What dads say

While I was on my holiday I had to say these things to my boys...

Don't worry, I'm right here.
Just wait!
Could you help me by carrying this?
Just because you can't see it doesn't mean it's not there.
Up you get.
Do you want a hug?
Isn't this amazing?
I told you that if you kept on doing it, eventually it would land on the roof.
You've got to do more than say sorry.

There were lots of times when I asked for help to do things I was quite capable of doing myself. I wasn't being lazy, I was giving them small amounts of responsibility with the opportunity for praise and encouragement.

There were times when they asked me questions that I could have given the real answer to, but they just wouldn't have understood, especially the pyroclastic flow, so I just simplified it.
This exactly the same as my relationship with God. These are all things that he has said to me (especially "just wait!"). Does this mean that I am trying to play God? No. I am just being a Dad who loves his kids. This is the relationship that Jesus says we should have with God when he teaches the disciples to pray.
Unfortunately, this also shows me that when God gently nudges me along, he is actually seeing me as a 3-5 year old: not in a patronizing way, but in a gentle, understanding, caring and eternally patient kind of way.

So go through what I said to the boys; God is saying it to me, and God is probably saying that to you too.

Cheers
Macca

New to your church part 3

In Matthew 9, Mark 2, and Luke 5, we get this great line from Jesus "healthy people don't need a doctor; only the sick people need a doctor." In each of the three Gospels, this has come off the back of a healing of a paralyzed man in which there is a strong link between a physical healing and spiritual healing also known as forgiveness.

My third blog about new people in church is about Healing. Let me be clear here: its both kinds of healing that need to take place. If you've got a family that comes to the church and the Dad's just been laid off and the mum has a got a terminal disease and the kids have got allergies, then you can't ignore that and just attend to the spiritual needs of the family - that would be unloving, unkind and unchristian. But any family in the position is also going to have intense spiritual needs too (not to mention a few questions about suffering and God).

Maybe the new people who turn up don't actually appear to have that much in the way of physical problems. They're DINKs or they have steady well-paid professions in the prime of their life. They turn up for a few weeks and they start making connections and chatting with people after the service - what then?

Anybody who has been in a church for longer than about 10 seconds is going to have spiritual baggage, and probably emotional baggage that goes along with it. Why? Well why have they come to your church if they didn't have baggage? Why did they leave? Why didn't they stay in their perfect little/big church? New job. Ah well no chance that anything bad happened then... but then you have the differences between this church and that, and in the last church they were [       ] and the theology was more [        ] and this is good because [      ] but they miss [       ]. You can fill in the blanks.

Anyone who has been an active member of another church will probably have a few battle scars, a few strong ideas, and possibly even some beliefs that they don't want to reveal. Since there is so much church shopping and sheep stealing these days as the pool of Christians in a post-church society dwindles and the amount of outreach is reduced, the chances are that a lot of new people to your church have had some experience of church and most of that will just be bad.

The "unchurched" in this post-church society need something more than just religious experience and the label of "token young person" to make it worthwhile for them to give up the time and money and coolness that you sacrifice to commit to a church.

All of this is kind of beside the point... Everyone needs the Great Physician (Even Luke). That means that everyone in your church probably needs love, care, help, warmth, TLC, followup and a good bedside manner. New people need this more than anyone in the church, because it takes ages to become regular people, but an instant to become "gone". If Jesus is the Doctor, then I'm thinking we must be the nurses - and yes, this includes changing bedpans.

That means that every new person needs to have several congregation members who are willing, available, trained, equipped, and aware/appointed to take care of them. I have seen lots of services where the new people (sometimes me) are meant to be ministered to by just the minister, which is bad, or they are completely ignored.

If someone was to come to your church with blood coming out of their leg, you'd probably rush over with a bandage and try and patch them up. Why is it that when we see people come into the church we just assume they are okay or we don't need to care for them? Why is it that when we see people come into the church we just assume that the power of the service/sermon/warm handshake/cup of tea afterwards will take care of all their spiritual ailments? I don't know a single person on this planet who does not need at least the question to be asked "Are you okay?" and then the answer that comes afterwards to be pretty much disbelieved, or for someone to look for the opportunity to say "you look like you're having a rough day."

The worst thing is, that we have churches that are full of people who go through the "welcome" and "connect" phases, but then get stuck at "healing". Some of these people were welcomed when they were months old and have been coming ever since. Sure, they keep coming to church. Sure some of their spiritual hurts and ailments are fixed. But then life happens and they just stay in the neediness, or they stick hard and fast to their stoic "I'm okay."

