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The Tyranny of Out of the Box

I'm a sucker for the next big idea. I admit it.

I crave the edge. I hate status quo.

I've seen this work for good. In our journey to discover what God is up to in Columbia and to join Him in that work, it has been good. We had to leave behind a lifestyle and a ministry style that was quite comfortable and embrace an entirely new posture.

But, this passion can also work against me.

When I constantly chase the out of the box idea, I feel like I am running 1000 miles per hour with my feet one inch off the ground. Lots of great thoughts, ideas, conversations, but no real progress.

What if, by defining or accepting a box, my ability to innovate, create, and see forward movement increased?

After a few months living in Columbia, we had met interested people that live all over Metro Columbia and discovered needs and opportunities all over the city. The problem was prioritizing and focusing...I simply couldn't.

God clearly showed me that our initial box is in Northeast Columbia - it's where Lara Beth and I grew up, it's where we have the most street cred, it's where our best relationships are, it's where we know needs and opportunities and have the connections to do something about it. I can ignore it or accept it. To ignore it is to accept little or no progress and tons of big ideas. To accept it is to put the rubber on the road and get something done...with the big ideas all still attainable.

Out of the box thinking is great until it paralyzes you. When you feel paralysis setting in, look for a box and accept it. Once you accept your box, leverage, innovate, and create within it like crazy.

A Thought on Innovation

Innovation is a big buzzword in church leadership circles these days. It's a nice idea that seems out of reach for so many of us. But maybe it seems out of reach because we've defined it incorrectly.

Don't confuse innovation with big, flashy, and expensive. Definitely don't confuse it with popular.

Innovation happens under the radar, not necessarily in the public eye. Once an innovation bursts onto the scene and is embraced, it becomes status quo because it won't be long before everyone else is doing it. Think "contemporary" worship services. Or Think Egg Drops. :-) Or...the list goes on.

My point...if innovation happens under the radar, then anyone can play, not just the paid professionals. And this is key for the Body of Christ to function at its best - the seeds of the Kingdom are in you and you are called to be a missionary in the places where you live, work, and play. What if, instead of so easily embracing someone else's status quo and/or waiting on the professionals to innovate, you got crazy and pioneered new ways to love and serve people in your office? What if you pioneered new ways to create community and meet needs in your neighborhood? What if you pioneered new ways to love and serve the students in your dorm? You can. You don't need permission from a professional.

The Body of Christ is severely hindered when we (leaders and others) think innovation only happens on Sunday mornings and/or is only initiated by the paid professionals. The result of this system is more status quo than we realize.

Innovating is an all-skate...and you're invited! There are ways to reach people that are far from God that I could never come up with...but you can. So do it...and teach me as you do!

That's Quotable: Be the Scrappy Underdog

"Nobody ever accomplished anything by believing the naysayers. And few have done so by sticking to proven ideas in proven fields.

It's those who follow the road less traveled who create new industries, invent new products, build long-lasting enterprises and inspire those around them to push their abilities to the highest levels of achievement.

If you stop being the scrappy underdog, fighting against the odds, you risk the worst fate of all: mediocrity."

- Howard Schultz, Chairman and CEO of Starbucks, in his book Pour Your Heart Into It

***This book is one of the best I have put my hands on in quite some time. I've got a series of posts cookin' for next week, but I had to throw this out there for all you college students, aspiring or established church planters, and change agents who have dreams of something unique happening in your city and in your life.

The Commoditization of the Church Experience

I'm going to fumble through this, so bear with me.

Last month, Starbucks founder and chairman Howard Schultz sent a "battle cry" memo to the Starbucks executive staff. The content of the email warned of the "commoditization of the Starbucks experience." Schultz explained with great transparency and humility how several decisions along the way have led to a loss of some of the key aspects of the Starbucks experience.

For instance, by choosing to replace the manual espresso machines of yester-year with automated espresso machines, the "theatre" of a barista manually preparing your drink with skill and artisanship has been negated. Or, by choosing to use FlavorLock packaging as a means of keeping roasted coffee beans fresh, the aroma of fresh ground coffee has been virtuallly negated - it's trapped inside a machine.

The positive value of these decisions and many others is that each Starbucks location can maximize productivity, efficiency, and consistency. A latte at one Starbucks will likely taste identical to a latte at any other Starbucks. And, larger volumes of people can receive their drink in shorter time frames due to the automation and efficiency of the equipment used.

The negative is that Starbucks has to deal with some very diffficult questions: have we diluted the experience in the name of efficiency and volume? Is everything so automated that nothing feels personal? Is everything so programmed that nothing feels organic?

