I think that is a haunting lesson for anyone who is passionately pursuing any dream. Failure, as trying as it can be, is not the worst thing that can happen to you. Success can actually be worse. This is true in ministry and in business. You can get so big and so successful that as an organization you are no longer lit by the same fire you once had. You have to fight to retain the original passion you had when you were starting out.

There are two things that we have been intentional about doing at fresh life, as we have grown, to keep us on mission and fight the forces of entropy. One is being careful to remember our history. This is vital. New hires and those who join later on need to understand what they are a part of or they will take the sacrifices paid early on for granted. The second is to make sure that the core values that lead to the success in the first place are instilled afresh, again and again, so that they are not forsaken.

A while back a friend of mine, Pastor Steven Furtick from Elevation Church in Charlotte, North Carolina, gave me a book that really opened my eyes to seeing the need for these things to be specifically nailed down and not allowed to remain nebulous. The book is called The Orange Code: How ING Direct Succeeded by Being a Rebel with a Cause (you can buy it here). That and the book Onward by Howard Schultz (link) are two phenomenal resources for any leader looking to create clarity in their organizational culture.

One things for sure, it’s a war you must wage if you want to continue to hear the music. It doesn’t happen on accident.

Check out this video where I explain what’s unique about the culture at fresh life to our church.

“A store manager’s job is not to oversee millions of customer’s transactions a week, but one transaction millions of times a week.”

This hit me hard when I read it. Typically pastors and church staffs speak about church attendance as a number. we ask, “what was attendance this weekend?” Whether the answer is 648, 2,042 or 199 the idea is that so many hundreds or thousands of spiritual transactions were facilitated this weekend. True. But to each of those individuals there was only one experience–their own.

I told our team that every single person who arrives at a campus has their own experience. Their individual time finding a parking spot, getting greeted, finding a seat, discovering where to check in their kids. It doesn’t matter if the greeters were super friendly to the 148 people that came in before them, if they weren’t greeted they assume that is how it normally is. They don’t know that the bathrooms aren’t normally this messy, but they were stuck in a stall with no toilet paper and that is not a good time. They don’t care that the last 1,242 people who tried to download our podcast found it updated on time, they just know it wasn’t there when they tried to listen. All they know about is their own experience.

We have to lead focused on the big picture, but we must also keep the small picture in mind. Don’t let the size of your ministry allow you to gloss over the small details that matter dearly to the individual. It takes practice, but it is a very helpful exercise to focus on the individual perspective and to shrink your focus.

Here is the rest of the quote from Howard Schultz.

“…The only number that matters is one. One cup. One customer. One partner. One experience at a time. We had to get back to what mattered most.”

Having an ear to the ground can alert you to “wow” moments that are happening that you aren’t aware of but you should be encouraging. Things that employees are doing that blow customers away that you can make a more wide spread behavior. Or maybe you will find out that some small thing you have in place is actually doing the exact opposite of what you want it to. Feedback could allow for a small tweak that could make a huge difference.

An openness to feedback will allow you to see your team or organization or church through a new set of eyes. This even applies to individuals. One of the ways to grow is to have people in your life that can speak into your life when they see things that are keeping you from growing. We all have a way of being blind to our own weaknesses. Honest evaluation can be a majorly valuable tool.

The key is to know what feedback to take seriously and what input to ignore altogether. If you listen to the wrong feedback you could find yourself compromising where you shouldn’t. For example, if you have recently given your life to Christ and the negative feedback is pouring in from people you used to party with, you are going to want to ignore their contribution. The same applies to business. Perhaps some people very vocally complain about your sky-high prices and you are tempted to add cheaper items to the menu. But if you are going for a boutique vibe, diluting your higher-end price point could be a mistake and weaken what sets you apart. Pleasing the wrong people could keep you from reaching the right people.

Start by accepting the fact that no one can please everyone. You have got to identify who you are trying to impact, isolate their input and reject all others.

In my world, I am open to hearing feedback from all sorts of different people, but I filter it through the grid of who I am trying to reach. If I hear complaints from someone who comes to freshlife for the first time and thinks that the music was too loud and they didn’t like stuff we did because that’s not how it was in their last church, I’m not phased. The feedback that I key into is the person who writes and tells me they haven’t been to a religious service in 20 years but their life was rocked by their experience and they didn’t even know church could be like this. I want to encourage and foster stories like that. So I care very much about the fact that they were invited by a friend, heard our radio station and were intrigued by the name of the series.