You could take the approach that Jesus is the Doctor, so he should be healing them. Maybe the priest is Jesus' rep on earth and so the priest should do the lion's share of work. What do you end up with? A church full of people who never get properly well, and who mainly focus on their own needs, rather than reaching out, serving, volunteering, evangelizing, or discipling. You can get congregations where everybody knows a lot about the bible, and each one has a deep personal faith, but unless they are involved in the healing process and people get more than just a bandaid, its like anti-cholesterol medication instead of a heart transplant - it will keep you going but you wont get to do star jumps.

The healing comes from Jesus. He achieves this in many different ways, but mostly he is just keen for Christians to realise "Hey Jesus healed me, and now its time for me to give something back." I like the idea of serving as a nurse because the responsibility is God's and I know that he doesn't need me. But I also know that God wants to use us for our own good and for his own glory.

If you agree with this idea that people need to be healed and you are already a part of helping that happen in your church, then you need to find those who have been in the church for a while and encourage them to stop being so self-centered and start looking after the others in the congregation. Everybody needs to grow through the problems that require healing so that they can become effective members of the body of Christ - the sooner the better.

I want all churches to be growing; not because of sheep stealing, or because their version is so flashy so it attracts all the church shoppers, but because people get something out of it, and then invest something back into it.

Cheers
Macca

New to your church part 2

So my recipe went like this ...

Welcome
Connect
Heal
Challenge
Empower

Part 2 is connect

I think this is the area that people think is difficult and therefore leave to the expert with the theology degree, rely on the" quality" of the service or blame the new people for not connecting ("well if they had grown up in the church they would understand...").

Certainly the priest / pastor and the service should connect. A well developed positive message should be preached not just at the sermon but also in the songs and prayers. Its also worth thinking about how the people up the front interact with each other and the people in the congregation. If people up the front get cross with each other for liturgical mistakes and then turn around and talk about forgiveness, how does that look to the new person? That positive message invites the new person to think to themselves "I could see myself coming here..."


It's actually worth thinking about how businesses connect with their customers/clients/demographic/target audience. That doesn't mean that we have to adopt a business attitude, just that we can learn from people who make a living off doing this stuff really well - what's that you say? Priests have to live off the collection plate? Oh, and God's grace and mercy. Well I guess that's an advantage... Anyway, getting off track.

I'm going to look at the big three - Maccas, Bunnings and Coles. They all sell stuff, but they all want your loyalty too which is different from an Ebay store or Harvey Norman which just promise you cheap stuff and get you back even though they have no customer service.

Maccas - their key is consistency. You can go to a Maccas anywhere and know what you'll get, and what you get may not be appetising if you think to hard about it, but it will come with a clean, safe toilet, a playground and it will be really convenient. I don't know how many times using drive through has been an option because I've had boys in the car and its much less hassle to stay in the car and so drive through Maccas becomes the choice. If you've ever been to a petrol station toilet or park with a metal toilet then you'll know how important it is to be able to go to the toilet without being worried about what could happen inside or what could be lacking. Every Maccas has a playground of fairly high, if not very high standard and even though KFC and Hungry Jacks also do this, they don't do it as well as Maccas.

Bunnings - they cover everything. You've got to paint, plant or repair something then you could go to a normal hardware store or you could go to Bunnings and you'll find a couple of other things along the way that you didn't think you needed but it was so cheap ... My local Bunnings has a real Child-friendly push with a brand new massive playground, free balloons, lollipops and stamps and I know I could actually just walk in have the kids play and be able to walk out again without having bought anything, but I probably wouldn't because there is always something to buy. They also offer training courses...

Coles - they focus on quality. I don't always buy it, but they are always going on about quality, and they do a pretty good job of promoting themselves *everywhere*. Is Masterchef about cooking or is it about promoting Coles? I'm not quite sure. I think they've given up on trying to win the "cheapest supermaket" prize since Aldi came on the scene, so they focus on really red shiny apples and fruit and veg areas that make it look like you are at the markets in Melbourne, and shelves full of as few cans as possible.

You generally get a friendly, happy, staff member at these places, and Bunnings has even tried to provide some customer service over the last couple of years. You pretty much know what to expect and there are very strategic locations, advertising, and methods for moving you from choosing to purchasing to staying a bit longer. The most important thing about all of the successful businesses is that they know who they are trying to reach and they have a strategy for getting them and, more importantly, keeping them. Sometimes it is very subtle, but you always know when you have walked out of one of these stores that you have been in the store and that the buying of items was more than just looking at the cheapest prices.

