories of my Dream Year class come December 2010. It's only month three, and I'm blown away.
• When you're starting out, they dismiss you...
• When you're growing, they criticize you...
• When you're successful, they resent you...
• Being dismissed is the easiest of the three, so savor this season, my fellow dreamers.
• John Saddington missed a career in parkour
• If you're anywhere near Portland, my friend Jordan Chesbrough is an amazing photographer for hire. If you live anywhere else, his design work is stunning.
• My friend Joan Ball's new book wins for best cover art. Joan is a writer for Beliefnet and a former atheist.
• The Boom De Ah Dah phenomenon
• There's a regular at Starbucks who looks like a UFC fighter and speaks with a Russian accent. Yesterday, I spotted a gun tucked into the back of his pants.
• Incidentally, there's a Russian prostitution ring in Va Beach. I'm sure Money Magazine didn't factor that in when they ranked this the #1 place to raise a family.
• The STORY website launches in a few days.
• That Gordon Ramsay show about restaurant make-overs is awesome. I'd love to do that with church plants. "Hell's Church Plant" ... er ... =)
• Two years ago, I described the premise of Church in the Making to a leader in the Exponential Network and he looked at me and said, "Who cares?" Ouch. No hard feelings, but I do hope you'll help me show him just who.
• There's going to be a whole generation of kids who despise their fathers' perceived workaholism... but it'll turn out they were just twittering.

The Platform of the Future

I've been pondering a blog re-invent for a while. The game has changed, and I'm not so sure standard blogs have much of a place anymore. Social media has neutralized thought leaders, and good writing has been replaced by soundbites. My favorite bloggers hardly do it anymore, and the blogs still trying hard have taken on an authoritative tone, which is just annoying.

I think the platform of the future is an integration of FB, Twitter, Flickr and video - all in one place, in one seamless environment. It would be a multi-dimensional platform with different levels of engagement. Some great examples:

• Mark Driscoll's FB account
• Justin Bieber's website
• Charles Trippy's world in Tampa, FL

Whiteboard Early Deadline on Wednesday

Register here

What Learning Looks Like...

Leaders who speak in catchy soundbites certainly get quoted a lot. But I don't think we grow as leaders by simply capturing their quotes. It drives me crazy whenever I see people dictate conferences. Here's what I think learning looks like...

1. It's a well-worn book with notes scribbled in the margins and inside the covers... a permanent position in your bag.
2. It's frustration and anger that you've been doing something the wrong way all this time... if only...
3. It's tear stains all over your notebook, as you wrestle with what God's been showing you...
4. It's the agony and humiliation of having to make a phone call to apologize for something...
5. It's sitting around with other leaders after a conference, arguing about what you heard throughout the day.
6. It's NOT sharing something right away because you're disconcerted with the implications for your own life.

The "What Do You Want?" Document

With at least of half of Dream Year's participants, we worked very quickly on creating a "What Do You Want?" document.

Let me shoot straight with you - people don't care about your cause. You could be trying to stop human sex trafficking, averting the AIDS crisis, or starting a new church - but there are waaaay too many causes for people to truly care about yours.

So when you gain audience with someone who could possibly help your org, you've got to make your ask clearly and quickly.

The one-page "What Do You Want?" document helps you clarify your own objectives and get to the point for your contact's sake. Spell out your vision, your organizational plan, and your ONE ask that's within reach for them.

Your "Not a Fan" Base

I understand the defining distinction between exterminators Orkin and Terminex. In Orkin commercials, bugs always get to drive off in cars and live while an Orkin employee stands in the front yard with his arms folded. With Terminex, it's total and complete annihilation. Represents two kinds of customers...

Ainsley and I are part of Orkin's "not a fan" base. (But I'm sure they have a solid base of fans who love to capture bugs in their homes and gently let them out the back door...)

It's not easy to accept this, but every project has a "not a fan" base. At STORY last year, at least 15% didn't like it. When I saw that on the feedback forms, it took my breath away. But that 15% also makes the core fan base stronger. The phrase "that's not for me" is the exact mechanism that produces raving fans.

Wonderment Wednesday

You're welcome.