To be blunt, I don’t care if a person who is already saved doesn’t like it. If they are already going to heaven, they are good. They can just go to another church and I am more than fine with that. The person who isn’t going to any church is the one whose head I want to get in to. In order to reach the right people I am willing to not please the wrong people.

If you know who or what you are targeting you can practice selective hearing when you listen to what people say about your organization and not find yourself deviating from your primary objective. Define success and then pursue it wholeheartedly.

Here is what it said:
YOU.
HAVE BEEN WORKING WITH CONSERVATION INTERNATIONAL FOR 10 YEARS.

Now, as I read that I immediately thought, “No, I haven’t… I must have been given the wrong cup. There is probably a seasoned conservation activist somewhere who is gonna be so mad when he finds out I have his drink.” But then I noticed what was written immediately below…

Everything we do, you do. Buy our coffee and good things happen. Take Starbucks 10-year partnership with CI in making things better for farmers and the planet…It makes a difference. Just like you do. Congratulations, you.

Brilliant. I have been buying coffee from them for over ten years and what this cup was saying is that I am not just a customer, I’m a partner in the mission that they are on. I have never personally met a single coffee bean farmer but I am making a difference, because me and the mermaid are on the same team. I gotta admit, it felt pretty darn good.

As I sat there sipping my coffee and congratulating myself on all the great things I was accomplishing around the world by doing so, I thought of a conversation that I had the night before. I had bumped into someone around town who goes to freshlife. After we met, he shook my hand and told me, “you guys are doing a great job,” and then he went on for a bit about all the great things that me and my team were doing for the Lord, and how he prays for us and how pumped he is to be here. I listened until he was done and then congratulated him right back. He looked a bit surprised by that. But he had just told me that he prays and that he serves, I reminded him of this. I asked if he gives to the church as well and he said that he does. I shook his hand once more and then rephrased the compliment he had given me just moments ago, telling him, “We’re doing a great job!”

I want those who are a part of freshlife to understand what Starbucks knows to convey. Everything we do, they do. As we stand as one behind the God-given vision we are pursuing; we are partners together in all that we accomplish. No matter what your role is on the team, you are a part of the uprising. Congratulations, you.

One of a leader’s most important responsibilities is to continually foster this sense of unity and ownership in their organizational culture.

The themes of: culture, vision casting, implementing systems, brand and identity, communication and maintaining momentum get my blood pumping and fill my moleskines up time and time again. God has revealed flaws in my leadership skills through books written by bank presidents and heads of software companies just as He has through books written by pastors and Christian leaders.

I just finished reading Transforming Church in Rural America by Shannon O’Dell and am currently reading Church Planter by Darrin Patrick and What Got You Here, Won’t Get You There by Marshall Goldsmith and I have gone through another half-dozen or more on the subject this year.

But, hands down, the best leadership book I have ever read is the book of Nehemiah. Yesterday I wrapped up an 18 week long study through this Old Testament book and from beginning to end I was blown away by the leadership lessons it contains. Long before Jeff Bezos, Steve Jobs, Fred Smith or Henry Ford, Nehemiah was someone who took on a project big enough to change the world and though many thought he was crazy, that was exactly what happened–he changed the world. He took radical steps to live out the dream that God put in his heart, regardless of the cost or consequences, and never gave up.

He looked at the world and didn’t see what was, he saw what could be. And when he spoke of the future he saw others followed him there. Not because he had a great plan (though he did) but because he had a great vision. He inspired people. And he drew out the best in them, pushed them to be all that God had called them to be and empowered them to do all that God had called them to do. In fact, I think his building up of the people around him was potentially a greater accomplishment than the walls that he is remembered for building.

It wasn’t all roses and rewards for Nehemiah, it never is for those who will change the world. He knew full well the truth of the statement, if you want to lead you must be willing to bleed. He faced criticism, opposition, danger, and betrayal. And perhaps nothing caused him more pain than the prospect of his greatest accomplishment, the spiritual health of the people he loved, unraveling at the seams as they headed into an uncertain future. But no matter what he faced, he kept the vision God had given him front and center and refused to budge.

I found myself applying principles gleaned from Nehemiah to every area of my life. From the way I lead in my home to the way I lead at fresh life, even the way I write on this blog! The book of Nehemiah was basically just Nehemiah’s blog that God chose to include in the Bible. I am thankful that he took time to write down the things he was learning and living and hope to encourage others by doing the same.