So how about church?
Is your church strategic? or is it desperate to get anyone who walks through the doors?
Does your church have some way of encouraging people to stay longer?
Does your church attract a specific demographic (possibly over 70s) or does it cover all demographics?
What is your church doing to attract new people and what is it doing to keep existing members?
Where is the energy of the programs being focused on - getting in new or keeping old? and how effective is it at either?
What strategies are in place to cater for people once they move from one demographic group to the next (ie young singles to newly marrieds. Marrieds to families. Families to retirees.)?
When a new person comes along to your church, do they leave with a sense of being deliberately acknowledged, affirmed and valued, or that there was a standard that they needed to measure up to?
What key strategies do you have for connecting with kids?
What facilities do you have to connect with kids?
How well do you advertise your church's existence? programs? facilities? ministry?
How well do you advertise the Christian message of love and forgiveness through Jesus, as opposed to religiousness and experience?
What are you doing that creates a disconnect for new people to the church?
Do you ask new people to give money?
Do new people have enough information? Too much information?
Is your service consistent so that people know what they will get? (and are the toilets easily accessible or in the really old block that is about 10m away from the church and you need a key?)
Does your service cover everything and everyone? (Do you get the Gospel message plus theological insight plus opportunities for ministry or just intellectual rigor? Does your service engage high church, low church, people who can't read, people who like singing new songs, people who like to sing old songs? Careful with this as you cannot be all things to all people...)
Who is doing the work of connecting to new people? (Is it people at the door, the priest, Fred who has a very outgoing personality, people with name tags on, or just God?)
Do you pray for new people to come to your church?
Do you pray that people will connect when they come to your church?
Do the existing members want any new people to come to church? Why? Why not? What kind of new people?

I think I will do an extra blog later on with my tips for talking to new people. I should just add that churches in general are hopeless at advertising themselves. No-one reads the local free newspaper anymore, and letterbox drops are time-consuming and about 5% effective. Hillsong has the best advertising of any church in Australia, but at times you could interpret their blatant advertising as some sort of selling of the soul (that's probably a little harsh). The best advertising is always word of mouth, followed by strategic visuals and branding in the right places... its not rocket science, and churches shouldn't just say "If we pray for them they will come?" You can't just wait for your Christmas carols or Easter service - it has to be regular and prominent in your community.

My concluding comments on this topic are
1. Be strategic
2. Know who you can cater for and how you can cater for them
3. Change what you do, rather than who you are
4. Make sure that you take advice from God and the Holy Spirit - this is the difference between church and business.

Next blog is on healing, which doesn't mean I think new people should get a miracle healing, but is going to be about brokeness, sinfulness, dealing with the past and restoration/redeeming.

I'm a kindy Dad

Because of the overlap between TSAC holidays and Owen's holidays, I got to go to Kindy today.

I love Owen's Kindy because it is so well run, the teachers are fantastic and the kids are nice. I've never seen other Kindies so I have nothing to compare it to, but I bet if I did, I wouldn't be as impressed.

Now obviously there were other things I could have done today - fix the fence, paint some walls, play CODmw2 or continuously pick toys after Harry played with them for about a second - but this is what I really wanted to do. It's not the first time I've been able to do it; last year and this year I have spent a few hours there and even played my violin for the kids.

This time it really struck me how keen most of the kids were to spend time with me. I honestly don't know if their Dad's don't get to spend much time with them so they are starved for attention, or if they are used to getting attention from adults, I was an adult and I attended. But I was the centre of attention for most of the day. (I actually think the teachers didn't mind a bit of a break.)

All I was doing was playing with my son and anyone else who cared to join in, which was up to a dozen kids at a time. It wasn't intellectual, it wasn't academic, it wasn't psychologically analytical - it was just a bit of fun... and it felt great!

More importantly, Owen felt affirmed in his relationship with me. He knows I love him. But does it really hurt to emphasise the point "I LOVE YOU!" No, of course not. So I did everything I could to make that happen. The sad part from me is that I suspect that there are many kids out there who believe intellectually that their parents love them, but just don't get the affirmation that leads to the emotional belief that their parents love them. Too much work, not enough time is not a solution for any relationship and I think that sometimes our kids are so forgiving of our failings that we don't see how much they miss us and just want to be with us and be like us.

I strongly believe that our earthly relationships mimic our heavenly relationships. God taught us to call him "daddy" (not "that guy with the smite key and a long flowing beard) and wants to be with us all the time. The trouble is, most of the time we act like kids who have learnt their Dad is not available except at certain times, and who goes away on long trips overseas.

What did I learn from Kindy today?
sit down and turn your listening ears on
wash your hands
have a drink when your teacher tells you
have a guess
use friendly hands
create something
Your teacher is watching over you while during nap time
Kids love to copy so set a good example and follow a good example
Encourage everyone
When someone is sad, sometimes just sitting with them helps them feel better
Don't use toilet words
When kids know that a Dad is okay, they flock to him

Who would have thought I could learn so much in one day?

