Words from the WellRandom Thoughts on Christ, the Church and Technology

Yesterday I had the pleasure of attending Unleash 2010 at NewSpring Church in Anderson, SC. It was a day that was filled with incredible worship, inspiring preaching, great breakout sessions, and, allow me to geek out for a minute, absolutely amazing lighting and set design. But what impacted me most was this little note card that was handed to me, and every other Unleash participant as we left. Inside this card is a HANDWRITTEN note from one of the hundreds of NewSpring volunteers that help make Unleash possible.

Now this note was not written specifically to me. It was to an Unleash participant. It didn’t have my name on it and Julie (NS Volunteer) has no idea who received her card, but that does not lessen its impact. The fact that volunteers took valuable time to hand-write thousands of these cards is what impacted me. It wasn’t what the card said, it was the card itself.

This card was the cherry on top of the sundae that the NewSpring Volunteers built for me yesterday. It began as I arrived on campus, greeted by volunteers lining the parking lot, waving, smiling and directing me to a parking space in a friendly, efficient manner. Then there were the volunteers that cheered as I got close to the building, those that smiled and handed me my conference packet, the ones that directed me through the doors, those that offered me free coffee, or helped me find a seat in the auditorium. Everywhere I went I was greeted by NewSpring volunteers in brightly colored t-shirts offering me encouragement and help. It was incredible.

I realized two things from all this:

1. Churches can learn from what I experienced yesterday. It was only my second time on the NS campus but I felt at home. I felt as though I belonged there. I know that coordinating all those volunteers was not a simple task but I think that it was worth it. (BTW, from what I hear Unleash is not that different from what NS is like on any Sunday!)
2. Because I did not have to fight to find a parking place, because registration was simple, because everything was easy to find, I felt at ease as I entered worship. I was ready to worship because distractions had been removed by an awesome team of volunteers.

Imagine if more churches made everyone (not just guests) feel that welcome on Sunday morning. I think it would go a long way.

Thanks NewSpring Volunteers!

Used under the CC license. Photo by stibbons.

I was shooting some video last night for a Mission Trip report at my church.  The lady that I was shooting had just returned from her first trip to Honduras. Now you have to understand that I have shot video before with this person and she is usually very nervous in front of the camera and is in a hurry to get finished. This makes her seem very rehearsed and plastic.

Last night was different. She began to tell a story, a story about an 11 year old Honduran girl that she met in the village. A story of how she made friends with this little girl by letting her rub cocoa butter on a scar on her arm (my talent had recently broken her wrist and had several surgeries). A story of how a relationship was born even though neither one of them spoke the others language. It was powerful.

She ended by saying that she had realized that perhaps her least effective form of communication was her words. That struck me. Maybe as Christians sometimes the best thing that we can do is to simply shut up and allow our actions to speak. After all, they’ll know we are Christians by our love.

Here is the raw, unedited story that she told.

No Words from Ken Summerall on Vimeo.

After seeing photos like this and this Saturday afternoon. My wife and decided that we would get up early and head up to the Bi-Lo Center in Greenville, SC for church. The excitement that I was getting from seeing Twitter updates and text messages from friends that were involved we knew that we needed to be a part of NewSpring’s 10th anniversary celebration even though we do not attend NewSpring.

So we got up early and drove 2 hours in very dreary weather, arriving at the Bi-Lo center just a few minutes before the doors opened. We stood in the rain with no umbrella (who wants to carry an umbrella into an arena anyway) until the doors opened. We followed the crowd through the doors, past the cheering NewSpringers that are shouting chants of “Jesus…Jesus…Jesus” and high fiving us as we went past.  This was certainly not like any other church service that I had been to.

We had some doughnuts and coffee and saw a few people with popcorn, or nachos and even french fries! I have seen some strange things in church, but never french fries.

I have seen churches get in crazy fights over putting in one projection screen. I wonder what they would say about 12?

It was electric, the videos were playing, the boom sticks were…well, they were booming, and the beach balls were bouncing all over the place, and then we did the wave! I’ve never done the wave in church before.

When things got started it was amazing. The lights, the sound, the video, the HUGE band, etc. The crowd, or congregation, was going wild singing God’s praise. It was a beautiful thing, that I have done in church before.

Now I bet a few of you reading this are seething right now, you can’t imagine how God could be glorified in such a secular setting, after all, this was an arena, not a church building.  For some of you it was the band that makes you mad, for some it was the screens, a few of you are ticked off at the idea of french fries in church.

For those that are mad, I’m sorry that you feel that way because my favorite part of the day was when Perry Noble, the Pastor of NewSpring, stood on stage and said, “This is Church!” He was right. It was church, it didn’t matter what that building had been the day before, or the week before, at that moment it was church. It was 15,000 of God’s children gathered together to praise His name and that, my friends, is church. It’s not traditional. It may not be what you think of when you think of church, but it was church.

