Table Of ContentChurch Champions Update Archives | Leadership Network
Church Champions Update: One hand grenade for your mind
The weekly update for Church Champions written by Dave Travis
For the week of February 5, 1999
This week:
More sports illustrations than a human can stand
Clusters of Innovation
A discussion with Brian Kluth on Stewardship
On to the update:
Some of you know I live in Atlanta. You are now expecting some rants about "The Dirty
Birds," The Atlanta Falcons, and how they became a team this year. I'll save that for later.
The warm weather here has brought my thoughts to a warm weather sport.
Is Tiger Woods the best player in Golf? The World Rankings say so. But ask any golfer,
including Tiger, and they will say the best golfer right now is someone else.
Two years ago Tiger Woods became a full time player on the PGA Pro Golf Tour. In his first
year he ran away from the field in the Masters Golf Tournament and won Player of the Year.
He electrified golf spectators and terrified his competitors. Augusta National, site of the
Masters Tournament, has even redesigned some holes so they will be harder for Tiger.
Some said at the time that "Competition raises every sport to a higher level. The uneasiness
we feel from being bumped (or shoved) out of our comfort zone is understandable."
Commentators speculated that golf was going to get even more boring as one man would
dominate the tournaments.
One group of golfers decided the talented young man was not going to dominate them. It
included Wood's friend and neighbor Mark O'Meara. Some said O'Meara was too old to be
competitive any more. Playing in the neighborhood course with his new buddy Woods, he
took his game up several notches and won the Masters and the British Open last year.
Another young man decided to lose some weight and refine his game. He has become the
most dominant golfer on Tour. David Duval has won 9 out of the last 28 tournaments he
has entered. Two weeks ago he shot a record tying 59 to win the Bob Hope Golf Classic.
That score has only been equaled three times in pro golf history. Duval had already won the
Mercedes Championship two weeks before that. In between the two tournaments, he took a
ski vacation.
Even Tiger Woods said of this accomplishment: "What you want to do out here is to prove
you're better than any other player," Woods said. "David has been doing that."
Woods initiallly raised the bar and now Duval is raising it higher. Tiger set a new standard
and expectation of excellence two years ago. The true competitors are going beyond.
I stroll down this path not just because I am a Duval fan, (hey, we went to the same
school), but to illustrate how expectations of excellence motivate Champions to improve
themselves.
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I had confirmed again this week that when I find one large, healthy congregation in a
community or county, I will also find at least two others. They may not all be the same size
but they are all of significant scale and scope to be viewed as the leading churches of the
area. I have also noticed that at least one of the congregations is relatively new. The
clusters rarely share the same denominational label.
When you explore the history of these clusters, I find one of the churches began the growth
path first. The others saw it could be done and followed.
In conversation this week with a Orlando pastor he told me of a mid sized Florida city with 6
very large congregations within several miles of each other. Only two shared the same
denominational affiliation. All had emerged in the last 10 years. Even more amazingly, it is
not one of the fast growth cities of Florida. The population is relatively stable in that city.
A recent Harvard Business Review article by Michael Porter, one of the leading authors on
strategy, describes cluster effects. (See HBR – November/December 1998)
Porter describes the various industrial and service clusters in the U.S. and a few in Europe.
The Silicon Valley would be one example for high technology while Dalton, Georgia would be
one for carpets. In these company clusters groups of similar companies emerge to spur one
another on to greater innovation and efficiencies. Suppliers and services to these clusters
emerge. Peer pressure and civic pride spur the leaders of these organizations to excel. The
companies find themselves constantly comparing their performance to their counterparts.
I don't want to equate churches to the same characteristics of the companies but churches
on the growth edge do tend to compare themselves to other churches on the growth edge,
not to another smaller church within their denominational tradition. An advance or
innovation by one church in a community cluster will lead to adoption or reinvention in one
of the other congregations. The expectation of excellence has increased in that community.
I also usually find a lay organization or para church organization within those communities
which acts as an informal network of shared ideas among the lay leaders within that
community. In this way, innovations can be explored and normed before adoption within
those congregations.
Leadership Network has built its ministry through the years through gathering the
innovative, creative leaders who want to encourage one another to do great things for God.
This is the story of all of our various networks. We want to help raise the expectations of
excellence.
Our founder, Bob Buford says that the day Roger Bannister broke the four minute mile,
every high school miler in the country lowered their time by 10 seconds. (How should I
know it was 1954 and I wasn't around.)
