Friday Burn

::: New Life Christian Church runs the nZone, an 83,000-square-foot athletic training facility, as a nonprofit organization.
Link

::: Entrepreneurship is a Spectrum
Link


:::61 Languages are Found on Twitter - Here is their popularity
Link


::: Camden, NJ, America's Most Desperate Town
Link


::: Derek Snook and In Every Story Labor Services.
"People spend so much time trying to start programs to help the poor, and the reality is that probably one of the best programs we could start would be a bus system that runs on time."
Link


::: Six Ways Millenials are Shaping the Church
Link

::: Your lack of clarity on your great gift to the world is sabotaging you. - @BenArment

Photo: Sheng girls, good morning Paris. France, July 2013.

Book Notes - Redefining the Role of the Youth Worker

Redefining the Role of the Youth Worker by April Diaz.
+ 3 current overarching characteristics of national youth culture and the specific ways they played out in our local context:
1 - We live in a coffeehouse culture. More 'attractive' youth ministry doesn't work like it used to.
- Bigger isn't better. Relational closeness and depth is far more effective (even if it's fabricated intimacy from social media connections.)
- Relational boldness and challenging our students' faith are priorities.
2 - Family systems value education and college resume building more than church involvement.
- The church doesn't dictate involvement. Students select what they will achieve and what will better their future success.
- 'If you build it, they will come' doesn't work unless it adds explicit value to their lives.
- If the church can respond to the culture through service hours and leadership development, this will add value to the students' resume building. This will speak to the real and felt needs of students.
3 - Focus activities or eliminate programming because students are too busy to gather more than once per week.
- Asking students to meet as a youth group during the week is complicated.
- Retreats are mini-monastic experiences for students.
- Local and global experiences are priceless.

+ We articulated our goal as missional life together, while creating age-appropriate experiences that would prepare teenagers for the next season of their lives and engagement with the whole church community.
- Thinking about initiatives, not programs.
- Altering the 5:1 ratio, with five adults investing in every teenager, not just one adult ministering to five teenagers.
- Customizing the development of our juniors and seniors to more intentionally prepare them for life after high school.

+ In the big picture, the role we envisioned for our Student Integration Pastor was to contribute to and collaborate with the broader church for meaningful, intentional and mutual ways of integrating teenagers into the life of the church.
- third culture person
- intergenerational approach
- collaborative and big picture
- highly relational, not programmatic and segmented
- champion for teenagers

Our lead pastor, Dave Gibbons, frequently says we are a church for the "next" generation...

+ Fuller Youth Institute asked youth workers who'd participated in past Sticky Faith Cohorts to share about the mistakes they had made in leading change. The common responses were:
- Timing of the change - when change happens is just as important as what changes are proposed.
- Initiating too much change too soon - This can feel like whiplash if people aren't prepared to enter the change.
- Experimenting on the margins more - Instead of making changes that affect everyone right away, experiment by implementing changes within smaller groups before increasing the impact.
- Pushing for change too fast or not fast enough.

+ Two years later...
- a high school specific gathering on the first three Sundays of the month and then the students would attend the main service on the last Sunday of the month.
- giving our leaders permission - actually a mandate - to focus on the few. Traditional models of ministry pour the most resource investment (time, financial, energy) into the largest events or programs.
- The whole point of having a Student Integration Pastor is to debunk the notion that a paid youth ministry professional and volunteer team are the primary people who can care for and walk with teenagers in their faith journeys and only through innovative youth ministry programming.

Loved tracking with Newsong Church for a few years on and off and I think they are definitely on to something here. The characteristics about national youth culture are right on, especially the one about students being so busy and tracking activities that will help with college. It's all the more powerful if you are in an affluent, suburban, achievement focused context - hello Howard County... And one more point about those characteristics, I've noticed these changes in fairly recent years, and they are subtle but contextually important. Even in a short 10 years, the students I led back then weren't even close to being as busy as they are today. So I'm making that observation as a youth worker and as a parent. These facts must inform how you disciple students.

Great short read that will get you thinking about the way your church interacts with your students.

Coursera Class - The Age of Sustainable Development

Just kidding. I'm not really going back to school. But in January, I am taking a course called The Age of Sustainable Development, offered through Columbia University and Coursera. It looks like a great course in some of the stuff we love to learn about, like economic development, the MDGS, poverty and disease and urbanization.