My point is that we all have different visions of what it means to have church. For some it is stuffy and quiet, for some it is casual and loud. But none of that matters.  What matters is that we gather together and worship our great and mighty God. Our God that has saved us from ourselves.  Our God that has plucked us up from certain death and given us the gift of eternal life. Our God who loved us while we were still vile. Our God that created our universe. We may have different worship styles but Who we worship remains the same.

So next time you want to criticize a church or a person or a pastor because you don’t like their particular worship style just remember that they worship the same God you do.

Here are some incredible photos of the celebration!

Click on the photo for a before and after shot.

14" I Don't think so

One of my big pet peeves is poor customer service.  I’m the type of person that will avoid a company that gives me bad service and return to a company that gives me good service.  In this I don’t think that I am that different from most other people.  This is why it shocks me when I get bad service.  I mean, surely I’m not the only person on the planet that responds to excellent service.  Allow me to share two stories of Customer Service with you.

FTD

About a week ago my sister in law was in what could have been a very serious head on collision, thankfully she was not injured seriously and come home the same day of the wreck.  The next day I went online and ordered her some flowers from FTD.  I also ordered the same flowers for my wife.  That afternoon my sis in law got a beautiful arrangement that looked very much like the photo on the FTD website.  My wife received the arrangement on the left.  I was mad.  I had paid over $60 for that little arrangement.  I went to the website to make sure that I had not gotten what I paid for and sure enough, right there in the description it says that the arrangement is approximately 14″x 14″.  now you can see from the photo that these flowers were no where close.  So I called FTD, explained my problem, and received this response, ” We will be happy to replace the flowers, we will send the florist to pick them up and then bring a new arrangement.”  What?  You want my wife to haul this pathetic little arrangement back to school, instruct the office staff to look for the florist, so that the florist can pick them up?  What are they gonna do with them?  I told them that they were welcome to come pick them up at my residence.  I was told that they would contact the florist and make those arrangements and then call me back.  I agreed to that and emailed the representative a photo.  That was Friday.  By Monday evening, no phone call, no email, no nothing.  I sent another email.  No response.  Tuesday evening I called back, told my story again, got disconnected, called back, told my story again, worked my way up the Customer Service food chain where a supervisor offered my 30% off a future order.  WHAT? Are you kidding me?  You can’t get this order right and you expect me to order from you again?  By now I was over this ordeal.  He asked what I wanted.  A full refund I replied.  “OK,” he replied.  “We will do that as soon as we get the flowers back.”  What’s with wanting the flowers back?  I do not understand this, but I agreed, if they would pick them up at the house.  They wouldn’t.  I pitched a fit.  I also finally got my money back.  Well, at least I got an email stating that they had refunded my money, as of yesterday I have not seen this refund.

What did I expect from FTD?  A little easier time for starters.  I think that it should have gone something like this.  I call Customer Service.  Tell them my story.  Email a picture of the inferior bouquet.  They send a new arrangement. Done.  I would have ordered from FTD again.  As it stands now ProFlowers or 1800Flowers gets my business.

Discmakers

Several weeks ago I sent a project off to Discmakers.  In this process I spoke to my rep there and asked if they could charge my card for 50% of the total on one day and then the other half the next day.  My bank has a daily limit on the card for security purposes.  He told me that would be no problem and asked if I would write a note on the paperwork that they needed so that he wouldn’t forget.  I did just as he asked.  The reason I needed them to do it like this is that I needed credit for paying 100% up front, this allows me to get any extras that they replicate for free, otherwise I have to pay for overs.  (When the replicate DVD’s sometimes they make a few more than you order, these are called overs)

I got a call this week that they were ready to ship my order, but that I needed to pay the balance.  Huh?  I called back and told them what I had asked them to do.  The accounting person knew nothing about this so she transferred me to my Production Rep (different from the original rep I spoke to), He didn’t see anything about it in my file either, but he said, no problem, we will run your card for the original balance, giving you the free overs and ship your order today.  Eezzy Peezy.  They were polite.  I got NO customer service jargon, no scripted responses.  I talked to people that were empowered by the company to make the customer happy.  The result?  I will order from Discmakers again.

The Difference?

Empowerment.  FTD followed a traditional CS model where you have Level 1’s that transfer you to Level 2’s and so on.  Each level has a limit on what they can do to make you happy.  The idea is that they wear you down until you settle for what they are willing to give you.  Discmakers follows a more personal model.  When you place an order you deal with two people.  If you have a problem you call the appropriate person and they handle the issue.  These people are empowered to make you happy.  This doesn’t mean that they can do anything, but they can take reasonable actions to make the customer happy.