Fifteen days later, Bannister's record was broken by 1.4 seconds. Within a year, 12 others
had broken the four minute mile.
A challenge had been issued by Bannister, the expectation of excellence had gone up.
From the elite runners to the average high school athlete, the standards had been raised.
How are you raising the expectation of excellence in the churches you serve? God does not
call every church to be large but I do think God wants our best. Are the churches that you
serve being encouraged on to excellence?
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I had a brief dinner with Brian Kluth, President of the Christian Stewardship Association the
other night. He gave me an update on some of their organization's training tools and
meetings for equipping both institutional and church leaders. He was in Florida for one of
their week long institute training sessions this week. They have another week scheduled in
May that includes courses in Church and Denominational Stewardship Dynamics. I have
seen the curriculum and outlines and it looks like it would be very appropriate for some of
our Church Champions.
If you want more information you can call the Christian Stewardship Association at
800.475.1976 extension 21 and ask for the professional institute course catalog. Also, check
out their web site at www.stewardship.org. It has a good number of resources from past
meetings there. Though many think their ministry is only with large parachurch
organizations, they have a lot of material and courses that can be used by churches and
denominations.
We at Leadership Network do a lot of neat stuff but I really appreciated the current issue of
Access. Access is a companion product to Net FAX that describes practical resources for
helping church leaders. The February issue (#10) is about church design, remodeling and
building. This is one of the frequently asked questions for many Church Champions.
Carol Childress has sorted through some of the books and resources out there on this topic
and put on one page those she thinks are the best.
If you are not a subscriber to Net FAX, call our Customer Service line and ask for a sample
of Access to get this information. Ask for a subscription form too.
Upcoming Church Champions Workshops and Forums:
Lay Mobilization Consultants Training is next on tap. March 21-25 in Arlington, Texas (near
Dallas)
This workshop is for those who desire to coach and consult with churches in the area of Lay
Mobilization.
To register or receive more information call Leadership Network Customer Service at
800.765.5323.
Contact Information:
Email: [email protected]
Voice: 800.765.5323
www.churchchamp.org
Church Champions: Serving Consultants/Catalysts to Congregations
A Service of Leadership Network
Church Champions Update Archives | Leadership Network
Church Champions Update: One hand grenade for your mind
The weekly update for Church Champions written by Dave Travis
For the week of February 12, 1999
This is one thought, but a long thought. Remember the wet sand rule mentioned in an
earlier update. This idea has had me pondering all week.
This week:
The Innovator's Dilemma
The hospital designed around the patient
The Bible designed around the potential reader
New Service or new congregation?
I am probably the last person to mention the book The Innovator's Dilemma: When New
Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail by Clayton M. Christensen to you. (Harvard Business
Press, 1997) I just got around to reading it this week and it rocks. This is a highly technical
book by an MIT professor, which uses as its primary examples the disk drive industry for
computers. Some Church Champions will get bogged down at the beginning but press ahead
through it for some great insights. It will occupy my brain space and thinking for several
months so be prepared to hear about it again.
In short, Christensen says that there are two types of innovations, Sustaining Innovations
and Disruptive Innovations. Existing firms use sustaining innovations to continue building
market share and profits. New entrant firms are more likely to develop and eventually
dominate existing firms by exploiting disruptive innovations. Why do the existing firms fail
to grab on to the disruptive innovations? Is it bad management, lack of foresight?
Surprisingly, no. Instead they are actually practicing good management.
They are listening to their existing customers very intently. They are making sound and
profitable resource allocation strategies. They are maximizing profits. They are improving
products that their customers want and need. They are usually moving "up the market" to
higher value customers.
The disruptive firms are building new generations of products on new architectures and in
the beginning for customers either too marginal or too small for a large company to be
concerned about. They are developing new markets for their products. The large,
established firms are waiting for the market to become large enough before it becomes
interesting. Unfortunately for them, by the time it is, it's too late for them. The entrant firm
has been through several generations of its technology advancement and has built its
business model around that technology.
The way around this dilemma? Christensen argues that the best way is to create free
standing, small organizations to explore and exploit the disruptive technology and create
the new market.
Inc. Magazine for February has an article about a small town hospital in Derby, Connecticut.
Like many small, community hospitals, it has an uphill fight for survival. There are seven
larger, world class hospitals close by. Yet this hospital has soaring patient satisfaction
scores (96%), healthy cash flow and rising admissions. Ten years ago, this was not the
case. What happened?
