My favorite seminar had to be with Will Mancini. Mancini is an author and church management specialist (my title, not his). He is known for his works, The Five Dysfunctions of Team, and Church Unique. It was great to be taught the basic functions of vision.

The best part of the day was arguing with Jeff Dodge, Troy Nesbitt, and Mark Arant; three really great debaters.

So, this week, I hope to create a rough plan on how Westwind will plant a church in the no-so-distant future. I think that in doing so, we will create in our people a sense of urgency to 1) ignite a passion for the lost in their environments and 2) use their times, gifts and talents to help expand the message of Christ. My plan is to post some notes and thoughts throughout the conference. If you are someone who wants to plant a church, let me know and I will be sure to send you all my notes.

1. “If it is to be it is up to me“: I was told these are the 10 most important two letter words. As arrogant as it sounds, I think it is true. I learned this year that initiative is needed in life if I am to accomplish the goals I have set. I am not saying that I am the end all, but I am suggesting that too many people are sitting around waiting for something to happen to them, instead of making it happen. This was true of my life this year. I sat back hoping things would happen to me, when all the while I should have been the one making them happen.

2. “Pass the Ball“: If you watch sports, you hear announcers say all the time, “______(Insert Name)_____ is the guy you want with the ball with 3 seconds left in the game.” I always think about the others players on the team and how they feel about this. Since everyone knows the superstar is going to get the ball, why not pass it to someone else unexpected? I have been learning this over the last 18 months. As much as I need to make sure things are happening, I do not need to be the one doing it. There are so many hidden “superstars” in churches today. You just have to pass them the ball. And that is another thing. Why is the church looking for superstars anyway? I don’t see any superstars in the Bible, only ordinary men and women who were passed the ball and did something with it. Some even were passed the ball again after doing something great and were a colossal failure. So, I learned to start passing the ball more and getting it into the hands of other people. I have realized that there are a lot of people out there who can do something with it.

3. “I ain’t saying it’s easy, but they sure don’t make it look hard“: This is a tough lesson, one that is learned through the failures of others. I am on record as saying that most religious leaders I know are deceivers. They pretend to have so many talents and skills in tune, but they actually don’t. One of the key lessons I learned was that I need to let go of all my past church experiences and begin to create my own. I don’t need to think, “Well, my last church did it this way, or that way.” Instead my thoughts should be toward, “How would I like to do it in the context of my worshipping community?” This lesson will help be create new ways to meet the spiritual needs of my community and keep me from repeating the mistakes of the past.

All in all, 2009 was a year that I am glad to put in the past. I would like to focus on a new year and new opportunities. One of those opportunities is blogging more thanks to Will Mancini. We will see if it lasts.

The reason I like directing it is because I love pulling out the potential of people.  We have a great cast and none of them are actors.  They are just regular church people.  It made be think of Paul’s words, “I become all things to all people so I might win some.” That is what we are doing this weekend; becoming actors, directors, tech directors, etc, so as to share Jesus with the Dallas County community. I am excited to see what this weekend will look like.

Social Network

Facebook, Twittter, MySpace, or even Match.com all do one thing–connect people. It actually isn’t a new priciple, there have always people who used an interest to link them (ex. bowling leagues, bridge clubs). The reason it is so interesting now, and why churches need to put this in their vocabulary, is because social networking has become microcosmic! Now, instead of just having people in your church connected because they live in a certain city, you can have people in a deeper relationship because they are single moms who are back in school to get a degree as a dental hygienist, or couples who are having difficulties adopting a child from another country. Or people connected to your church who don’t even breach the walls.

Social networks, if anything, should help the church realize that Sunday School may not be the place to connect people. I wonder if the people in a Sunday School class, if given a laptop computer instead, would choose to “friend” the people they are in class with. Today’s church needs to understand that they have always been a social network , and that they need to “get small” in the way that they connect people. I call it “creating constellations”.

When you look at the stars in the sky, if you are like me, you almost always look for the Big Dipper. What is interesting is that those stars are not connected in any way, yet we draw lines in our minds to make out a water ladle. We do that with all of the constellations. We connect them. The same thing applies with people. Churches need to find the link to make constellations of its people. That can be small groups, softball teams, parents of Downs Syndrome groups, or Grandparent Harley gangs.

Open Source

Open Source refers to the idea that it is the collaboration of ideas of many people, not necessary the creators of the project. You can see this in Wordpress, or Google Wave. It suggests that the project isn’t perfected, and invites others to put their “two cents worth” of attention to it. Churches would be wise to learn this as they seek to be relevant to the next generation of Jesus followers. Instead of 40-Days of Purpose and other national campaigns that re designed to “help” church know what to do next, what if churches just set a goal in an important spiritual area (i.e. evangelism), and open sourced it to the congregation? How much money would be put to actual ministry instead of marketing methods to get your people “on board” (ok, I am done with quotations).

Someone who understands that open source is the way to effectively meet needs is Pastor Gary Marzolf of Newton, IA who handed his church attendees $100 bills and had them create a scenario to help others. The people open sourced their own ideas as to how to effectively use this money. You can see the video here. This is what more churches need to be doing, whether is is though serving the community, or even making the messages of the pastor better. At Westwind Church, the messages are not solely created by the person presenting, but by a team of church leaders. This allows for multiple views to be considered of the same passage. Churches that are daring enough to let others speak into their development will have layers of richness.

More terms on the way.