From day one of engaging with Orange (more than 4 years ago), the word strategy was a word I heard often. It’s not a new concept, but it was something that was brought to my attention again last Friday and I’m glad it was. Reggie painted a clear picture of the importance of strategy. He described how many great churches have incredible mission and vision statements that never really seem to do anything. Many of those church’s doors are closed now.

Strategy – A plan of action with an end in mind.

I love it. I’m leading a breakout at Illuminate in Nashville in a few weeks titled, “What Matters Most.” In this breakout I’m going to speak about how sometimes we lose track of that particular “end” in mind or maybe the “end” we’re focused on really isn’t as important as it should be.

I wonder what would happen if we as ministry leaders scripted out all that we did in a given week or month and then asked the very important question, “What is specific end we’re trying to get to as a result of this event/program/resource/meeting?” I think it would reveal what things we’re doing that are strategic and those things that are just wasting time. Man, do I hate wasting time. What’s worse is when I’m wasting time and don’t even know it.

Families, kids and students need us to be as strategic as possible. We must be strategic with our time, our tallent and our resources. How are you being strategic today?

I had almost forgotten that I wrote it. Since Halloween is coming in a few days, I figured I’d address it.

Like I said before, I didn’t celebrate Halloween as kid. We always went to the church to hide. It was a fun family night of games, bon fires and candy. If we did stay home that year, we turned the lights out and locked the doors. We were not going to celebrate this evil holiday. I’m not saying that this behavior was wrong or that I have any regrets, but my wife and I have decided to make different decisions about this holiday.

Three years ago we decided that Halloween is a huge night for our culture. If Jesus were here today, he wouldn’t be at the church hiding or he wouldn’t have his door locked and lights out. He’d be at the party or trick or treating with the neighbors. So, we decided that we’re not going to hide, but we’d meet our culture where they’re at.

So, three years have passed now and I’ve got something to say. We got complacent and missed the point. The last three years we’ve attended Halloween parties where Titus got to dress up and do a little trick or treating. It was so much fun and it created some great memories. However, the three parties we attended these last three years were parties with church friends. We didn’t meet our culture like we decided three years ago, we just did what the culture did. Oops!

I feel that what we’ve done the last three years is just the polar opposite. We isolated ourselves with our church friends just like we did 30 years ago at the church, but now we’re just celebrating the holiday like everyone else does. This is just my opinion and personal conviction (so don’t at all feel judged or anything), but if this holiday based on a premise of evil, even though it isn’t really that on the surface today, then why is it okay for us to just celebrate it.

This year, Sara, Titus and I are on mission and doing what he thought about three years ago. We have a small group and we’re going to set up in the driveway where we meet. We’re going to provide free hot chocolate, games for kids and lots of candy. We’re just going to use it as an opportunity to meet our neighbors. If it’s the one night that our neighbors come knocking at our door, then why not take advantage of the opportunity and keep them in the driveway a little longer while they sip hot chocolate and their kids play carnival type games? Sara and I are really excited about this as it’s a way our whole family and be a little more on mission on this holiday.

BTW, here is a great article on the origin’s of Halloween.

Be the Body (Serve)
We help kids realize that they are part of a collective body bigger than themselves and that through God’s power they can make a significant difference in the world for Christ.
Matthew 28:19-20 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.

I’ve been working with my team in setting goals for 2010 and I’ve been thinking a lot about this area of service. Last year my goal was to initiate two serving initiatives where participation would exceed 50%. We did two outreaches in 2009. One was a flop and the other appeared fairly successful. However this year I want to put a little more though into this area of service.

Rather than just have a service project/initiative, I want to teach our kids how to serve. I’ve done all kinds of service projects in my years of ministry. We’ve raised canned food, peanut butter, gifts, money and all kinds of other things. Through these drives, we’ve helped thousands of people in need. But I’m not sure we were always successful in teaching our kids to serve. When doing these projects, how often were parents just going out and buying the stuff for the kids to turn in? Although it may help our project see success, does it make a difference where it’s most important.