Two other things which are going to make this great. First, it's taught by Jeffrey Sachs. He's had a lot of influence on me and Ember so to take this from him is a fantastic opportunity. And secondly, taking a class via Coursera should be a cool experience, and this will be my first MOOC. Higher education is in the midst of disruption so I'm excited to experience what college might look like in the near future.

This class is free. Let me know if you end up taking it too.

Friday Burn

::: Meet the Families of 2030
Link


::: What Leaders Won't Do

But the one thing that amazes me more than what leaders will do for their enterprises, is what they so often won’t do – endure emotional discomfort at work.

Lencioni is almost always on the mark.
Link


::: Your Help is Hurting
Solid interview with Pete Greer from Hope International
Link


::: How the Internet is Killing the World's Languages
Link

Photo: Hope, ProtoGuide but not gang member, and moi. Baltimore, November 2013.

Book Notes - The $100 Startup

This blueprint to freedom is fully customizable and highly actionable.

Follow your passion model
Low startup cost
At least $50,000 in income
No special skills
Full financial disclosure
Fewer than five employees

Convergence
passion and what others care about collide

Skill Transformation
To succeed in a business project, it helps to think carefully about all the skills you have that could be helpful to others and particularly about the combination of those skills.

The Magic Formula
(Passion or skill) + (problem + marketplace) = opportunity

Passion, though a bad regulator, is a powerful spring. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

No one values a $15-an-hour consultant, so do not underprice your service. Since you probably won't have forty hours of billable work every week, charge at least $100 an hour or a comparable fixed rate for the benefit you provide.

When I asked our group of unexpected entrepreneurs about the follow-your-passion model, I frequently heard a nuanced answer. Almost no one said, "Yes! You should always follow your passion wherever it leads." Similarly, almost no one dismissed the idea out of hand. The nuance comes from the idea that passion plus good business sense creates an actual business.

A desk is a dangerous place from which to view the world. - John Le Carre

The decision making matrix
Impact, Effort, Profitability, Vision

Plans are only good intentions unless they immediately degenerate into hard work. - Peter F. Drucker

Offerings
Understand that what we want and what we say we want are not always the same thing.
Most of us like to buy, but we don't usually like to be sold.
Provide a nudge.

A good launch blends strategy with tactics. Strategy refers to why questions such as story, offer and long-term plan. Tactics refer to how questions such as timing, price and specific path.

When you're presented with an opportunity, don't just think about its merits or how busy you are. Instead, think about how it makes you feel. If you feel only so-so about it, turn it down and move on. But if the opportunity would be exciting and meaningful - so much so that you can say "hell yeah" when you think about it- find a way to say yes. [Derek Sivers]

The One Page Promotion Plan
Daily - maintain a regular social media presence, monitor 1 or 2 key metrics.
Weekly - ask for help or joint promotions from colleagues, maintain regular communications with prospects and customers
Monthly - connect with existing customers to make sure they are happy [is there anything else i can do for you?], prepare for an upcoming event, contest or product launch.

There is nothing wrong with having a hobby, but if you're operating a business, the primary goal is to make money.

The average business can improve its odds of success greatly by getting paid in more than one way and at more than one time.

Remind people that profit is the difference between revenue and expense. This makes you look smart. - Scott Adams

Easy growth option including adding a service to a product-based business (or vice versa), deploying a creative series of upsells and cross-sells, and making a few key tweaks.

I'm not a businessman; I'm a business, man. - Jay-Z

A business that is scalable is both teachable and valuable. If you ever want to sell your business, you'll need to build teams and reduce owner dependency.

Absolutely loved this book. It really contributes to some of the ideas that we've been pondering about missions the past few years, ideas such as:
1 - You need a portfolio of income.
2 - The global recession is making nonprofit support harder and harder to come by. It is not impossible but it has become much more difficult.
3 - Calling, vocation, skills and your network all inform each other when it comes to income.
4 - A tangible skill may get you to the mission field with more legitimacy than a degree in religion.

Lots more good stuff in the book about actually starting a business.