I have to admit, I fear the same could easily be true of our church and others like ours. Are we so focused on efficiency that we dilute the authentic experience of messy people engaging in a messy journey. The journey to Jesus and into relationship with Him is like a fingerprint - everyone's is different. Are we so pre-programmed that some of that experience is lost?

As a Strategic Partner with North Point, we adopt many of the strategies that have been proven to work at North Point. Believe me, we do this because we believe in it and we believe it is the way God has called us to structure Catalyst. But in doing so, we run the risk of being so focused on the strategy that we forget about the people who participate in and pull off the strategies. Maybe some of what worked in Alpharetta doesn't work in Greenville. We have to be willing to figure that out when it happens. And figure it out in a way that makes us better at connecting with the people God has called us to reach.

I'm re-reading McManus' masterpiece, An Unstoppable Force. It was one of the first books I read after I told God I would obey if He called me to start a church (I'm sure He was relieved :-)). It's a perfect time for me to read it again because it has reminded me of so much that gets lost in "doing church." I am all for structure and organization. I am all for good leadership principles being applied to make the local church better. I am all for us figuring out how best to steward resources wisely and accomplish our mission at the same time. But at the end of the day, the local church is not an organization - it is a movement. It is the body of Christ. And Catalyst is a part of the universal body of Christ. Inherent within the local church is an organic nature. And the leadership challenge I face is leading Catalyst in such a way that the organic nature is protected, celebrated, and given freedom, while also having a laser focus on the mission God has given us.

This is a real learning season for me. It's a learning season for our church. We have such a great strategy - I really do love it. We have so many great people - I really do love them. God dropped us in a wonderful city - I love Greenville. My prayer as we go through this season of making some changes to how we do things, as I make changes in how I do things, and as we prepare for next steps, that God would protect us from commoditization. That an experience with a Catalyst environment or attender would be authentic and exciting. That the strategies we enact would be productive, yet personal. That we would be a movement of the Spirit, not a monument of automated strategy.

12/6 or 24/7?

Weird title for this post, but a lot of really strong coffee is in me right now, so weird things roll around in my head.

I just read on Fast Company's blog that McDonald's is considering offering their breakfast menu all day. The driving reason is...surprise...Starbucks. McDonald's makes their money selling breakfast and they've spent time and money to upgrade their offerings, and most importantly, their coffee. A friend of mine swears by it, so I tried it one morning and...surprise...it wasn't bad, but it wasn't Starbucks either.

While McDonald's discovery that breakfast is where they have an edge and focusing their resources on making it better is good, offering it all day may actually be a bad thing. Here's what Jim Gilmore says on the FC blog:

Maybe the move to all-the-time breakfast will prove to be some help to McDonald's. Who's to know? I do know this, however: the move to a 24/7 world has a homogenizing effect on the perception of value by consumers. In retail, the very processes by which companies grow their businesses -- establishing more and more outlets with more and more hours open -- are the very same processes that kill brand, as Sameness creeps in.

To be available all the time destroys any sense of being exceptional, turning one's offerings into mere utilities. I truly believe that not being available at every single moment may actually endear oneself to customers. Such accounts, for example, in the real appeal of Chick-fil-A being closed on Sundays. It's authentic in its walking away from eeking out every last nickel from the enterprise.

Sounds like a narrow the focus argument to me! Could it be that by not being "open" 24/7 or seemingly every night of the week that the perceived value and authenticity of a church increases?

Status Quo

If you're not reading Seth Godin's blog, you should be. I've said before that some of his posts leave me staring at the computer screen trying to figure out what he just said and some I get immediately. But his posts always stretch my thinking.

Today, Seth posted on how leaders defend the two bad words of the English language - status quo. On the surface, most people say they want to battle against status quo. But, when you hear and say these things Seth posted on his blog, you find out that we actually love status quo. These are my favorites off his list:

Top ways to defend the status quo

"That will never work."
"Can you show me some research that demonstrates that this will work?"
"Well, if you had some real-world experience, then you would understand."
"I don't think our customers will go for that, and without them we'd never be able to afford to try this."
"Well, this might work for other people, but I think we'll stick with what we've got."
"We'll let someone else prove it works... it won't take long to catch up."
"Our team doesn't have the technical chops to do this."
"Maybe in the next budget cycle."
"We need to finish this initiative first."
"It's been done before."
"It's never been done before."
"We'll get back to you on this."
"We're already doing it."

Watch for these subtle defenses of status quo in your next leadership meeting and squash them immediately. If you're the one using them, then let someone else squash you!

