Over the course of the past few weeks I’ve been pondering this list written by Jon & Dave Ferguson about how to easily obliterate a culture of leadership. It’s certainly stirred my thinking about how we do things at IKON and ways to move forward as we wrestle with what a leadership culture will eventually look like for our community in San Francisco.

I’m not sure I realized how exciting yet challenging it can be to create a new culture from scratch, but that’s exactly the situation we church planters find ourselves in. It’s also funny to think that you can obliterate a leadership culture when the culture doesn’t exist quite yet, but I’d say that it’s easier to obliterate the possibility of a strong leadership culture before it even begins.

So, here are the Top 9 Ways to Obliterate A Leadership Culture (Before You Even Begin):

• Make really small “ASKS” of people. In other words, don’t challenge people to do anything that requires a significant level of investment or sacrifice. Minimize whatever you need them to do just so they’ll say “yes” to being a “leader.”
• Decide today that Small Groups won’t work anymore. Conclude that people are really best cared for and leaders are better developed in a classroom setting. This alone could kill your leadership culture overnight.
• Lead with “NO” (this is the opposite of leading with “YES”). Get really good at helping people understand why their idea is not a good one and how it will never work. Phrases that can help you expand your “no” vernacular are: “I doubt it,” “I don’t think so,” “Probably not,” etc.
• Never celebrate “Wins”. No matter how successful a leader or team of people may e, don’t take time to honor their accomplishments in any way. Send the message that what they did was simply expected and deserves no special recognition.
• Don’t expect artists to develop artists. Establish such high standards for your artists (vocalists, musicians, etc.) that they convince themselves and everyone else that they are irreplaceable and couldn’t possibly find anyone that could be developed to their level.
• Hire more staff to coach leaders. Believe the lie that developing an unpaid layer of leaders to coach other leaders is nearly impossible and does not work. This will force you to hire way more staff than you could ever afford.
• Make it really difficult to step into leadership. Create lots of red-tape and put people through all sorts of hoops so that it is extremely difficult to step into leadership. One way to do this would be to insist that anyone aspiring to lead needs to attend a weekly leadership class for six months.
• Turn your teams into Committees. Stop your leadership team cold in their tracks by insisting that they are now committees, that they can only make a decision if there is unanimous agreement, and that they must operate based on Robert’s Rules of Order.
• Offer no on-going training. Make the assumption that once people have said “yes” to leading they have all the tools and resources they need to be successful. In addition, provide absolutely no coaching, just figure if they need some help, they’ll let you know.

Yesterday was the “official” launch of IKON Christian Community… meaning we took our hopes and our dreams about who we want to be as a community public to the city of San Francisco.

Waking up the morning of proved to be a little bit different than I expected, there wasn’t a sense of “oh no!” or a sense of excitement or even a sense of fear, instead it was simply surreal. Throughout our Beta Gathering phase I had been taking the MUNI train to our location, however sensing a need for reflection I decided to take a walk. The walk was a great time of prayer and reflecting upon the past 14 months of preparation to take this dream public and the whole time I was left with nothing but a sense of amazement at what God had orchestrated. (I’m still in awe, and have a hard time believing that we’ve actually arrived at this point!)

The morning couldn’t have gone any better, from the Kids Community brilliantly executed under the leadership of our Leadership Resident Abby Chew, to the facilitating of our communal art critique by Jarrod Shappell, and the vulnerable and authentic worship led by Duane Chew. It was a tremendous morning with some amazing stories and connections that we’re still trying to process through.

Perhaps what was the most humbling realization of the whole morning was knowing that there was over 10,000 people around the country praying for us this morning as we got started from El Paso to Orlando, San Diego and Chicago, L.A. and seemingly everywhere in between. IKON went public with our hopes and dreams in the midst of a movement of prayer. If anything, that might be what I remember most: the church community from all over the country rallying behind us in prayer. That will certainly be a hard thing to ever forget.

IKON has a mandate, a mandate to listen well to the city and reveal the Kingdom of God in ways both old and new. It’s going to be an amazing ride and I’m looking forward to where God takes us next!

(ht: Andrew Jones)

Remember when everything was within your reach, when all of your dreams seemed so tangible, so possible and nothing could stop you from achieving that dream… except yourself?

I remember those times. I remember feeling the tension between dreaming and wondering “where have all the dreamers gone?”; the tension between being an idealist and yet wondering “why all the idealists had gone the way of the buffalo?” I used to believe that as the lyrics to the song go: “We’ve shot all our dreamers and there’s no one left to lead us.” I think I have a better grasp on this tension now. I think I have a better understanding why so many dreams go unfulfilled and idealisms pass away… I think we shoot ourselves.

