Change
At GBCK we are walking through a lot of change in areas of leadership, systems, spiritual growth track, and even our service times. Last Summer there was something brewing inside of me that as a church we needed to change; that is, what got us to our current state wasn't going to get to where we needed to go.
Here are some things we're learning about change, especially from mistakes we made:
• In general, people do not like change. You will always have your "early adopters", but most people adopt change slowly.
• Communication is critical to change. Communicate early. Communicate often.
• Change takes time. People don't soak up change like a sponge; change seeps in.
• Get your leaders and influencers bought into the change early. Don't assume they "got it".
• Change is a process. Plan out the steps to change and then work the plan.
• Vision is the engine to change. Vision makes change a mission. Without vision change becomes a duty.
• Change takes a lot of leadership energy at the front-end.
• Change is good, change is hard.
Clear as Mud
You can never be too clear. Like a window can never be too clean, or water can never be too clear.
Clarity is something we're working hard on at GBCK. Here are some things we're learning, and re-learning, about clarity:
• It may be clear in your head (or in your staff meeting) but it takes a whole lot of work to make something clear to the rest of the congregation.
• Clarity can never be assumed. It's safer to assume things are still unclear, and then keep working at clarity.
• Pop quizzes: one way we want to determine clarity is short "quizzes" that will help determine if something that's being communicated is going in.
• Say it often, differently, and creatively.
• Clarity empowers others and frees them to act. Lack of clarity paralyzes.
• If the leadership is unclear then it's over; what you're trying to communicate will end at the leadership level and never go to the congregation.
• Use sounding boards to gauge clarity. One of my most important weekly meetings is our "Word" meeting where Dane and I go over Friday's and Sunday's sermons. We spend a lot of time clarifying big ideas. "If there's a haze in the pulpit, there's a fog in the pews."
Here are some of the things we're trying to clarify:
1. The vision of GBCK
2. Leadership roles and functions
3. The Gospel
Again, you can never be too clear.
Breaking barriers
Yesterday Dane and I listened on CD to the first hour of Nelson Searcy's Breaking Growth Barriers workshop.
One of the first growth barriers a church will face is space. At some point your facility begins to feel full even when it isn't full. Searcy uses the "70% rule": when you are filling 70% of your seats your are full. Technically, the space isn't full, but people perceive that it is.
When this happens people
• stop inviting guests
• stop talking/connecting to others
• attend erratically
At GBCK we are facing this barrier in our 10am service. We are hovering right at 70% capacity. In order to create more space we will shift our service start times a half-hour later to 9am and 10:30am in order to give people more options to attend and to invite. The change happens on May 16.
I believe GBCK is poised to reach our next growth increment of 300, which means the Gospel is growing and bearing fruit (Col. 1:6) and that disciples are being made (Matt. 28:19).
As we heard on the CD, sometimes all it takes is one little tweak to bust through a growth barrier.
Prayers for my Keiki
Here's a super cool tool you can use to pray for your child. It's a simple prayer card with a short prayer and scripture passage you can pray over your child.
There's a back side too.
We'll be passing these out at GBCK this Sunday for the conclusion of our parenting series.
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