By the way, Seth's new book, Small is the New Big, is out. It's a collection of his best blog posts, Fast Company articles, e-books, and essays. Probably not a "read straight through" type book, but one to use when you need a creative, status quo-busting, kick in the pants.

Great Expectations

People have all kinds of expectations of what a local church is or should be. Church people have different expectations than unchurched people. People who gave up on church have different expectations from people who are brand new to church. Figuring out which ones to ignore and which ones to pay attention to is an important, yet difficult series of decisions for a new church.

Seth Godin provides some great insight on what to do with expectations:

"Faced with expectations, you've got three really big options:

1. Embrace expectations and build a product or service that fits what people are looking for. No change of behavior necessary. Be in the right place at the right time with the right thing priced appropriately and hope the competition doesn't show up.

2. Change the expectations. No one expected to be able to buy digital music for 99 cents a song and have it show up on their iPod. Now, that's the default expectation in some communities. Changing an expectation builds a huge barrier to those that might follow. Change is time consuming, expensive and rarely happens on schedule.

3. Defy the expectations. Do the unexpected. This is tempting but often leads to nothing but noise.

Before you start marketing something, it helps to be able to describe which combination of the three you're setting out to accomplish."

Which expectations do you embrace, which do you change, and which do you defy? Big questions if you want to create irresistible environments where Christians bring their unchurched friends, where de-churched people reconnect, where over-churched people feel refreshed, and where unchurched people feel safe.

Both/And

The weekend in Kentucky was great. Good friends, great worship, and our Great God leading people to take initiative. And, I met some cool people on my flights there and back.

Godin makes a comment in Purple Cow that should bring some great encouragement to all of us trying to lead irresistible churches. "Remarkable doesn't mean ridiculous." I've seen and heard lots of church leaders attend conferences or services at North Point or other such megachurches and leave saying, "Good grief, we'll never be able to do that." Not so.

Remarkable doesn't happen because of gadgets and gizmos. Sometimes those are some of the tools and parts of the process, but they don't have to be. Likewise, boring is not the absence of gadgets and gizmos.

To me, as I wrestle with this issue of being remarkable, I think it's finding what Jim Collins calls the "both/and" principle. Whether it's creating a worship environment, developing a church strategy, or starting a new ministry, leaders do not have to choose either cultural relevance or authenticity. In fact, it seems to me that remarkable may be finding the balance between the two.

For instance, it is impossible to say that Jesus was not culturally relevant. When He spoke to farmers, He used farmer terms. When He spoke to fishermen, He used fishermen terms. He used metaphor and language that connected with His audience because it showed them that He knew the world they lived in very well.

But, He did not use culturally relevant terms/tools at the expense of authenticity. Jesus was and is the definition of authenticity because He is the Word in the flesh. You can't get any more authentic than that.

And so, I think the great challenge is to find the balance. And, it's actually harder to find the "both/and" than it is to be "either/or." That's why I am thankful for the team I work with week in and week out. It's a team that loves the people of the Upstate and a team that desperately wants to partner with Christians to reach their unchurched friends. And because of this love and this desire, they work tirelessly to find this balance. We're probably not all the way there, but I love where we're heading.

So, thanks to the people of CC! God is using you to create environments where He is free to work in the hearts and lives of men, women, and children! Keep running hard!

Purple Church

I have no idea why it took me so long to do it, but I finally read Purple Cow by Seth Godin. The main idea: Brown Cows = boring; Purple Cows = remarkable.

What if we took the same idea and applied it to our churches? What would it take for Catalyst Church to be a Purple Church? What would it take for your church to become a Purple Church?

As Seth says, in most every market, the boring slot is filled. In church world, it seems we fight over the boring slot. I have developed a very low tolerance for boring church. One reason: Jesus was not boring.

Jesus was purple because of how He lived, who He hung out with, where He ate, and what He talked about. The funny thing is that people who should have loved Him the most hated Him the most (the religious leaders - Pharisees). And the people who should have hated Him the most loved Him (tax collectors, prostitutes, sick people, poor people). Why? He was remarkable. They'd never seen anything like Him.

As I understand the New Testament, the local church is to be a reflection of Jesus. Apply the boring test to determine if your church is purple: who is more drawn to the environments of your church? Purple draws people who should hate church and who need Jesus the most - boring draws the religious church hopper looking to get fat and happy taking up a seat..."their" seat.

I don't know about you, but I want to be a part of a remarkable church. I want my kids to love church. I want my friends who are far from God to be drawn to the environments of Catalyst Church. I want to be a part of a church that truly reflects Jesus, not the tired traditions man has installed.

As Seth says, boring is invisible; remarkable is worth talking about. Be Purple!