jayhardwick.com

Who's Leading You?

One of the best decisions I have ever made was seeking out a leadership coach. The thought first occurred to me after reading Andy's book, The Next Generation Leader, a couple of years ago. Sort of like a small group, my leadership coach is the person that has the inside track on my leadership. Consequently, he is empowered to ask me the tough questions.

There are lots of people that I turn to for advice. Business leaders, church leaders, old people, young people. I rely on them for perspective that I may not be able to achieve sitting "inside." But, with my coach, it's different.

Not only does he offer advice and endure my rants, he challenges me. He is close enough to what I do that he knows what I do and don't do. Not from 24/7 observation (at least I don't think it is), but by paying attention to the metrics that matter. He has a sense of "what's really going on" by reading the data presented by my attitude, concerns, dreams, victories, failures, etc. and by the actual data of our church. When he senses that I am drifting, that I am not being clear, that I am not focusing on what matters most, he has the authority and my trust to ask about it.

Yesterday, he asked me some tough questions. Questions I have never been asked, and so, I have never had to answer. Answering them was painful. Being honest with myself, with him, and with God was not easy. But, it's necessary. And it's good. God has handed the pruning sheers to my coach. I'm thankful that he's not afraid to use them.

At the same time, I have never had a bigger cheerleader/encourager than my coach. He notices things that I would never notice on my own. And, rather than just assuming that I see it too, he calls it out and makes sure that I get the necessary encouragement out of it. It's a gift that he has that I don't. I tend to be too hard on myself. My coach helps me see the good stuff that I miss.

Coach, thanks for not being afraid to encourage and to prune. I'm better for it.

No Perfect Churches

As 2006 winds down and we look ahead to 2007, we're doing some hardcore evaluating of environments at Catalyst. It can be a discouraging process because I see all the cracks and blemishes. It's exciting, though, because I know God is refining me, our team, and our environments.

I was really encouraged by Seth's post today. Here is an excerpt:

"If you read enough stories, it's easy to believe that Starbucks and Apple and the rest of the all-star list somehow manage to effortlessly create remarkable products and happy customers.

One thread that has become clear to me from reading my email is that there are no perfect companies, no ideal places to work, no marketers who always manage to please their customers.

The danger in celebrity worship is that it can persuade you not to bother trying. After all, the thinking goes, our organization is so thoroughly screwed up that we've never got a chance to be like them, so why bother? In fact, organizations like Apple struggled for years, and continue to struggle..."

And there are no perfect churches either. My heart is not for Catalyst to be a perfect church. I want it to be a healthy church. An effective church. An influential church. A contagious church. A missional church. I'm learning that it's easy for me to replace those adjectives with perfect, most of the time unknowingly. Anytime I say, "We're not as ________ as ________ Church," I have replaced the right adjective with the wrong adjective.

Thanks, Seth, for reminding me that there are no perfect coffee shops, computers, or churches.

Success is Not an Accident

A couple of months ago, God hit me in the face with a call to greater discipline. He showed me that I wasn't as disciplined as I thought and consequently, neither was our leadership team. Since then, I have been working to become more disciplined and our leadership team has been doing the same.

A tool that was given to me that has proven to be very helpful is called The Weekly Coach. It is a product of The 1% Club and can be found at www.successisnotanaccident.com. It has become a companion of mine and has really helped me focus my week. More importantly, it's not just a tool to help me work better. It is hopefully helping me become a better husband, a better dad, and a better friend, too.

FINALLY!

GAMECOCKS WIN 31-28!

You can thank me later, Gary. Perry is noticeably quiet. Meanwhile, all GAMECOCKS are CROWING!

I Need Benny Hinn

I need a healing prayer cloth. Or maybe I need to give a seed gift. Or maybe I didn't give enough.

I'm sick and on drugs. Can you tell? :-)

In fact, 3/4 of the Hardwick family has whatever it is that we have. The good news is Lara Beth, my wife, has dodged it to this point. If she's sick and it's up to me to make the Hardwick house work, then we'd all be in trouble.

None of us were able to go to church yesterday, too, which absolutely stinks. There was a time in my life when being sick on a Sunday was like being able to stay home from school. Even in my "professional" life, there have been plenty of Sundays when being sick was the better option. But not now. I hated being here yesterday and not being there. Everytime I would wake from my crud-induced stupor, I'd check the clock and think about what was happening. All reports are it was a good day.

But, check this out. A bird, a really large bird according to my sources, flew into one of the windows in the lobby of the theatre where we meet and died. There are several large windows around the lobby and apparently he thought one was a tunnel. Not so much. One eyewitness told me it sounded like one of the inflatable dinosaurs we're using in our current series exploded. Another told me it sounded like 30 birds hit the window, not just one. The good news...it happened as people were coming in for the 9:00 service. "Hi, welcome to...THUD..." Nice.

So, a dead bird and a sick pastor need Benny Hinn.

Book Review: In a Pit With a Lion on a Snowy Day

Every once in a while, I read a book and think, "Everybody I know should read this book." That is definitely the case with Mark Batterson's In a Pit With a Lion on a Snowy Day. It's not a book that's just for church people or Christian people or good people. It's for anyone that wants to experience the most out of life.

The premise of the book is that we are wired with a desire to chase. But as we grow up, our sense of adventure is replaced by fear. Consequently, we fail to see and seize opportunities and instead run to comfort and security.

God gave Mark tremendous insight into an obscure story found in the Old Testament. Before Benaiah was one of David's mighty men, he did the unthinkable.