I can only speak for myself (although I have a feeling many others of you are in this same boat). We’ve held initiatives where the goal is to raise “x” amount of money or “x” amount of whatever. Success is determined by how close we get to “x.” What if we looked at the initiative from the other viewpoint and “x” amount of whatever wasn’t what determined success, but perhaps a percentage of participation was? In addition, what would it have to look like so you could track participation?

Just thinking out loud on this. What do you think?

Just before Christmas I had to stop at a gas station to use the bathroom. I usually try to refrain from taking pictures in the rest room, but I couldn’t resist. Just above the dirty toilet was Tetco’s mission statement. What was especially ironic was their first line, “…by providing quality service in a clean and pleasant atmosphere.” I’ll give them the benifit of the doubt. It wasn’t one of those really disgusting gas station bathrooms you find in those small interstate towns in Mississippi, but it wasn’t clean.

Here’s my thought though.

Why did Tetco put their mission statement above the toilet in the men’s room, probably the first place to get disgusting at a gas station? It was either gutsy or it was stupid. I kind of admire them for doing it. That way if they actually could keep the bathroom clean, it would make a strong statement about how they live out their mission. But if they don’t, it’s more of a joke. Kind of like the children’s ministry that paint’s “the best hour of your kid’s week” on the wall of a church with a boring children’s ministry.

I think this is risky and I like it. It’s all or nothing. You’re either going to win big or you’ll be a joke. No space for playing it safe.

What do you think? How can you take more risk with living out your vision/mission?

• Safety and Security
• Relevant Teaching
• Engaging Environments
• Authenticity
• Excellence
• Creativity and Innovation
• Biblical Reliance
• Worship
• Communication

My problem is that I don’t like “Biblical Reliance.” As a value, I want our kids to rely and depend on God’s word, that they know and love God’s word. However, Biblical Reliance or Biblical Dependence don’t do it for me. What do you think? Any ideas?

Between the Macintosh Plus and the MacBook Air, there have been 80 system upgrades. The technology has changed dramatically, but the mission has never changed.

As the church, we need to guard our mission.

Too many churches stick with their mission, but never upgrade their system. We need to lean into the younger generation and ask them to help us upgrade our systems. Frequently upgrade the system!

Sometimes we fail to connect people to our mission when making a system upgrade. When making changes, ALWAYS connect people back to the mission. Don’t talk about change before connecting them to the mission. Then they’ll know why the change needs to happen.

Too many churches have competing systems. When a computer has too competing systems, they cancel each other out and there is failure. The greatest thing I can do as a leader is to clarify the system.

Extend the trip by one more day

I was trying to be very careful not to go too long. This is how long we are at camp, however, we essentially spent 20 hours of the trip traveling. I also felt that there were a few things I would have loved to do a little more of. The prayer time on the mountain was incredible. I think I would have done that one more time. Perhaps I would restructure the first one so it was a little shorter and then do it one more time on the last night. I felt the kids were just getting their confidence and one time wasn’t enough.

Deal with a reputable company when renting vans

I’m all about finding the deals. This summer I found a pretty good deal on rental vans. I think I saved $100 or so from what Hertz or Enterprise was charging. Wow, was that a mistake! We reserved four 15 passenger vans. When we arrived they didn’t have the four 15 passenger vans. We got three 15 passenger, one 8 passenger and one 6 passenger. It wasn’t a huge deal, but I just don’t like last minute changes. In addition, they were all vehicles with high mileage. Another team that used the same company ended up breaking down in Mexico. Typically when you go with the “known” companies, you’ll get what you book and they’re always low mileage. So, even if it is a little more expensive, it’s worth it.

Keep documents in the correct vans

When we arrived at the airport, I collected everyone’s passports and birth certificates. I already had their notarized permission slips. I kept all this information on me at all times. However, we realized the problem with this only minutes after crossing into Mexico. One of our vans got pulled over. They were asking a bunch of questions and even pulled one of the leaders out asking him questions. It ended up not being a big deal, but all the documents were with me in my van. No I knew they were pulled over (we all had walkie-talkies), I was just a mile or two ahead. But it would have been better if we divided the files into the appropriate groups.