After making my way out to San Francisco full of dreams and ideas, hopes and possibilities, I quickly became overwhelmed with the fear of the unknown which was compounded with unrealistic expectations from both within and outside of myself. It was in this fear that I retreated back to the “safety zone” of safe ideas, traditional methods, the tried & true strategies for planting a church. Although a good place to start, retreating back into this “safety zone” choked the life out of the dreams and ideals that God had been saturating in my heart and mind. Safety led way to the death of experimentation.

How many of our best dreams and the greatest hopes in our idealism have died in the “safety zone”? How often have we chosen the comfortable and the traditional over the hope of possibility and the spark of innovation? This was certainly the road I was walking down… and leading down. Perhaps now after pinging so far into an idealist world and pinging backwards into the safety zone I can begin to find a new ground. A ground that isn’t reckless with idealism or locked into the need for safety. I’m in search of a new tension, searching for a creative idealism that carves a new way of being the church in the city of San Francisco. It’s here that the hopes and dreams are beginning to find new life once again and possibility springs eternal…

“Every year more than 4,000 churches close their doors compared to just over 1,000 new church starts… Christianity in America won’t survive another decade unless we do something now.”

There’s a tremendous disparity between the number of churches that are closing their doors and those that are starting up. As a church planter it seems the obvious answer is “we need to plant more churches!” and while I would agree with that statement I don’t believe it’s the complete answer to the problem–for several reasons. Christianity and the Church in America is plagued by a systemic problem that won’t be cured by simply planting more churches.

Now before you jump to conclusions, the systemic problem manifesting itself may not be what you think it is. It’s not based on style or substance, it’s not about leadership development or organizational structures, or any number of other challenges facing the Church in America–although many great cases could be made and have been made for them. I believe the systemic problem we have yet to identify as a major problem within the church is the lack/loss of a spirit of partnership and collaboration. Sure we’re seeing our Berlin Wall crumble (the denominational walls that once separated us) and the clearly defined lines become blurred, and there seems to be a greater sense of partnership now than we’ve ever seen in America, however we still have a long way to go.

Every year there is a net deficit of 3,000+ churches and according to Dave Olson, on any given weekend across the country only 18.7% of people attend church. In fact, because of the net deficit most states, counties and cities are not keeping up with population increase meaning there simply aren’t enough churches. Now before you read this as there simply aren’t enough McChurch’s out there to peddle their goods, let me state my bias–the church is the hope of the world because they are the proclaimers of the resurrection. If there aren’t enough churches there cannot be enough people proclaiming the resurrection, proclaiming hope, incarnating hope, incarnating the resurrection.

Therefore something must be done… but again, to think that we will be able to plant enough churches to keep with the extinction of so many in order to keep pace is simply a ridiculous notion. Sure new churches need to be planted, they must be planted but it cannot be the only solution. We need a two-front approach. We need to start looking outside of the box. And the problem isn’t that we’re not planting enough, the problem is that we’re not doing enough to save/resurrect those churches facing extinction.

Much of what causes a church to go extinct is based on two factors–not enough people which equals not enough giving which equals foreclosure or the inability to keep up with their budget which equals a dead church. But what if, in order to “save” the traditional mode of doing church the churches in a city banded together and covenanted with one another that they would not allow extinction. They created some sort of “resurrection fund” that was used to help the struggling church get back on its feet (a very Acts 2/4 sort of mentality). Many of these churches would then no longer have to live in survival mode, but would be freed up to once again rethink mission and vision, reinventing itself and moving forward towards vitality and a new Kingdom movement.

Imagine the testimony of that church, of those churches who were once on the brink of extinction saved by the generosity and compassion of their brothers and sisters throughout the rest of the city. Imagine the camaraderie, imagine the shared vision of helping people find their way back to God. Imagine what would be able to happen in a city, a region because the Church banded together to once again journey together and be on mission.

Of course this is an idealist stance… of course there are many different challenges and hurdles to overcome because of how fragmented and splintered the Church has become due to a spirit of senseless competition pitting one church against another and simply utilizing one another for our own gain as opposed to Kingdom gain. But imagine for a moment if a movement of generosity, a movement of anti-extinction were to actually take place. No longer would we see 4,000 churches close their doors every year… we could literally stem the tide beginning instead to make ground on the population increase instead of drowning in a sea of death. But it requires a sense of partnership, a sense of actually being honest and transparent with each other and working for the betterment of the Kingdom instead of our own little kingdoms.

And if none of that inspires you… imagine all the money we could save (it’s cheaper to resurrect a church than to start a new one). And imagine what we could do with all the savings… imagine all the good that could be done!