I can’t wait until I get to meet Nehemiah in heaven and thank him for his example. Until then I plan to follow his lead and serve the Lord with a sword in one hand and a shovel in the other!

Here is a snapshot:
While preaching at skull church my mic went out briefly and came back on with some terrible feedback that continued for what seemed like forever. What I didn’t know was that whatever had happened also took out the live radio broadcast. The webcast also crashed at some point in the night as well. And our system that sends txt msg questions, that come to my skulpit, to the screen went down. This weekend, I was supposed to preach the 11 o’clock at the Strand but, due to a series of events, they moved me to the Liberty at the last minute. I was supposed to be piped live into the Strand but they had to resort to a video backup because, for the second time ever, our fiber optic feed freaked out. When the video backup was fired it first came up with only audio before (fortunately) coming on correctly and playing all the way through. Man, just reading that list stresses me out.

Stuff like this makes the hair on the back of my team’s neck stand up. Excellence is something that we value highly. I can’t see how we really have a choice about that. Our mission is to see those who are stranded in sin find life and liberty in Christ. Eternity literally hangs in the balance. Like it or not, that injects importance into everything. We simply don’t have the luxury of dismissing even the smallest detail as being trivial. The stakes are too high. Hell plays for keeps and forever is a long time. Even small things deserve our very best effort.

Coming out of a week like we have had there is definitely the temptation to be upset, to be bummed, to beat ourselves up and only focus on every single thing that went wrong. But we won’t. You can’t live that way. If you do, eventually you will end up in the fetal position under your desk mumbling, “Laces out, Laces out, the Laces were supposed to be facing out...” And that’s not good for anyone. You have to accept that if you are are committed to thinking outside the box and pushing the envelope; there are going to be bad days. Things happen. Computers crash. People make mistakes. That’s life. Deal with it; don’t dwell on it.

Instead you have to learn to focus on all the good that happened in spite of the problems. The people who gave their lives to Christ listening to a message with feedback coming out of the speakers. The fact that people were blessed who were ministered to by the Bible study and felt God as they took communion even though according to our runsheets everything took way too long to come out of the meet and greet. The hundreds and hundreds of people who signed up for small groups even though at two of the services the amazing small group promo video never even played. And above all, the fact that the Word of God cannot be chained! (2 Timothy 2:9)

I think it’s also important to be thankful for the hundreds of services a year that have gone by without major meltdown. All the webcasts that didn’t go whack, all the times the fibre hasn’t failed and the projectors didn’t show the blue screen of death. Thank God for the other thousand times that your mouse didn’t turn into a beach-ball.

I’m not saying that you are supposed to just be ok with things that go wrong. You shouldn’t be. We aren’t. I can assure you there will be meetings where the glitches will be analyzed and assessed. We will ask: Why did this happen? Has it ever happened before? What could have prevented it? Was it human error or just a freak–the devil is in the details– kind of a thing? Do we need to upgrade a system? buy new equipment? Retrain someone? Conduct an exorcism? And we will do our best in the future to learn from our mistakes and move forward. We will pursue perfection and seek after seamlessness. As I said, I believe that the urgency of the gospel requires nothing less than our very best efforts.

But at the end of the day if anything eternal is going to be accomplished it’s not because of us, it’s because of Him. It’s all about Jesus and what He did for us at the place of the skull. In our weaknesses His strength is made perfect. If you keep that in mind, you can keep your eyes set on heaven even in the midst of a technological week from hell.

As time went on I couldn’t shake the thought that something was missing, that our approach was based on an institution, not on what God wanted us to do. After several months of meeting, praying and brainstorming with the pastoral staff we came to the conclusion that the real problem with our youth groups were the youth groups themselves. I mean having them–at all. So we decided to pull the plug. Here’s the story…

I wanted to make sure and chronicle the thinking behind this decision for other pastors and church planters out there. Perhaps some will be inspired by what we are doing and rethink preconceived notions about how youth ministry has to be done; and I’m sure that others will disagree. Regardless, I hope that, at the very least, this can serve to provoke discussion and fresh thinking about how we can most effectively reach the next generation and empower them to make Jesus famous.

These particular tweaks, however, have implications that impact us on virtually every front and as a result, there was more than a little hesitation before pulling the trigger. We had bathed this decision in prayer and were confident that, even if it wasn’t the easiest, it was right thing to do. I still felt as I always do right before shaking things up, scared.

Fortunately, once it was done and we were committed, I felt like I almost always do right after shaking things up, stoked. It’s funny, when you do something you’ve been needing to do, especially if you have been dreading it, there is often a surge of, I should have done that a long time ago! that follows. I think they call that 20/20 hindsight vision.

