Not a Camouflaged Soul

Category: Leadership

  • What a Week

    Haven’t been able to post this week. Much has happened, as I detailed here.

    Add an illness/sinus/laryngitis thing on top of everything else has made things even more strenuous.

    I’ve learned a couple of things:

    1. Social media is not another inbox; it is a river. I didn’t come up with that analogy, but I have learned to embrace it. I used to feel like, on days where I was busy and had not hopped on HootSuite, that I needed to go back and read everything I missed. I now realize that Twitter is a very immediate medium. If I miss anything, I am missing the moment in time as well, so no big loss.
    2. When your body needs to stop… STOP. I went home for lunch yesterday and slept for four hours. That is VERY uncommon for me. If I hadn’t, I might not have been able to lead worship, much less lead a very necessary Christmas-centric choir rehearsal. Illness shows us how our priorities are relative to our ability to accomplish them.
    3. I was reminded yet again what a crisis is: an event that overtakes your calendar (thanks, Dr. Caner for that definition). Everything at the top of your to-do list gets reevaluated.

    I’m starting to catch my breath, by the grace of God. Continue to keep our pastor, his family, our church, and its staff in your prayers. Thanks.

  • Behind the Curtain: Follow EVERYONE

    Free twitter badge
    Image via Wikipedia

    I just followed three pages of people who live 15 miles from church with the church’s Twitter account. Everyone. EVERYONE. And I intend to keep doing so.

    It dawned on me this morning that I haven’t fully utilized Twitter’s potential to reach out to our community. That said, you may be asking how following absolutely everyone in the vicinity accomplishes anything. Glad you asked.

    I read a blog post not long ago about another church that handles their Twitter account in this fashion. It intrigued me. I can’t for the life of me remember who wrote it, but here’s the gist.

    Twitter has become a tool used by individuals and companies to readily access and assess the thought processes of others. By following everyone in the vicinity, we accomplish a number of things:

    1. We show interest in those around us.
    2. We meet them on their turf.
    3. We show up in their Followers, which others that follow them check for other potential follows.
    4. We might get followed back (In fact, it has already happened).
    5. We get a glimpse at what our community REALLY thinks about issues. Might discover ways we can help.

    Will there be some ugly stuff in our timeline? Possibly. Because our goal is to reach NON-CHRISTIANS for Jesus. That isn’t always tidy. Look at what Christ, Paul, and the Apostles went through.

    And what if one of the unsaved Tweeters we choose to follow sees our profile, checks our website, and sees something that changes his or her life for eternity?

    Win.

  • Ministry Criticism

    I recently had an interesting conversation at church.

    Someone came up to me while I was talking to the crew in the sound booth. This person said that they said that they would like to come up to the booth during a worship service and observe how things work. Their belief was that watching the crew doing what they do would help him/her be more understanding when microphones didn’t get turned on in a timely fashion during worship (my paraphrase).

    To someone who had no experience running sound, the sound board looks VERY daunting. I really appreciated this persons honesty. I immediately asked this person if I could post what they said. I thought it was very timely, and probably would resonate with a lot of people.

    It is so easy to be quick to judge when things go wrong in a ministry with which we are not affiliated. Since the church does not have a parking lot ministry, I’ll use that as an example. If a church’s parking ministry is understaffed, one might assume the scheduling was mishandled, when the problem could be illness or travel or any number of other factors.

    When problems arise, blame is often assigned without adequate knowledge of the situation. I have found that personal investment allows me to be more understanding of missteps. If I know the people and situations involved, then problematic episodes are less of a big deal. When I do not have intimate knowledge of a ministry’s ins and outs, I tend to be more critical.

    On the other hand, those of us in specialized ministries need to be understanding and gracious when faced with criticism. If we understand that the areas in which we serve have a skill set not readily available to outsiders, we can better deal with complaints and backlash from those on the outside looking in.

    There are some complicated, multi-faceted jobs in most churches. While those exercising their “spiritual gift of rebuke” are not in the right, their concern can be attributed in part to frustration about a set of circumstances they do not understand.

    It is so vital to be patient and understanding within our church families. When problems arise, we all need to exercise grace. We are all called to serve and minister to each other within the Church, so we should look for opportunities to show the love of Christ in our interactions, even when such interactions are laced with frustration.

    Have you ever felt criticism of your particular ministry was because the person doing the criticising just didn’t understand how the ministry operated? How did you handle it?