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First some of the executives got sick while away from the area and were put in other
hospitals. They saw first hand how bad the experience is for a patient at any hospital. The
board and management decided to ask customers how they could make the experience
better. But which customers? The board wanted to go to the long time users of the hospital.
This was an older clientele. But one member of management convinced the board that
reaching younger generations was a more viable option since they could be longer-term
customers.
The hospital asked those in the community who had not used the hospital but were likely to
need hospitalization in the future, females of childbearing ages. These potential customers
told them what they wanted in the hospital room and the total experience. The list included
birthing rooms large enough not only for the husband to attend the birth but the whole
family. They wanted double beds so their husbands could sleep with them, Jacuzzi tubs, big
windows and fresh flowers and more.
Being prudent managers the team took the list and began to prioritize what should be
changed and what wasn't feasible. After some long discussions they decided to give the
customer exactly what they wanted. They built it all. They designed it totally around that
customer's need. They also changed some of the care practices to reflect what the customer
desired. Usually both the hardware design and care practices reflect what the care giver
desires, not the patient.
The response was enthusiastic from the patients. Some of the staff were not as impressed.
It violated their sense of what a hospital is and should be. But business boomed. Some
obstetricians left but others came and took their place enthusiastically. These doctors and
nurses preferred the patient driven model practiced at the hospital.
It worked so well in the baby areas, the hospital decided to redesign the whole hospital
around the patient. You can read the rest of the story at
http://www.inc.com/incmagazine/archives/02990721.html.
My point is that the sustaining innovation way to approach the hospital problem would have
been to go to the hospital's present best customers and design it around their needs. The
disruptive innovation would be to design the hospital services around those it wanted to
reach. The worse thing to do 10 years ago was nothing.
Story three for the week is about my visit with friends at the International Bible Society in
Colorado Springs. While the meetings were about other issues, I was struck by some of the
new things they are doing. Some of you have seen their new scripture portion pieces. They
are colorful, photo driven small books with titles such as "Discovering Wisdom: Pondering
the Meaning of Life" that include portions of the Bible book Ecclesiastes. There is also a
similar one about the book of Proverbs. They have just released "Visions of the Apocalypse"
with passages from the "Ancient Prophecy of Revelation." The staff there told me this was
for "the X-Files crowd." The colorful design and packaging of the scriptures is a sustaining
innovation. The disruptive innovation in this case is the planned distribution of these
materials. They are presently running trials with large book chains with these books as point
of sale pick ups. In addition they are partnering with other retail chains to include the copies
as gifts with other purchases. This action moves the Bible beyond the Christian book store
market and puts it into the broader market place. They believe that God's Word will not
return without results on the reader.
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In addition I was shown a redesigned scripture portion for Arab speaking Muslim countries.
The sustaining innovation is that the book is designed like a Muslim holy book. It is of very
high quality binding and artwork. The paper is premium paper. The title is something like "A
Muslim looks at Christianity." The introduction is from a Muslim statesman, who says,
"Christians know more about Muslims that Muslims know about Christians, I commend
readers to this book to better understand Christians."
The scripture portion is the book of John. The sale of Bibles is strictly regulated in many
Arab countries. This book is not. It can be found in better bookstores throughout the Arab-
speaking world. The disruptive innovation again is the distribution tactics of the scriptures.
By the way you can see some of these materials online at www.ibs.org. Also check out the
booklet by their new US CEO Paul-Gordon Chandler entitled "Re-Thinking The Bible for
Contemporary Culture: Opening the book 'Starbucks Style.'" This describes some of the
thought on changing the distribution paradigms.
Last story. I spoke with two pastors this week about the future direction of their
congregations. Both pastor rather large congregations. They lead churches of health and
vitality. Both pastors had been at the congregation over 7 years. Both pastors were in their
early 40s.
One pastor is using a sustaining technology in starting a new worship service. He is taking
elements of an existing worship format, transplanting them into the new service with some
of the existing leadership within their church. They are doing this to help "retain some of
our younger generations" and allow those members to have a "safe place to invite their
friends". The idea and implementation are derived from carefully listening to their current
constituent's needs and desires.
The other is using a disruptive technology by launching a satellite congregation 5 miles
away on 50 acres of land. The look, feel and style at the satellite will be totally different
from the existing congregation. To research what it should do the congregation hired a
group to gather and listen to unchurched residents near the new site. ("It was brutal to
listen to," said the pastor.) These tactics are driving them toward a group without church
affiliation.