As we were processing all of this in our weekly, all-staff, prayer meeting we had a laugh at our track record of: gravitating towards complicated solutions to what are ultimately simple problems, having a moment of epiphany, subsequent streamlining, and repeat. I told our team, “I just wish I knew what I know now when we first planted this church.”

That same day I joined some friends on what has become one of my favorite bike rides, the world famous Going to the Sun Road in Glacier National Park. It is pretty much 13 miles up hill and then 13 miles downhill. You ascend at all of 9 miles an hour and then descend at 39. Once we reached the top we took our helmets off and enjoyed the view that we had fought so hard to reach.

As I stood there, catching my breath and drinking in the beauty, I thought of the comment I had made at the meeting and realized I am glad I didn’t know everything that I know now when planting fresh life. That would have been like being airlifted to the top of this mountain. Would that be easier? Absolutely. But without the sweat and burning lungs and legs I would never appreciate the view the same way.

I’m not saying you should make life harder than it needs to be so there are things to fix later. Let me tell you, the next time you are at the bottom of a ministry mountain choosing a vehicle and there is a helicopter and a bicycle–get on the chopper! But there will probably come a day when you will take the long way and suffer for it. When that day comes: throw your weight over your handlebars, give it all you’ve got and remember, The view is sweeter when you fight for it.

The view from the top!

Pastor Coy and I shot out here after Skull Church to attend a one day leadership conference put on by Catalyst featuring Andy Stanley and Craig Groeschel. From 9am to 5pm we were (literally) bombarded by an exorbitant amount of practical advice on leading with vision and energetically executing your God-given mission. Andy pastors North Point in Atlanta, Georgia and Craig pastors Lifechurch.tv (the church that produced the killer Youversion Bible app for mobile devices.) Their sessions were salient, sage, and strategically aimed at cranking up momentum in ministry. Phenomenal.

Straight after the conference we headed downtown and met Pastor Mark Driscoll and his executive Pastor Jamie Munson for dinner. They were gracious to spend almost three hours with us as we picked their brains on ministry, church, leadership, and what they have learned in the almost 14 years that Mars Hill Church has been turning Seattle and beyond upside down for Jesus. They opened up the floodgates and, in what I have realized is quintessential Mark Driscoll style, were like machine-guns of advice/encouragement/challenge/inspiration/sarcasm. It was kind of like drinking from a fire hose but it was awesome. There is much I can learn from Mark and I was honored to spend time with him.

Over the course of the day we took in a lot on subjects ranging from: effectively using video teaching, conserving energy in the midst of a full preaching schedule, building systems and structure to keep up with the growth with out smothering the creative chaos that God used to bring the freshness and growth in the first place, etc; One topic of particular interest to me was the ins and outs of having multiple sites. All three men we were listening to do this VERY well. If you take North Point Church, Mars Hill Church, and Lifechurch.tv together there are over 25 campuses! We meet at two locations currently but are praying about more in the future.

Coy and I spent some time, later that evening, ambling around downtown Seattle ruminating on the different things that we had heard, like glutted cows. I’m sure for several days to come we will continue to be processing and sifting through the wealth of knowledge that has been imparted to us.

I try and learn what I can from a broad spectrum of leaders, not just any one source exclusively. (Except Jesus!) An important part of that is having the wisdom to chew the meat and spit out the bones. I think you should have a full “bull-pen” of influencers and coaches, who are each strong in different ways, without ever trying to be a carbon copy of any one person exclusively and you will be much better for it. This means being quick to learn from anyone but slow to implement with thought and prayer. And this coaching doesn’t have to be face-to-face or even at a conference. I learn from pastors, leaders, authors, and people that I have never met on a weekly basis through podcasts, books and websites. I definitely have found that leadership is something that is caught better than it is taught.

This morning (since it was my first time in Seattle) we made the obligatory tourist trip to the Pike Place Market and had a coffee from the very first Starbucks. The Mermaid Mecca. It was surprisingly humble and yet they have a map on the wall showing all the Starbucks in the world, all birthed from that nondescript location. I6,082 was their number of locations at the time the map was printed. Staggering. As I drank my Americano and thought of the evangelistic manner in which Starbucks spread their wings from their “Jerusalem,” (Seattle) to their state, the country and literally to the ends of the earth I was inspired to continue to make Jesus famous, with every breath, ’til He returns.