It's the Formula that Gets Me

Every time my family travels, we stay at Embassy Suites. It's the simple formula:

• Open Atrium
• 2 Room Suites (to partition off our boys)
• Made to Order Breakfast
• Indoor Pool

I like simple. And I like what I like. And that I can get it every time... Whiteboard has a formula too.

• 1 Day
• 7 Influential Leaders
• 30 Minutes Each
• 1 Compelling Idea

There are other little nuances... like the DJ and the simple programming... but there's a core formula.

Create, man, Create

I strain to listen for how people are creating in their roles, not just fulfilling a job description.

Last night, I met a metallurgist with a PhD and got caught up wondering what incredible invention he was going to create. When I pressed him on it, he said, "Oh no, it's just a boring job."

A church staffer I know is sitting in the tension of maintaining status quo and keeping his job or risking it all for a ministry creation that could... I repeat, could... revolutionize his church. That darn mortgage and parochial school tuition...

It could be just me, but creating is WORTH all of the potential consequences that come with it: getting fired, being misunderstood, failure, having to start over. Because, for me, NOT creating is the greatest tragedy.

Wednesday Morning Run-Down

• As far as I know, the binding glue on Church in the Making is drying as we speak. I'm like a circa-1950s soon-to-be dad waiting outside the maternity ward.
• Great website about the making of title sequences at the beginning of movies, including Up In The Air and this nice little motion sequence for Sherlock Holmes.
• REWORK by Jason Fried is quite possibly the most well-written and insightful business book I've ever read.
• "My dream isn't tied to who I am as much as it is who I need to be." This brilliant quote came from one of my Dream Year participants, Christy Leake.
• Got to talk with taste-maker Allie Tsavdarides from TOM's Shoes this week. Love that company.
• Anyone remember Highway Video? The grainy, moody, super-8 videos with heart? Got to talk with founder Travis Reed this week, who is a remarkable conversation. He's now running Work of the People.
• Just another week or so before you get to see the STORY 2010 website. You're gonna die at the line-up this year.
• 99Percent Conference just released the rest of their keynotes this week. Charlie Todd of the incredible ImprovEverywhere in NYC is doing a workshop.
• I want to take my kids to the new Wizarding World of Harry Potter. For my kids, of course... my kids.
• Just want to make sure you know it's for my kids.
• Have been watching Willow Creek services on-line a bit. So exciting to see a new generation of young creatives on-stage. A new "wrapper" is needed to destroy biases.
• Get ready for a whole new season of Story Unfolding, starting with a live broadcast from Whiteboard. Doing this with my great friend Stephen Brewster at Integrity.

Seafood Dinner on me... Sort of

The best rate for Whiteboard ends March 31st. Don't miss out on a chance to register your whole team for the most discounted rate. Save the extra moolah for a team dinner at a seaside seafood restaurant. Not to mention... if you register by March 31, you'll get free audio from Whiteboard 2008.

Dream Year Participants, pt.4

More of my amazing Dream Year class...

1. Bjorn Amundsen - Aurora, IL
Bjorn is a brilliant artist, photographer and filmmaker who is working on his first short film project. He works for NURU by day, creates motion projects for freelance, and is now in pre-production with a great story. He just spent a week in LA building connections and preparing for the shoot this summer.

2. James Matthews - India
James is VP at a global health care company and lives with his family in his native India by choice, but he spends a great deal of time working in the States. He's got an incredible network of friends in business, government and ministry, and is launching the Sacred Revolution, which mobilizes the next generation to change the world. Our monthly phone calls (9p my time, 6a his time) can hardly contain the synergy we're building through this process. Can't wait for the world to see this.

3. Christie Farley - Orange County, California
Christie started with a huge dream to mobilize OC corporations to cure the "under the carpet" problems in America's most glamorous county. Her new organization was recently accepted into a new business incubator, and she's starting by helping the most impoverished schools become more resourced. Christie is a world-changer if I've ever met one.

How They Started: Image Church

Chris Rhodenhizer started Image Church in Dumfries, Va three years ago, and they're reaching over 350 people each week.

But you need to know the back-story because there are conditions that make or a break a new church before it starts...

Chris Rhodenhizer's father has led a large, traditional church in Alexandria for over 30 years. So when Chris started Image, it came out of the overflow of a thriving church.

Image started as an off-site campus for young adults because of space limitations. But when the ministry grew to over 200 people, Chris' father encouraged him to start a new church.