Though both pastors were originally thinking of a worship design format they thought was
similar, the further into their process you go it appears their designs are fundamentally
different. The reason? The former congregation is designing the new service around the
provider's needs, the latter around the customer's needs.
I believe both will be successful in the goals they have set for their new ventures. I think in
ten years though the latter will still be around while the former may have run its course.
The Innovator's Dilemma helps to explain all the above stories. It also explains why the
books with title such as The Ten Largest Sunday Schools or The Ten Best Churches seem to
have short shelf lives. Those successful in one age have the most difficulty being successful
in the next.
So where does that leave us? Where are the innovations within our organization that need
to be sustained with existing customer bases? What are the innovations that could be
disruptive that need to be developed in order to reach new customers?
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If you like talking about Innovation you will want to be a part of our Diffusion of Innovations
Workshop experience on May 17-18. It features professor Everett Rogers, the originator and
key researcher of the idea. For more information, call our Customer Service Department at
800.765.5323.
Space is also still available for the Lay Mobilization Consultants Training Workshop on March
21 – 25 near Dallas, Texas.
In addition, if you want to see some of the people that I think are doing some disruptive
innovations within local congregations, check out the Leadership Network Young Leaders
web site at www.youngleader.org . Find out about their regional forums this year where you
can learn about the ministry to younger generations.
To register or receive more information about any of the above events, call Leadership
Network Customer Service at 800.765.5323.
Contact Information:
Email: [email protected]
Voice: 800.765.5323
www.churchchamp.org
[email protected]
Church Champions: Serving Consultants/Catalysts to Congregations
A Service of Leadership Network
Church Champions Update Archives | Leadership Network
Church Champions Update: One hand grenade for your mind
The weekly update for Church Champions written by Dave Travis
For the week of February 19, 1999
This week:
What's coming next?
What's the deal with music these days?
I am in California this week with the rest of our staff from Leadership Network and we are
talking about what we are seeing in innovative churches across the country. Remember that
we work with very few congregations across the U.S. The ones we do choose to work with
tend to be large, innovative and early adopter congregations. We also are scanning the
churches that are led by young leaders who are reaching younger generations. Some of the
things we are seeing will be seen in other congregations in several years. We hope that by
serving as headlights into the future we can prepare you to deal with the changes. Those
that attend some of the upcoming Church Champions events will help us by talking through
them so we can learn together. I hope you'll join us.
For others of you, expect to hear about some of those things in future Church Champions
Updates and feed back to us your best thoughts.
Now I wade into the murky music world. A disclaimer: I am not a church musician. My
father is but I am not. So don't call on me to sing. I want to combine several conversations
and readings to make some statements about music.
Those of us in Atlanta were saddened recently by the death of Robert Shaw. Shaw was the
retired conductor and music director for the Atlanta Symphony and Chorus. Some of you
are old enough to remember the Robert Shaw chorale of the 1950s.
Shaw was the son of an evangelical minister and a frequent lecturer on Worship and the
Arts. While he was a conductor of a classical symphony, he loved some contemporary
songs. One of the tributes said this about him:
Worship, Shaw said, "doesn't require you to check your mind at the door." But he was never
contemptuous of the people's music – folk hymns, carols, and spirituals he found "tuned
and polished by generations of unintentional composers, nameless amateurs who loved
their God and wanted to praise Him." "For me…the arts may provide the day by day
confirmation of a Creator's hand still at work in the lives and affairs of men."
In most of the churches we work with at Leadership Network the music wars are over. The
transitions from the old, whatever that was, to the new, whatever that is, has occurred.
Clearly some churches are still fighting "the worship wars." For those I would recommend
the book for Elmer Towns' book Putting an End of the Worship Wars.
Here are some recent conversations about music, its current trends and some applications
in congregations.
A music executive and publisher sent our founder an email with his observations of the
current music scene. His comments included the globalization of music. The music of North
America is played in other parts of the world, is reinvented and then comes back to
influence North American music. We are seeing genre fusion. There is a current country
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song that begins with an alternative rock acoustic sound, blends into a Caribbean steel
drum sound but is clearly a country song with its lyrics.
Spiritual issues heavily influence the themes of pop music. While MTV's impact is decreasing
there is still a use of the image and video to sell the story of the music. Buyers of music see
the music first and then buy the CD. Finally he mentions the feminization of music. Nine of
the ten albums nominated for Grammy awards are from women.