Missions Foci

Focus has been the en vogue trend in global missions for the past few years. Nothing inherently bad about teaming up with someone you trust and concentrating on momentum together for the long haul. Various implementations around this idea includes focusing on specific demographics [peoplegroups], physical areas of the world or causes [PEACE plan] All the big churches are doing it. Leadership Network cites this as one of the important strategies for the future.

In some cases, the move to focus has been a response to the shotgun approach to missions - having too many superficial relationships scattered all over the globe. The issues coming out of that have included how do we care for so many and how do we decide about allocating resources to these that are scattered. You can spend lots of attention and energy on being focused - that might be the right thing to fix the symptom of being too scattered if that really is your problem.

Or, starting with the end in mind, perhaps the real issue isn't focusing on one of those things above. Maybe what we need is focusing on creating more missionaries - we clearly do not have enough. Unpacking this includes talking about lots of stuff, like leadership development, ensuring character and competence, vocation and calling, and the role of sending churches and agencies. But before all of that, focusing on one might cost you the other.

Friday Burn

::: Thanksgiving Through the Eyes of Missionaries
Link via The Upstream Collective


::: Language Facts Around the World
Link


::: Millennials and the Mega Church Bubble
Link [youtube] via Skye
Skye nails it. If you have 7 minutes, it's well worth the watch.


::: Lets Kill the Aid Industry
Link


::: "No matter what happens, it will have been worth the trying." –Amelia Earhart, in a telegram to her mother, 1928. - @BenArment

Photo: Oreo [and Emily] graduating from beginner dog class.

Book Notes - Youth Ministry in a Post-Christian World

The first time I heard about post-Christianity was when a fellow youth worker told me something he'd overheard. He said a friend of his asked a young pregnant woman if she and her husband had thought of any names for their baby. She answered with this little bomb: "We really haven't thought of a name yet, but one thing we do know is that it won't be a biblical name." This took him aback, so he asked her why. She responded matter-of-factly, "Oh, because we live in a post-Christian world."

This is the world in which our students are growing up today, and they and their friends are no dummies. For Christian students with a faith that really matters to them, growing up in a post-Christian world will cause them to feel like the minority... because they are.

In our post-Christian world, no value is placed on the Sabbath, so our children have some scheduled anxiety seven days a week. This has created the most anxious and stressed-out generation in history.

...this is the world our kids are growing up in, and they need to feel safe as they study, research and try on different faiths. But this Starbucks spirituality is a growing trait, and it's something we need to really think through. In a post-Christian world, you're going to hear this kind of stuff. You're going to hear that students consider themselves "Buddhist Christians" and a plethora of other mashups. How will you respond?

In the past, sometimes I've felt less like a pastor or a shepherd and more like a used car salesman. (I sincerely apologize to any used car salesmen who are reading this right now.) Have we made youth ministry just another product for teens to consume?

In his book Working the Angels, Eugene Peterson says, "The pastors of America have metamorphosed into a company of shopkeepers, and the shops they keep are churches. They are preoccupied with shopkeeper's concerns - how to keep the customers happy, how to lure customers away from competitors down the street, how to package the goods so that the customer will lay out more money."

A sage has a heart for the next generation - Psalm 71:18

Embrace:
Christian relativism
Tolerance
Spirituality
Intellectualism
Mystery
The Miraculous
Answers
[These sound sketch but trust me, they are not.]

This is a solid read and the first three chapters outline the state of things in western culture - evangelical student ministry in crisis. If you don't think that is true, then you'll need to get out of your cave and look around. Then go buy this book.

It is also a great read because it helps those who lead students navigate the culture that our kids are growing up in. The post-Christian world is nuanced and complex, confusing and different. But you know how it goes, once a sold out, passionate leader or two gets it, the students that they care about get it too. And that will make all the difference in the world.

Looking for Just One

If you've been around a little while, you've heard us talk about the journey of self -> service -> systems. Some of it comes from various service experiences we have been involved with and some of it has come from reading current practitioners in the charity/nonprofit/missions space. The real clincher is the third step - getting to a point where you have a system that will help people help themselves.

I will be the first to tell you that it is all talk. It's a mantra that we use that has no real experience behind it. It is experimental thinking. And no one associated with Ember has made that third step. I'm optimistic and I'm desperate for just one.