New to your church

This is my recipe for the process that people (should) go through so that when they church shop and find a church they like they keep on coming back and become a part of the community. Like all recipes it will probably need tweaking to taste and there will be times when you have to substitute an ingredient depending on what is in your pantry. I say recipe, but everyone knows that a simple formula just wont get the job done - it takes a lot of work, a lot of heart, and the work of the Holy Spirit. I would be very interested in feedback so feel free to comment.

Ingredients
Welcome
Connect
Heal
Challenge
Empower

Welcome
This is not just having someone at the entrance to the church with a friendly smile. This means making sure that anyone new can find everything and know everything they need to. Sometimes the information needs to be conveyed through well positioned signs, sometimes it is given by the welcomer at the front, sometimes it comes from people who sit around the new person, sometimes it comes from the person leading the service or their assistants. This includes knowing things like which page to turn to, which book to use, where the toilets are, what information in the pew bulletin might interest them or be helpful (bible readings that are used in the service or a sermon intro or what events are coming up that might suit them) or just giving them some way in which they can ask for help during the service.

Welcoming children and parents takes a specific skill because they don't necessarily fit into the normal church. What options have you got for children and for which specific age ranges? Do you have a feeding room with change facilities? Do you have a time in the service when the kids come up to the front? Do you have a time when the kids leave the service for an alternative program like Sunday School? Are all the helpers with children blue carded and trained for whatever roles they take and do the new parents know? How is all this information conveyed? What do you do when you don't cover every single age range and someone turns up with kids in the range you cover and kids in the range you don't cover?

The key to all of this is that you don't want the newcomer to feel embaressed by the fact that they are new and don't know anything. All of this information does not need to be conveyed as soon as someone new comes through the door because that would give them information overload. What does need to happen is that the whole congregation needs to consider how they respond when someone new turns up. It must be a very clear strategy that everyone knows about, even if they don't have to do anything.

In ages past, when people were brought up in the church, and church services varied little, a warm smile from other congregation members was enough to welcome newcomers because the information was "obvious". Things like when to sit and stand, which page to turn to and send you kid out just before the sermon were pieces of information that could be worked out using the wealth of knowledge from years of church attendance. In a largely unchurched population, the few that do turn up in the pews don't necessarily have the information to decode the *obvious* and we lose a lot of opportunities when people randomly turn up because it is too scary, too intellectual and literate, too embaressing, too obvious that you are new, and much easier just to stay at home. It cannot be covered by the priest/pastor/leader if there are any more than about 10 people - there is just too much which can put people off.

Finally, a warm smile can be encouraging, but staring at someone's tattoos, thongs-singlet combo and turning your nose away because the newcomer didn't have a shower this week can be devestating. People who don't understand the dresscode probably already feel uncomfortable enough as it is, without the bodylanguage, percieved whispers about them, and *blanking* which makes them feel judged, whether its from the priest or anyone in the congregation. If the welcome isn't good enough, it won't necessarily put off the seriously committed Christian, but unchurched non-christians who are responding to the call of God, or the guilt of Grandma will probably run out the door - never to be seen again because they have been innoculated (a small bad dose protects against a full-blown version taking hold) against the Church and against Christ.

Next - Connect: Not an evangelical sermon series or bible college course, but an attitude.

Cheers
Macca

The end is nigh

I just cannot wait for tomorrow afternoon!
I have had a pretty big term and I just need a proper sleep... (I know - never going to happen when I've got two small boys)
I noticed that the further we went on, the grouchier, crankier, and more irritated people got. If (and this is a big if) we have 100% tolerance at the beginning of a term, by the end most people must be just about out of it.

So how do you avoid flaming all your friends when we get tired?

My answer is simple, by having people around you to keep it in perspective. In my office we all work together to make it a nice place to work. When things get tiring and crazy, we are always there for each other with reassuring words.

So the question is ... Who is around you that helps you keep things in perspective? I guess another important question is ... Who are around your friends and loved ones when things get tough?

Another glorious holiday awaits - going to take my family to a farm where there will be much animal feeding and cuteness!

Cheers
Macca

Friends forever(?)

This week I talked to a class about the importance of forgiveness when grieving. I said that you need to forgive others so that you don't become bitter. You need to forgive yourself and be realistic about your responsibility.
Also this week several friendship issues came up that definitely needed forgiveness on both sides, but both sides are very strong willed. Add to this exam pressure and you've got a recipe for pain and heartache.
I challenge you to think about your own relationships. Is there somone you need to not just say sorry to, but humbly ask for forgiveness? Is there a relationship where its not going how you want it to?
If you keep holding onto it and bottling it up it will only hurt you.
Forgiveness is one of the hardest things for humans, but it also the secret to long-lasting enduring fulfilling relationships.
The youtube clip is important for understanding what forgiveness is not. Mark Driscoll is a fave preacher of mine... He knows what he's talking about
Cheers
Macca
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QB0OhnhJe-M