"Benaiah chased a lion down into a pit. Then, despite the snow and slippery ground, he caught the lion and killed it" (2 Samuel 23:20-21).

Rather than doing the safe, smart, natural thing...running away...Benaiah stared the lion down and jumped on him. He didn't see the lion as a 500-pound problem, but a God-sized opportunity.

You and I face 500-pound lions everyday. We're faced with the same options Benaiah had - run and wonder "what if..." or chase the lion and see what God does. Benaiah chose to chase and God wants you and me to choose to chase.

With an engaging mix of biblical truth, personal experience, psychological research, and subtle humor, Batterson gives us 7 characteristics of lion chasers. God didn't wire us to sit on the sidelines, He wired us to chase. Batterson's fresh insight will give you the tools and encouragement you need to chase the lions in your life.

Who knows, this book could help you...ask her out, break up with him, quit your job, start a new company, start a church, move to Africa, change your major, write a book, or...who knows what else? You won't either unless you read the book!

So, click on the link at the beginning of this post, get your copy, and start chasing!

Find Your Niche

If I had to put together a list of books that any church planter should read before launch, Purple Cow by Seth Godin would definitely be on the list.  For that matter, if you're going to launch or lead anything, you need to read the book.  It's that good.

One of Godin's key points is that traditional marketing is dead.  Traditional marketing says, "Create an ordinary product and combine it with extraordinary marketing."  The reason it's dead is that people are so bombarded with messages and markets are so saturated that ordinary doesn't get attention and therefore, doesn't get market share.

Purple Cow says, "Pour your money, time, and energy into creating a remarkable product and trust people to talk about it."  People naturally talk about whatever is remarkable.

Nowhere is this more true than in church world.  In Greenville County, like a lot of other counties in the South, there seems to be a church on every corner.  How then does a new church get people's attention?

Godin contends that it is a mistake to try to market to everybody.  In church world, that means it's a mistake to try to be all things to all people.  Why?  When you try to be remarkable to everybody, you're remarkable to no one.  Hence the rise and fall of "blended" worship...whatever that means.  Or, a "contemporary" service and a "traditional" service, whatever they mean, at the same church.

The trick to being remarkable is finding your niche.  It's hard work, but it can pay off big time.  Figure out who you are uniquely designed and equipped to reach and you have answered a ton of other questions.  Finding your niche determines which area of family ministry gets the most resource, what style of music you play, what kind of graphics you use, what environments you do and don't do, where you locate, etc.

We started drilling down deeper on this question in our all-staff meeting on Monday.  We had already sliced the market thin, but now we're slicing it even thinner.  The smaller the niche, the better the chance at being remarkable.  We have some work to do to be remarkable and finding the smallest possible niche is the first step.

What's your niche?  Take a look at your community and figure out the wide-range of who's there.  Start slicing it thin until you can't slice it any thinner.  Then, go after that niche with everything you have and watch what God does!

One Sentence

Quick question...do you know where your job description is? Another one...do you know what it says? How do you know whether or not you're meeting expectations?

In the closing session at Drive, Andy talked about building high-performance teams. As part of the talk, he shared an exercise he did with each of his direct reports. He condensed their job description down to one sentence. Yep, one sentence. I thought we did pretty well when we got all of ours down to one page. As always, Andy trumps us all and gets it down to a sentence!

What a simple way to clearly define expectations for your staff. Andy said one of the greatest gifts you can give your staff is a clear description of what is expected of them. People are able to lead with passion and creativity when expectations are clear.

If you're job description is unclear, ask for clarity. If you're a team leader, give clarity. And, do it in one sentence.

40?

Some statistics from drive:

2500 attendees
from 18 countries
from 550 churches
from over 40 denominations
representing 700,000 attendees

40 denominations! Are you kidding? I can name about 6. Any takers on the other 34?

Charles Stanley

This morning's session at Drive was a beautiful collision of old and new. Andy Stanley's dad, Dr. Charles Stanley, took the stage to tell his story of dealing with conflict in ministry and staying faithful. After a great intro from Andy and a standing ovation from the 2500 church leaders in attendance, Dr. Stanley gave as transparent a talk I have ever heard him give.

He told stories of getting punched in a business meeting; lying down on his couch scared to death of a decision he knew he needed to make; attempts to fire him or threaten him into resignation. When you've been through what he has been through, you know a thing or two about dealing with conflict.

His bottom line was great:

Obey God and leave the consequences to Him.

To run away from fear or conflict is worse than getting fired. It's disobedience to God. We have to stand before God and account for our obedience, not our popularity. God assumes full responsibility for your obedience to Him. if you're not willing to obey God, you're up for compromise.

When you face decisions that bring about fear, you can obey God and see what He'll do or disobey God and wonder what He could have done. There will be a fork or two in your road and if you take the wrong road, it will effect the rest of your life. The tricky part is you don't know when you're at one of those forks.

As Dr. Stanley spoke, I thought about the decision our family made along with three others 2 years ago to leave paying jobs and security to launch Catalyst. Casey was thinking about the same thing. It was scary then and it's scary now. But I have no doubt that was a fork in the road in my journey and my family's journey. I cannot imagine the regret I would feel now if we had not taken the step we took 2 years ago. God does indeed take FULL responsibility for those who obey Him.

What is God asking you to do that scares you to death? As Dr. Stanley asked, "do you love God enough to obey Him and leave the consequences to Him?"