Evaluation questions for the above comments might include: How is the music you use
influenced by world music? Do you have a variety of styles? Are you using some of the
current popular music songs to connect with the culture so you can explain the claims of
Christ as it relates to the message of that music? Can participants see the music and the
story it portrays in order to connect to its message? Do you have enough women in
leadership of the music?
OK, but does music matter? In a recent conversation with a pastor who is helping plant a
new congregation, the congregation used focus groups of unchurched families to survey the
target community. They had three different age demographics represented. In discussing
their views of congregations and why they would or would not attend no one mentioned
music. Not even once.
The interviewer asked what type of music they had on their first two buttons on their radio.
The answers were all over the place. There were those that listened to country, pop,
alternative, oldies (the 1950's, 60's, and 70's) as well as talk radio. "What type of music
should you hear at church?" they were asked? Something that is easy to sing and like
what's on the radio. One can see the challenge music leaders in congregations have today.
By the way, no one in the target populations mentioned an organ or classical music. I grew
up on that style in church and I like it. But to reach others I am willing to set it aside.
Finally on these rambles on the music scene I will mention an effective outreach tool some
congregations are using. Compact Discs (CD's) are becoming very affordable to produce and
congregations are using this means as outreach tools. The CD's have music that is used in
their worship services as well as multi page vision casting brochures into the disc case. The
discs are sold very cheaply to church members so they can give them away to their friends.
They are beautifully packaged and produced. They let an unchurched person get a feel for
the worship style as well as the vision for the church.
Upcoming Church Champions Workshops and Forums:
Lay Mobilization Consultants Training is next on tap. March 21-25 in Arlington, Texas (near
Dallas)
This workshop is for those who desire to coach and consult with churches in the area of Lay
Mobilization.
Church Champions: Serving Consultants/Catalysts to Congregations
A Service of Leadership Network
Church Champions Update Archives | Leadership Network
Church Champions Update: One hand grenade for your mind
The weekly update for Church Champions written by Dave Travis
For the week of February 26, 1999
This week:
How these things get started.
Story and Leadership
Ken Blanchard and more
One of the things I do every day is talk to at least one of the individuals I serve in the
Church Champions Network. Sometimes I call them and sometimes they call me.
Sometimes it is in response to their request for information; advice, counsel, referral and
sometimes I just want to know what is going on in their work. This week I had opportunity
to talk to several and even have lunch with a few. (So if anyone wants to call and take me
to lunch.)
This update has its roots in a call from someone who had attended our Forum Process
Training Event last year. He was describing how his organization was now using the forum
process to serve and equip the advanced leaders within their denominational system. It was
working well for them. Then he mentioned a book he had just read and that I had to read. I
wrote down the title and clicked it on Amazon a few minutes later.
"What did you like about it?" I asked. "I liked the fact that it was a leadership book told as a
story. It engrossed me. I couldn't put it down." "Great, write a Church Champions FAX on it
so we can share it with others" I said. He promised to do so.
That got me to thinking about several uses of story that have application to our work as
Church Champions.
In an article in the Utne Reader January issue an author claimed that one of the in demand
jobs for the future is storyteller. The projection was that as we become more technologically
driven the backlash will drive the need for those who can tell stories that give people
meaning.
A few months ago I got around to reading "The Five Temptations of A CEO: A Leadership
Fable" by Patrick Lencioni. (Jossey-Bass, 1998) In this brief book, the author describes a
CEO who is failing. During a long train ride home, he meets a stranger who shares with him
the five temptations that leaders face. According to the stranger, they are: being more
concerned about status than results; wanting to be popular more than accountable;
choosing certainty over clarity; choosing harmony over productive conflict and choosing
invulnerability over trust.
I saw some parallels to pastors and churches we serve at Leadership Network. It is a good
book to use in coaching a pastor through some leadership issues. My point today is not what
the book says, but how it uses a story to communicate its message. The above book, while
told as a story, includes some application sections at the end. The author was a little afraid
to let the story stand by itself.
I remember another book that I used when coaching pastors as a denominational executive.
"The Philippian Fragment" was a humorous book about a pastor in the first century. The
author, Calvin Miller, describes the travails of this ancient pastor through the lens of
discovered letters between the pastor and a close friend. In the letters he described
Description:Church Champions Update: One hand grenade for your mind. The weekly
update for .. drum sound but is clearly a country song with its lyrics. Spiritual
issues