Chris navigated the loss of a facility and relocated once to find the best missional fit. But an elderly lady once handed him a check for $116,000 to put Image in a 5,000 square-foot facility, where they now meet... with additional space to grow.

It was a case of ROLLING ROCKS and DEEP ROOTS. Chris never had to start a core group from scratch. He was already leading them. These were people he had grown up with. And his father's church provided the people and resources to launch beyond the point of critical mass.

Image Church

This is a series of posts based on my book Church in the Making (B&H, April 1) which explains what makes or breaks a new church before it starts...

1. GOOD GROUND
2. ROLLING ROCKS
3. DEEP ROOTS

Free Audio from Whiteboard's 2008 Event

I'm excited to offer a special, little incentive to get registered for Whiteboard before March 31st - free audio from the 2008 event. The MP3 files come via e-mail upon registration. The early bird deadline is Wed, March 31st as well. Here's a little sample from Mark Dever's talk to whet your appetite:

The Resident Vibe Director

I care a lot about vibe. The feel of an environment. The music at a restaurant. The mood of a retail shop. The first impression at a church. For STORY, we planned every detail of the tactile experience from the feel of the attendee bags and background music... to the quill pens that the registration team used.

If hotels and restaurants can create vibe, you can too for your church, business, event. Here are some tips:

1. Put Shazam on your iPhone and catch music while you're out. I snag music all the time from bookstores, movie theaters, Starbucks and hotel lobbies.
2. Get recommendations from music aficionados. When I needed a Euro-techno soundtrack for Whiteboard 2008, I asked for help from Steve McCoy, who is one of the best sources of musical knowledge I know.
3. Open a Flickr account and let some photographers find the special angles and moments. Just look at Paul Stewart's photos... or STORY's photos... or Revolution's.
4. Consider all five senses. I visited Water's Edge Church a few weeks ago and was greeted with the knee-buckling waft of fresh baked cookies. Intentional, I'm sure.
5. Recruit great artists - even if they're from a different industry. The Orchard's resident artist Katrina Beck transformed the space for STORY's workshops; one of my Dream Year participants Bjorn Amundsen is getting movie set advice from an Anthropologie store designer; and I've asked child photographer, Stephanie Beaty, to shoot photo-booth images of Dream Year participants.

Premiere Video of Church in the Making

When we asked Wayne Breznika to create a special piece of art representing the book Church in the Making, he came up with this lovely mixed-media piece.

 

So when we decided to create a video for the book, Greg Pope disassembled his art to create this stop-motion masterpiece with original composition. Enjoy!

Wednesday Morning Run-Down

• Loving the book REWORK by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson, the founders of 37Signals
• I successfully left Moleskine behind for Behance's Action Journal. Love it, but wish it had thicker pages.
• Lots of linkage to OKGo's video This Too Shall Pass. But this other version is my favorite.
• Great ideas are spreadsheets with skin on.
• Working on book #2 at a slower pace than book #1. But I've got my system down by which a book will result.
• We should become "pregnant" with a beloved book. People who crank out book after book just because they can cheapen their writing with literary promiscuity.
• I'm loving this "How They Started" series more than anyone else. I marvel at how church planters will elevate the heroes of church planting, read their blogs, buy their books, and attend their conferences, but start their churches in the exact opposite way.
• The early bird deadline for Whiteboard ends March 31! Register by the end of the month, and I'll e-mail you the 2008 Whiteboard audio.
• I'm learning more from my Dream Year class than they are from me. It's like getting a doctorate in dreaming.
• Excited about Jon Acuff's book Stuff Christians Like, Mike McKinley's Church Planting is for Wimps, and Pete Wilson's Plan B launching in April, along with Church in the Making. Kudos to the first gen of published bloggers!
• Facebook surpasses Google in most visits? And I'm still not on it... missing out on all that Farmville.
• I'm launching the world premiere video of Church in the Making at 10:30 AM today...

How They Started: (Catalyst Church)

(This is a break story, so with much sensitivity...)

Jon Herron was on-staff at NewSpring Church in Anderson, SC before planting Catalyst Church in Kent, Ohio. He had never been to Kent, never lived in Kent, nor had any roots in Kent. But it was on a list of strategic cities for his denomination... so he and his wife Amber went to start a church.