Do everything possible to fly into San Diego

We flew into Los Angeles because it was a good bit cheaper. I don’t have any regrets since it would have cost too much to fly into San Diego. However, the next year I would have booked the flights a good 6-8 weeks earlier and would probably have gotten a better price allowing us to fly into San Diego. You never can tell how long it’s going to take us to get across the border. The traffic is horrible. We left camp that last morning several hours earlier so we’d have some free time in CA. However, we only had time for an extended lunch and we got to the airport just in time. I’m just thrilled we left so early!

Raise price and restructure deposit

I charged $400 per person. It just wasn’t enough. I did have money budgeted, but it was based on me taking 12-16 people. Since I’m adding one more day, I would charge $550 per person. Again, it’s a mission trip and it’s a great opportunity for people to give and sponsor these kids… so it’s not that big of a deal. Last year I made the first payment due (which was $200) in mid may. This was WAY TO LATE! Instead, I would require applications and the initial deposit of just $50 due on the last day of February (That means I’d have my parent meeting 4-6 weeks before that). I would require a $250 payment about 6 weeks after the initial deposit and another $250 payment 6 weeks after that. This way I should cover all my expenses and have appropriate cash flow for the expenses that come with trip preparations.

Reschedule pre-trip meetings

Last year I planned all of my meetings for Sunday afternoons. Although this works really well as it is convenient for right after church, I never had everyone there. Especially since the majority of my meetings were in the summer, too many people were on vacation. I figured that I would schedule either 4 or 5 meetings on weeknights. Actually, I think I’d try some Wednesday nights along with Sunday afternoons (I think the fact that it was summer hurt me more than it being on a Sunday). With the extra meetings, I’d want to group my teams earlier and give them more time to meet together so they could develop closer bonds and a sense of identity.

A few weeks ago I took my staff on a retreat. We rented a great lake house on Lake Travis just outside of Austin, Texas. Initially I was taking the team to the PDCM conference… but it was cancelled. So I found this place and made plans to retreat instead of going to a conference.

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The strategy of the Purpose Driven model has helped me tremendously in ministry. Since I moved into my current position a year ago, I’ve made adjustments to ministry to reflect a more “purpose driven” strategy. Everyone has been on board for the most part; however, I wasn’t completely convinced that everyone understood why. This is the reason why I planned to take everyone to Saddleback. So when the conference was cancelled, I decided that we would watch 2 or 3 sessions from a past PDCM conference, and talk it out and make it reality for our church.

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One of the biggest things I wanted to come home with was a vision statement, mission statement and a list of values for our ministry. I know (from personal experience) how easy it is to get so busy with ministry that you never take the time to back up and develop mission and vision. I have felt a burden to get these things done. It can be challenging to lead a volunteer meeting when you have to dance around issues of vision and mission when there isn’t one written out.

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So, here is what we came up with. The challenge was to create a mission and vision that supported the mission and vision of our church as a whole, yet still accurately describe our process for ministry. Note that this is not the standard “5-point” purpose driven model mission, but it works with what we are doing.

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Vision Statement

 Partnering with parents to reach and empower kids for Christ.

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Mission Statement

CT Kids exists to reach kids for Christ, connect them with other Christians, grow them in their faith and equip them to serve their community.

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Values: (descriptions and references not written yet)

Safety

Truth

Fun

Creativity

Passion

Potential

Commitment

Believe it or not, we put a lot of work and effort into this, not to mention for me the years of working this out through trial and error. Since it was just my team at the Argyle campus who came up with this, it is still to be decided what happens next. Since the children’s ministry on each campus is autonomous, I will have to work this out with the other children’s pastors and then ultimately with the church leadership. However, this is at least the first step, something that needed to be done a long time ago!Â