Time to Get Serious

Over the past few months the pace at LeaderTreks has picked up quite a bit (thus the lack of blog posts by me).  New products, new trips, new staff, new initiatives...it's all good and exciting... and took priority over my blog posting.  But today... I'm back.  

During the first week of May I went to Texas for 4 days to visit with several churches and partners we work with at LeaderTreks.  I was in Dallas, Carrolton, Frisco, Cleburne, Austin, San Angelo, and Spring.  It was a busy trip, but so rewarding.  The purpose of my trip was just to listen to our people.  I wanted to learn more about the day-to-day life of the youth pastors we work with.  My goal was to learn what they are doing, what's working, what's not, what the struggles are, what the highlights are, and what their future goals may be.

I won't share with you the details of my trip but I will tell you one common theme I heard, "it's time to get serious about discipleship."  In youth ministry, and in churches as a whole, leaders are searching for a cure to the problems they see in their followers.  And that basic problem is people in churches are not becoming disciples.  Their faith is shallow, their lifestyle worldly, their Bible knowledge non-existent, and their evangelism temperature is cold.  They are going through the motions, attending church but not radical about their faith.  Churches see that the missional movement is big and growing and they want to be a part of it, but don't know how.  So much of their history and their structures are set up on a different system.  Churches know the seeker sensitive or attractional models are not working to create disciples.  But they have a 2,000 seat auditorium with a $100,000 sound system.  What do they do?  In youth ministry numbers are shrinking, kids are leaving the faith, families are in trouble, and kids are busier than ever.  Sort of a dark and depressing picture isn't it?  

While I drove the roads of Texas, I began to think about how to solve this problem.  It's huge.  I know the key is real discipleship.  Discipleship like Jesus did it.  Not another Bible Study.  Not another cool event.  Not just another missions trip.  Not better small groups.  Real discipleship is messy and hard.  Discipleship means deep commitment.  Discipleship means investing our lives deeply into new believers.  It means walking with them, challenging them, empowering them, serving with them, developing them, rebuking them, running with them, and investing in them.  It is a huge time commitment.  Huge.  And it's not easy.

But what if we did it? 

What if churches actually stopped focusing on all these marriage seminars, men's retreats, golf outings, potlucks, and surface level small groups?  What if they said we're going to invest all our resources into developing disciples who will develop more disciples?  We're going to raise up mature men and women to invest in immature men and women (boys and girls even) for a significant amount of time.  I'm not just talking about Wednesday night small groups.  I'm not talking about just another Sunday night talk.  I'm talking about life-on-life deep development.  Serving together, evangelizing together, studying together, doing life together. 

What if the church looked at its structures and programs and said we are spending too much time investing in programs that serve as a "hospital" or "country club" or "sin management therapy" for adults and said we aren't going to do that for the emerging generation.  What if they committed to getting serious about discipleship of their young people.

111 - What if...

I hear the words "what if" often.  Especially in meetings.  The words come up often when a group of people are either trying to solve a problem or trying to launch a new idea.  Examples:  "what if instead of giving people a free t-shirt we gave them a free hat instead?"  or "what if we could fix the problem with shipping charges so that we wouldn't have to keep refunding people money?" or "what if we went to China and started doing more training there?" or "what if we could save money and buy our supplies more locally?" or "what if we didn't print a book, but we made it a download instead?"

I'm not going to lie, sometimes the words "what if" drive me a little crazy.  I'm too operationally minded, I guess.  Don't get me wrong, I really do love to brainstorm, think of new things, and try new ideas but I often get frustrated at the lack of follow-through I see with many "what if" statements.  Sometimes I just want to say, "just come up with one idea and actually do it and you'd be better off than spending an hour coming up with 8 great ideas that never get done!"  I'm so dull sometimes, aren't I?  Man, I sound so black and white, unimaginative, and no fun.

I've been learning two things in this arena lately:  1)  I need to be a better "what if" person on my team.  I need to listen more and think implementation less.  I need to let ideas happen, and I need to support them and I need to collaborate with and build on them.  I also need to be listening to what God may be saying or teaching or telling us in these "what if" moments.  God may be revealing a plan or idea that is being discovered and I might miss it.  2)  I need to learn how to practically follow-up on "what if" ideas.  As a leader to I provide the resources and tools people need to go for their "what if" ideas?  Do I encourage them to push on?  Do I steer them away for impossible things and guide them to possible ones? 

110 - Some advice for millennials.

I've been having a lot of conversations lately about the millennial generation or "these twenty-something-year old-kids" as some people like to call them.  There have been some funny YouTube videos sent my way.  Some books I've read and some real life experiences that all seem to be colliding in my mind at the same time.  The millennial generation is entering the workplace now and it is creating quite a stir - I can't help but share some thoughts here today.

I often hear people complaining about the millennial generation.  "Their amazing idealism doesn't match their poor work ethic; they're selfish, egotistical, prideful and soft," are usually the stereotypical words used to describe the millennials.  No doubt many of those complaints are grounded in reality.  But, today, instead of just complaining more, I'd like to share some thoughts and advice with the twenty-something crowd with the hopes that instead of become a generation of "almosts" they become a generation that actually does change the world. 

