A Stone's Throw

Tuesday is for Training . . . Drive-In Online Conference

I got the opportunity to go to the first DRIVE conference several years ago and it was a life-changing experience. It just really began to put some of the pieces together for me of church planting and especially creating “irresistible environments.”

The beauty of the Drive-In Conference is that you can sit in your boxers on your couch…you don’t have to drive or fly to Atlanta to go to the conference. Simply go to driveinternational.org, register, and “attend” the conference. You can also see the archived sessions and join in on the conversation on the blog.

The even better part than boxers…it’s free!

I am trying to get on to more of a schedule with this blog…if I don’t, then you get a random post once every two weeks, or one when John or Dinwiddie bugs me about not seeing any posts lately!

Today, TUESDAY IS FOR TRAINING. . . I am going to include something that I am learning and will write something or, like today, steal from someone who is smarter than me that is teaching me!!

Joshua Hedger, our Youth Pastor at the Joplin campus, sent this out to our staff and his youth staff and I thought it was really good about how to reach the next generation.

Reaching the Next Generation (from LifeChurch)

To reach the next generation for Christ, we must be three things:

§ Conversational.

§ Missional.

§ Generational.

Let’s start today with conversational. This generation craves intimacy in relationships. They want to know and be known.

Too many Western Christians are turned off (or intimidated by) the young, tech savvy, tattooed, and pierced young adults.

Some churches preach against these outward appearances. Others are striving full-time to be “cool” and “relevant” believing the right environment, best light show, or hot sermon series will win the young adults to Christ.

Both these strategies miss a key ingredient. This generation wants to talk. Conversation matters. Relationships matter. Intimacy matters.

Here are some rules of conversation:

§ Before they listen to you, they want to know if you’re listening to them. If you’ll get to know them, they will listen to you.

§ If you’re quick to judge, don’t bother trying to connect.

§ It doesn’t matter if you’re cool or relevant. It matters if you bring the real you. Fake is the worst thing you can bring.

§ The fifth conversation might be the difference maker. In my “Christian Witness Training” course at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, we were trained to knock on doors, present the gospel, and ask people to pray the sinners’ prayer. While this might occasionally still work, it isn’t a likely path to life change. This generation builds trust slowly. If you don’t plan on having a third, fourth, or fifth conversation, you might not want to spend a lot of time on the first.

§ They want to be loved. My most consistent conversations with 20-somethings happens in the gym. After getting to know some young men, I genuinely care for them and believe in them. I try to tell them often, “I’m proud of you… I’m pulling for you… I believe in you… I love you.” They seem hungry for acceptance and affirmation and respond well to sincere Christian love.

Mark Dinwiddie has been sending us Multisite/Missions Nuggets of Truth each week for a couple of months now and I am starting a new category of them so you can talk about them and comment.

We have really been talking about that dirty word for perfectionists, DELEGATE.  Enjoy.

You have two choices in your work.  When something has been assigned to you, you can either do it yourself or get someone else to do it.  Your ability to get someone else to do it, to delegate it effectively    —more than anything else— is going to determine your career track, your position and rate of promotion, your pay, your status, prestige, and success in management.  (The Delights of Delegation)
“I owe whatever success I have attained, by and large, to my ability to surround myself with people who are smarter than I am” Andrew Carnegie

I once had one of my dad’s best friends, “work himself out of a job.”  He had worked for this company back before he retired and hired on with another company doing consulting.  Basically, he delegated all of the work to be done by the company employees that he was no longer needed–and he could go back to traveling in his retirement!

Who do you know that is a good delegator?  What makes them good at it?  What prevents you from delegating the way you ought?