Perhaps one of the hardest things about starting a new church is patience. Patience is the one thing that wars against the driven personality of now, now, now, let’s do this and get it done now! I’ve heard it said that patience hurts, it’s not something we’d do willingly but ultimately its about letting go of our selfishness–our wants and desires–and instead putting the interests of others before yours. That’s really hard to think about and accept for the church planter. (Isn’t everything we’re doing in the interest of others, isn’t church planting the ultimate act of altruism? — maybe in a perfect world!)

We’ve been in the city of San Francisco now for 8 months and we’re still 6 months away from launch (October 11th) still needing more time to pull together resources (financial and equipment and location) and a full launch team that’s committed to making this thing go once we do launch. We’ve started our monthly launch gatherings and have seen new people come, listen, learn and commit to what’s taking place but I can’t wait to get to that point where we’re fully operational as a church and can truly begin moving past some of these early stages of preparation and instead push into the dream of being a community that truly makes a difference in the city for the Kingdom.

Sometimes it’s hard to realize that the work of breaking ground is absolutely necessary to building the DNA, culture and foundation that will allow this church to preserve–especially when you just want it to be there now. It’s hard to realize that patience is really about other people, allowing them the space to think through, accept and jump on board with the vision of helping people find their way back to God, of joining in on the hard restorative work of Kingdom building. But patience is still hard for a church planter… it’s hard to work day in and day out towards a dream that is so close yet seems light years down the road.

I’m sure that patience will probably continue to haunt me after we launch in October. There will always be bigger dreams that we’ll strive for as a church, always seeking to push forward to make more of an impact for the Kingdom.

I like how N.T. Wright helps to put things into perspective:

“Paul’s vision of the Christian life is thus… The decisive battle has been won [because of the cross]; the battles we face today are part of the mopping-up operation to implement that victory.”
(Following Jesus, p. 21)

Realizing that we’re here not to win the battle, but to “mop up” in the aftermath seems to take some of the pressure off, but still pushes us to desire the full realization of the Kingdom of God here on earth as it is in heaven. I want to see that take place in the city of San Francisco… I want to get started on a bigger scale than we see now… and all I keep hearing God say is, “patience, young grasshopper… patience.”

Have you thought that maybe God is calling you to something new? Do you have an entrepreneurial spirit that is begging to be unleashed to impact God’s kingdom? Maybe you aren’t sure exactly what your dream is, or you have an idea, but haven’t defined it. If so, NewThing’s Discover the Dream is an experience that will help you discover how to make God’s dream for you become a reality. In almost all cases when I talk with someone who is currently living out their dream, I find a motivated, overly raving and passionate person. And I quickly learn that, at some point in their life, they encountered the power of discovering the dream that God put within them.

Join the staff of Community Christian Church and NewThing on April 20, 2009 in Orlando and learn how you can be a part of the reproducing church movement. We want this to be a personal experience for you so space is limited to the first 80 people who sign up. For more information or to register, click here. I would LOVE to see every person encounter the power of discovering and living out the dream that God has placed in them!

Saturday morning (3.7.09) rolled around and our very first Launch Community* was upon us. I didn’t really know what to expect, whether those who had RSVP’d or said, “Hey I’ll be there,” would actually show up or if we’d be left standing there at square-one needing to seriously retool our entire approach towards planting this new church. Fortunately, my greatest fears and the worst case scenario didn’t play out before my very eyes!

As we prepared and envisioned what our first Launch Community would look like I said time and again, “If we have 10 people there that’d be great! If we have 15 that’d blow my mind!” Well, neither of those classifications fit. For our very first Launch Community, 17 people showed up to participate in this new thing taking shape in the city! I could hardly believe it, but it left me realizing two things that morning : 1) There is a real need in this city for a new church; 2) God is up to something BIG! and this is just the beginning!

We spent the morning introducing ourselves to each other, eating a fantastic brunch and dreaming together of what this new church could look like to truly make a difference in the city of San Francisco. We talked about how we can impact the community for good—to literally be an integral part of hepling this city succeed—to how we could serve the city and the important aspects of who we truly want to be at our very core. It was a fun morning, an exciting morning, and the anticipation for what’s next was palpable! I can’t wait till next month… April 4th at 10:30a when we get to do it again and take another BIG step forward towards launching this new church. I’m looking forward to seeing who’ll join us next, who’ll step up to the plate and how God will continue to bring together the right people for this time to create something that will long outlive all of us!

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*Launch Community is a gathering of people who are interested in joining with us in launching this new church in the city of San Francisco.