But first, let me lay some groundwork for this conversation.  Here is what I see as the root of the problem for many in the millennial generation: Many of your parents over praised you and told you that you were amazing, unstoppable, remarkable, and able to do anything you put your mind to.  They were wrong.  You really aren't that great.  In fact you haven't really done anything of significance yet, whether you are remarkable or not, for most of you, is yet to be proven.  Most of you are very average, mediocre and normal.  You should not have as high self-esteem as you do.  Sadly, when you didn't meet your parents' expectations, when you didn't get all A's, and when you didn't make the "A-team" they made excuses for you.  They blamed the schools, they gave you medications, they created "B-teams" and they lowered standards so you could be a "winner".  In some schools today half the kids are in gifted programs while the other half are on ADD meds.  Sad.  This system wide (parents, teachers, coaches) building up of your self-esteem, and creating an unreal world for you, has given many of you an entitlement mentality that manifests itself in sinful pride and selfishness.  Here's the deal - it wasn't really your fault that you got this way, but it is your responsibility to fix it, to change, and be better.

So what do you do now if you're a millennial entering, or already in, the workplace?  Here you go:

1) Be humble.  You don't deserve to be in a management position, or the senior pastor, or the CEO, or anything above the title of "pee-on" in your first 3 years of real work as a full-time employee.  Many of you think you should be CEO on your first day - stop that.  Work hard.  Work harder than anyone else around you.  Come early and stay late.  Put the company first and your agenda second. Stop sharing your ideas on how to make the company better and start learning from the people who got the company to the place that made it possible to hire you and pay you. Don't be jealous that you don't get all the perks the CEO or other leaders get.  Understand that you are new, untrained, unremarkable, and be humble. 

2) Be a learner.  When you believe that you are super remarkable and that you can do anything and that you are super-special, you stop learning.  You think you have all the answers.  You make suggestions, and you write proposals about how the company should spend it's resources and where it should go strategically with out any "skin in the game".  Learn what it's like to have to dip into your own pocket to cover the organizations payroll before you recommend that everyone needs a new MacBook Pro or that the company needs to buy a new espresso maker.  Ask more questions.  Learn anything and everything you can.  Ask the leadership team about the "old days".  Learn, don't teach.

3) Be patient.  You've grown up in a "have it your way" world.  Everything is fast, fast, fast.  When you have an urge or desire you usually get what you want.  This is not the same at work, so stop thinking this way.  Some of you read my point number 1 and thought "3 years!"  Most of you will have 3 different jobs in a 3 year period.  That's sad to me.  Make a commitment and stick with it.  Patiently work hard.

4) Value others & value work.  I just read that the highest value for you when finding a job is how much time you get off and how well their job allows you to balance work and life.  Translation: you appear to want a job that allows you to spend the least amount of time actually working that job.  Believe me, I appreciate this and understand this value.  Really I do.  Workahlolism is a big problem.  Another growing problem is bad customer service, poor quality, laziness and lack of follow through.

Just some thoughts and advice from a 34-year-old gen-xer just a few steps further down the path.  I hope it helps.  I believe more in the millenial generation than ever before, they can to do great things here on earth to the Glory of God and for His Kingdom. 

109 - Change brings life!

One of the things I love about my job here at LeaderTreks is how open the team of people here is to change.  Things change all the time here.  Programs change, people change, new ideas come up, older ideas are let go - it often feels like we are in a constant state of change.  So normal isn't seeking a place of stability and permanence, normal is change and innovation.  I suppose for some this could be upsetting, but for me, it is life giving.

Two things happened today that reminded me how strongly we embrace change here at LT.  First we had a team meeting about a program event we run in February for student leaders running missions trips this summer.  It's a great weekend and in many ways is a snap shot of the heart of LeaderTreks mission to develop student leaders to fulfill the great commission.  We've been running the event for about 5 years now.  As we began working through the schedule and talking about what we need to change it was amazing how flexible the team was.  No one was pushing an agenda and everyone was open to making changes.  After the meeting I was struck by how "change-oriented" the team here is.  They embrace a culture of constant change.

Secondly, we have a new team member starting next week Tuesday and so someone on our team needed to move offices to make room.  I was impressed by how quickly this move took place and with the positive attitude I saw.  I thought back over the 15 months I've been here and realized that nearly everyone has moved offices at least once, some more than three times. 

Change brings new life.  Change brings new ideas.  Change is good.  What's even better is creating a culture that is in constant change mode, constant innovation, constant improvement.  The goal isn't to get to "normal" where no more changes are needed, the goal is to be always changing.

108 - Do something big

I believe a lot in the idea that balance is important in life.  Balancing work time with family time.  Balancing your time with your kids evenly.  Balancing exercise with sitting around watching football.  Balance, for the most part, is good.  When things get out of balance our lives suffer, others around us get hurt, and life sorta stinks for a while.

But lately I've been thinking that sometimes we over play the "balance card" to make excuses for not doing something really big life.  In an effort to stay balanced we don't take any risks.  Being safe, being balanced, is given priority over doing something big, taking a huge risk.  By doing just small things you miss out on making a major impact in your life, someone elses life, or in the world we live in.  We do small things and make small committments so that life stays balanced and managable and safe.  I get why we do this, but man, we have to stop playing it so safe sometimes. 

So the challenge for today is to do something big.  I'm not knocking small stuff, but today I'm thinking BIG STUFF needs to get done.  Big risks need to get taken.  Huge committments need to be made.  Go for it.  Get out of balance for a little while.  Give away "too much" money - like way more than your 10%.  Give your car to someone in need.  Give 100% of your tax return away.  Apply to be a foster parent or to adopt a child.  Launch a church plant.  Start a non-profit.  I don't know what's on your heart specifically, but if there is a big idea sitting there - do it. Seriosly, our world needs you to go for it.