As a former church staff member and now a volunteer serving in a church I have a unique perspective on this thing we call “service.”  I’ll grant you none of these thoughts are original, I think that they just come from a different perspective.

With that being said, here are those thoughts:

• People too often serve out of guilt.  It’s the “If I don’t do it no one will” syndrome.  I think that often staff members are to blame on this one, but church members bear some of the responsibility as well.  The reasons that this happens would take pages and pages of words and I would still miss some of the excuses and reasons.  The thing to recognize here is that sometimes people guilt themselves or others into service.  This is not a good thing.
• Church staff members react to the guilt problem by in turn trying to “protect” members by not asking (or allowing) them to serve.  This is not good either.
• Sometimes church members are asked to serve but are not empowered to do what they are asked to do.  Churches are quick to give people responsibilities.  The problem is that they don’t often empower them to do ministry.  Let me explain.  Often staff will delegate responsibilities to volunteers.  When they delegate those responsibilities it means that the staff is still ultimately responsible for the outcomes, good or bad.  When a volunteer is empowered they are given the authority to do what needs to be done within the parameters set by the vision for the church.  For a more detailed of the difference between delegation and empowerment look at Tony Morgan’s post here.
• Asking for volunteers can be seen as a sign of weakness or laziness.  Empowering someone could be seen as a staff member not doing their job.  I believe that this is the opposite of true.  If a staff member is not empowering volunteers to do ministry then he/she is not being as effective as they can be.
• Volunteers have sometimes gone off the deep end and pursued activities and values that didn’t match the churches vision.  As a result, staff members have become gun shy when it comes to empowering volunteers.

So there you have it, a virtual mind dump of, well, thoughts, good or bad, valid or off the wall, they are there.  The question is, “what now?”

Well, I believe that there are lots of church members out there that truly want to serve their God and their church.  They want to do this not out of guilt, but out of love.  What they need is permission and empowerment.  If church staffs will learn how to empower, not delegate and if volunteers will use the vision for their church as their guide the world be turned on its ear.

Don’t delegate responsibilities, delegate authority. Delegating responsibilities creates followers. Delegating authority creates leaders.

Craig Groeschel

Are you empowering or delegating?  Are your volunteers serving out of guilt or love?

I have been thinking about this for a few days.  How do I see people?  My answer really dissapointed me.  I see people through my eyes, my prejudice, my experience, my social mores, my emotions, my understanding, etc.  What I really want to do is to see people through Jesus’ eyes. Seeing people through His eyes mean that I will see them for who they really are.  I will see their hurts, their needs, their desires, I will see past their sin and depravity and see them with love.  I will see them as they can be, not as they are.

This song really hits this home for me.  Take a listen and pray for His eyes in your life and mine.

When I was a full-time member of a church staff I always dreaded the benevolence requests. I didn’t hate them, I just dreaded the uncomfortable feeling that I got. It was caused by my struggles between the commands of scripture and the realities of needing to determine the neediness of the person making the request. We have all been told that most people asking for money from a church just want to buy drugs, or alcohol; or that they don’t really need the money, they are just playing the system. So to combat this churches have come up with elaborate systems to make sure that they don’t get abused. These systems range from the “no cash” policy, to extensive databases that catalog requests. Now I am not saying that those systems and policies are wrong, but I am saying that I am afraid that they breed a form of fear, apathy and spiritual arrogance that is dangerous for the Church and it’s witness. Let me share with you two stories that illustrate my point…

The first story happened just a few days ago and really broke my heart. This is what happens when our attitude towards those less fortunate goes the wrong way.

I was at church early on Sunday afternoon for a Children’s Choir rehearsal. A man who didn’t look like me (or anyone else at church) entered the building and sat down in the sanctuary. At some point someone asked him if he was looking for someone and he said that he was looking for some gas money. My wife heard this and asked if I could help him since she was busy with the kids. I took the man to the office so that I could find a staff member to help him. I knew that the church has policies and resources that I personally don’t have. Since it was early, there was no one on staff at the church. I decided to do something that is contrary to what most churches allow. I gave the man some CASH! That’s right, I handed him $5 and looked him straight in the eyes and said, “You ARE going to buy gas with this, right?” He said yes and left. Now you’ve gotten this far and are wondering why this broke my heart. Here’s why. As he was walking out the door and I was walking down the hall one of our members came in the same door that he exited. She saw me and hollered down the hall to me, “Kenny, do you know that man?” ( I don’t know, but I am pretty sure that he was still within earshot.) The sub-text of her question seemed to say to me (and him?) “what was HE doing here?”, “what did HE want?”. About this same time, another member came down another hall, and asked the lady questioning me if she would walk her granddaughter to the sanctuary because she didn’t want her walking in the church alone after what she had just walked in and seen in the church (she was referring to the man that I had tried to help).