Jon scored high on all of the church planting assessments for A29, Grace Brethen Churches and C&MA. The assessors were cheering him on, and everything looked good on paper.

They launched with 150 curious people on Sunday night, Sept 10, 2006 and dropped to half the next week, as almost all plants do. By Dec 2006, they settled-in at around 30 people.

After a re-launch close to Kent University on Sunday mornings, the church grew to 65 people, but after three years, Jon was exhausted from constant fund-raising. If he didn't stop, his family was going to suffer. He shut it down in April 2009.

It was a case of No Good Ground, No Rolling Rocks and No Deep Roots. Jon was forced to try and initiate the work of God, rather than join it. Jon's story shows that planting assessments measure everything except THE most critical factors.

Today, Jon is leading Colwood Church in Caro, Michigan. Over 89 people have accepted Christ in the past six months and the church has grown by 200 to a total 600 in that time period.

Catalyst Church

This is a series of posts based on my book Church in the Making (B&H, April 1) which explains what makes or breaks a new church before it starts...

1. GOOD GROUND
2. ROLLING ROCKS
3. DEEP ROOTS

The Women's Book that Men Are Reading

So I interviewed Sarah Cunningham about her new book Picking Dandelions...

ME: Sarah, congrats on the new book. What's it about?

SARAH: “It's a loose collection of stories that play to a universal theme—that humans (especially people in the faith) can’t afford the luxury of unchanged living. And it paints a metaphor of having to weed out one’s life to make room for more Eden intentions; more of the life God intended.”

ME: Who is it for? Cuz I see the dandelion, and I'm like...

SARAH: “I was thinking it would be 30 to 50 year old multi-tasking women, probably juggling a fast-paced career, laundry duty, and reading three or four books simultaneously. Maybe using a half-completed to-do list as a bookmark.”

ME: But no?

SARAH: "I was surprised that six of the seven people who opted to endorse the book were… men. And after the book hit the shelves, men have consistently made up about half the reviewers."

ME: Well, there is a rumor going around that Donald Miller wrote the book under the pen name "Sarah Cunningham."

SARAH: “Its been funny to watch. A lot of the men who mention the book to me, in emails or online, abbreviate it as PD—as if the title and the bright fuzzy flower on the cover, becomes a little more masculine."

ME: Are you surprised that men are reading it then?

SARAH: “Sorta. I was a little surprised that men got over the cover image. It wasn’t a bubble letter cursive font or hearts and lipstick smeared all over the cover, but it played to women. Now I imagine this underground group of muscle-y guys, flipping through the book with paper bags over their heads. Like the sports fans who are embarrassed by their teams.”

ME: What do you think that means?

SARAH: “Maybe the metaphor is bigger than I realized then. Its not just women kneeling in their gardens pulling stray dandelions; it's men firing up the weed-eater and mowing down hundreds at a time.”

ME: Yeah, that sounds like me.

Dream Year Participants, pt.3

More of my incredible Dream Year participants...

1. Chris McAlister - Pataskala, OH
Chris is long-time pastor with a strong pedigree in counseling. He's leading a church, getting his doctorate and writing a book at the same time. His dream is to lead transformative events for church leaders that will extend the life of their ministries and help them avoid burn-out. His first retreat happens in April and will serve as a beta-model for a national organization.

2. Amaris Kress - Spartanburg, SC
Amaris has compassion that is rare for her generation. One of her favorite passages of Scripture is when a friend of Job simply sits with him during his dark time. She's launching an organization called To Be Near, which will bring the compassionate love of Jesus to people in tragic circumstances. Her first trip will be to Haiti in May. Amaris has the perfect gift mix to bring people hope during crisis. The "history of her dream," as we call it, is very strong.

3. Brian Becker - Portland, OR
Brian has been working at a church in Portland for years. So when he and his wife explored planting a church, they thought they needed to move elsewhere. They toured several cities throughout Oregon and Washington, but nothing clicked. Building up his courage, he approached his pastor to get his blessing to plant in Portland... and got so much more. He not only told Brian he thought he was called to Portland, but he agreed to put the full weight and influence of the church behind him. Brian's planting in Woodstock, OR near Reed College.