Here are two great examples of what something like this might look like:
My Congregations Experiment in Using Market Values

Why I Finally Wear Toms Shoes

Friday Burn

::: Four World Changing Products
Link from the current issue of Wired magazine, edited by Bill Gates.


::: The 15 Most Popular Cities for Millennials
Link


::: The Date - 8 countries in 21 days without changing clothes
Link


::: Google's Nine Principles of Innovation
Link


::: Names for Change
From the same people that brought you playspent.org, all to benefit Urban Ministries of Durham
Link


::: "If God be your partner, make large plans." D.L. Moody - @jdgreear

Photo: NYC, March 2009.

The IMN - Strategic and Ideational Leadership Immersion

Anticipatory. Ideational. Strategic. Futuristic. Holistic. Systemic. Relational. Leadership. http://t.co/VNXHydVyhN - limited seating.

— Alex McManus (@alex_mcmanus) November 20, 2013

I have learned a ton from Alex McManus in the past number of years and I know that these immersions that he runs are some of the best if the words in that tweet resonate with you. The IMN has opened registrations for both the online and onsite sessions. Be forewarned though, Alex's gatherings always feel like you are meeting with a different species of human.

Get an idea from some of these notes... Orlando 2005, Humana 2007, Humana 2008, M2011

Ember Baltimore

Ember facilitated a short leadership service experience last weekend based in Baltimore with some of our friends from Salisbury. If you've followed along here for a little while you know about Wendy and us sending her to AZ last summer. She's the current ring leader for a group of college kids at Salisbury who are deeply invested in a bunch of different community impact projects. Wendy approached us a few months ago about setting something up around the theme of churches with unique impact to their communities.

There seems to be a groundswell of stuff happening in Baltimore - lots of recent new churches starting and some interesting under the covers service stuff. If you follow any of this, you probably know the name Colleen Smith. She is a Baltimore legend. We first met many moons ago when she was Kt's Sunday school teacher. Fast forward through her journey with the inner city, serving at Charm City Church, hosting block parties for Mission Advance and her most recent move to work with Captivate Church. [Read the story about their inner city property.] When we thought of the theme, Colleen certainly came to mind.

We spent the morning with Colleen and some of her kids club kids, walking with her around her community and listening to her stories, like: the police raiding her house multiple times, her now babysitting the kids of the first homeless man she ever met, and executing a bedroom makeover for one of the teenagers in her neighborhood. If you ever get a chance to walk her community with her, you'll see that she literally knows everyone and everyone knows her. Just so you know, this is her life pattern and it's amazing to see.

Around lunch time, we took some pre-made lunches to a spot where lots of homeless people gather. The original plan was that each of our team would give out 3 lunches and actually eat with homeless people. Instead, we ran out of food and spent a little time having conversations with some of the people there. Interestingly, most of our team felt a little awkward about the whole exchange. That's healthy to see because it certainly was an inequity of power [a la Toxic Charity.] It's also healthy because a number of years ago, young people I served with would have been fully satisfied by this - now, they want to serve the less fortunate while caring about their dignity. Of course, trusting your local host is one great step towards the right balance in this tension.

After lunch, we distributed some flyers around the neighborhood for Freedom Church, whose staff is in the midst of starting up a Sunday night church service. Instead of actually starting a gathering, they have hosted a number of community open forum nights to hear from people about what is good and bad about where they live and how could a church help with some of those issues. The flyers we distributed were to publicize another one of these coming up that Sunday. Absolutely love that approach.

Be encouraged about the emerging generation. They desire to connect and learn from legendary practitioners like Colleen. When they execute on their passions and principles from those that have come before them, the world will be a better place.

A Letter From...

When Ember ProtoGuide Measu wanted to get in touch with the author of a significant book she read but couldn't find an email address, she wrote him a letter. Like with a paper and pencil. An envelope and a stamp.

Finding a resource, raising some funding, shaping a team, starting a movement. Emerging global student leaders find a way. The rest of us have no excuses.

Perspectives - Lesson 12 - Ekklesia Church

Fantastic time teaching the Perspectives class at Ekklesia Church last week. The lesson I taught was #12, Christian Community Development and I loved being able to bring some emerging global student leaders to listen in on the class.

Here's a few items to note:
+ There was about 20 people in the class, maybe half spoke Spanish and the other half English. The original intent of the class was that it was to have used real time translation via a translator and Spanish speakers wearing headsets to hear the translation. They ended up not doing that anymore because the people that really needed that stopped coming to the class. In either case, fun to see a class like this move to something like that.
+ Perspectives typically has an older demographic, much like anything else you term 'missions.' There were however, a few young adults in there. I'm a firm believer that if more young people heard about this class, they would take it.
+ Worship was in English and Spanish.
+ Met a girl who had lived in Brussels all through her high school years and we knew some of the same people [small world].
+ She was also family friends of someone who sits on our Ember board of directors [smaller world].
+ We also dropped in, before class, on a good friend of mine and his family who lived in Bangkok and Okinawa. Loved hearing them talk to young people about crossing cultures.
+ My slide deck. It's going to go through some major rewriting though. As always, steal or borrow what you wanna.

Friday Burn

::: Superzips - Washington DC
This week's must read if you live in or near Howard County. Stunningly accurate article about life in Howard County. Pick the cultural idols apart of out this article and let it inform how you make disciples.
Link


::: The 10 Smartest Cities in North America
Link


::: NorthPoint and their bazillion short term trips in 2014
Link


::: Tension, not balance.
So so true
Link


::: Plan to Reach 50 US Cities
Link

Photo: elevator, Vienna City Hostel, 2008.

Plan to Prepare

Some of you might be planning your summer 2014 adventures. Let me encourage you - it's not too early to think about how to prepare your students and leaders in the right manner for those adventures. Think leadership, team building, acclimating to navigating a different culture. Ember is booking student missions prep sessions and would love to help.

Meet Tess

That's Tess on the left [and ProtoGuide Measu on the right... but you knew that...] Ember is at the very beginning embryonic stage of a little project with Tess - it's one of those throw-and-see-what-sticks kinds of things.

Tess spent a little while in Brussels last summer and fell in love with the city, the culture and the people there. Even better, she came home with a new realization of how western culture is post evangelical, post modern and post Christian. Along with all of those posts comes a sense of urgency - humanity is desperate for something.

Tess is a great example of what Ember likes to call an emerging global student leader. She's traveled a little, interested in global cultures and already has lots of influence and responsibility. If this little experiment works, we will all be thrilled.

Friday Burn

::: How Fast Food Eaters Split Along Ethnic Lines
Wait - Asians visit Panda Express?
Link


::: Top 10 Countries for ExPats
Link


::: "I'll pass on waiting for the torch. I've got a fire to start"
Link


::: On the day of their IPO, Twitter chose a nine year old girl to ring the bell on the NYSE

But instead, when time came to pronounce Twitter public Thursday morning, a 9-year-old girl dressed in a “little bluebird” tutu dress appeared behind the bell. She is Vivienne Harr, who recently raised more than $100,000 to fight childhood slavery by spending 365 days behind a lemonade stand....
"Can I say one thing?" Harr asks me before our interview ends. "I just want to say that today I ring the bell to open freedom. And you don’t have to be big and powerful to change the world. You can be just like me."

Link

Photo: WWII memorial.

To Benefit All

Again, we felt God calling us to a deeper commitment to His glory among the nations. We had developed partnerships after our first Sacred Gathering but, this time, we began to feel God leading us to send teams to live in an unreached or unengaged people group to share the gospel and train local leaders to start indigenous churches. On the last day of the Sacred Gathering, Kyle came to my office and said he couldn't get Belgium off his mind. I think we both knew what was happening. After weeks of discussion and prayer, I told him that if God was directing him to Belgium, then He was directing us to Belgium. I believe when God gives direction to pastors and church leaders, it's not just for their benefit; it's for the church. - The Sending Church: The Church Must Leave the Building by Pat Hood.

The Kyle mentioned here is Kyle Goen, Brussels campus pastor for LifePoint Church.

My Nonprofit Gives

I sent myself two gifts a few weeks ago from my little nonprofit. Sounds kind of self-serving doesn't it? I sort of agree too, I felt a little strange doing it.

On the other hand, I'm a firm believer in people investing in themselves. Whether it is taking a class or buying some books or learning a new skill, at some point, someone might choose to provide something like that for you. But in the end, the only one that is looking out for your own development is you. There is quite simply no one else as interested in your growth.

So gift yourself something that will make you grow. And be happy about it.