Now before you start making comments about all the reasons that these ladies had to be worried, concerned, etc. Let me say that I totally understand their comments, but, they illustrate a disease that the church suffers from today. This is why this story breaks my heart.

1. The first ladies immediate thought was that the man was an enemy that could not be trusted. I so wish that the first words out of her mouth were something like, “Kenny, did that gentlemen need some help?”
2. The grandmother’s statement was made in front of her granddaughter, it sent two possible messages, one was racial, the other was that people who don’t go to church here may be out to hurt you. So wrong on both counts.
3. I didn’t tell anyone but my wife that I gave the man cash, because I knew that I would what others would say about my breaking the rules!

Here’s the second story.

A pastor friend of mine was in his office one day when a homeless man entered the church office needing some assistance. My friend has told me that he really wasn’t “in the mood” to deal with this man. He was dirty and stinky and my friend had things to do. He knew that he HAD to deal with it but his heart wasn’t really in it. He spoke to the man and then went to get some paperwork. He took his time. When he came back he couldn’t believe what he saw. On the floor beside the man was the pastors secretary, on her knees, with a bucket of water and a wash rag. She had removed the man’s shoes and socks and begun to wash his nasty feet. BAM! There she was, being Jesus to this man. My friend said that he has never been the same. I never will be either.

My point? My point is that we should welcome the uncomfortable feeling that I described in the beginning. That feeling that is a struggle between just tossing money at everyone and being effective stewards of what God has entrusted to us. I gave that man cash because at the time I felt the Holy Spirit leading me in that direction, I decided to be obedient. What I long for is for us to rely more on what the Holy Spirit is leading than what our policies and procedures demand. I want the “least of these” to stir our compassion, not our indignation. I want the Church to become known for love, not for rules. I think that this is what God wants too.

If by some strange chance one of the people in these stories reads this. I am not aiming to judge you or your actions, you simply provide illustration for what I perceive as being a problem with the Church and Christians. It’s not personal.

It’s been a couple of days since my last post (sounds kinda like confession doesn’t it?).  It has been a wild ride for the last few days.  Just to catch you up here’s a little of what’s been going on.  My wife and I took 37 of our closest Middle School friends to New York for a few days over the weekend.  We have a lot going on a  church this week, my oldest child had her Band Concert yesterday, my wife’s Chorus Concert is Monday,  then there’s all the regular activities that our family is involved in, and on top of all of that we are moving.

That last little bit of info is where the title comes from. We have been experiencing God’s grace in a powerful and mighty way over the past few weeks. Without getting into the details the bottom line is that my wife and I have made some bad decisions both financially and in our marriage (no, nothing like that, just didn’t communicate with each other) and spiritually. As a result of this perfect storm, we lost our home. Upon returning from NYC this past Sunday night we found a notice on our door that we had to be out by this coming Monday. Needless to say, panic set in. Now we knew that this would probably be the case, but we were working on a deal to stay in our house a little longer. That wasn’t to be. You can probably imagine the emotions that we have experienced; anger, confusion, dispair, panic, embarrassment, etc.

Here’s the really neat part. We have prayed. We have spoken with our parent’s and our Pastor. And we have experienced grace in a way that I had never imagined. In other words, “It’s all good.”

Why in the world would I share this on my blog? Well, because of this statement that I received in an email this morning, “We are so sorry that you all are in this “crisis”, but we want you to know that we, too, have made bad decisions; have had to rely on others for help; and have survived, stronger, after all was said and done.”

I believe that God wants us to share our struggles so that He can be glorified. I think that it helps others to know that we are not perfect. As Christians we are really good a putting on masks to hide what is really going on in our lives. I don’t want to wear a mask. I don’t like them, I never have, it is really hard to see out of the little eye holes.

If you are struggling. If you are hurting. If you are confused. If you are questioning God. It is OK. There is hope. There is peace. There is forgiveness.

Our God is a god of love, He loves us and wants the best for us. While there are consequences for mistakes and bad choices it doesn’t change the fact that God still wants the best for us. He still loves us. I have learned to embrace this through this crisis.

I don’t post this for pity, but simply to be obedient to Christ and to share what He is doing in my life. If you desire, please pray for us, this is not over and we want to remain available and obedient to Christ, but sometimes it is tough. If I can pray for you, post a request in the comments.

God is AWESOME!

Today we are in Esther 5…

Esther has agreed that she must act to save her people. She will do so risking her own life by going before the King without being requested. But before she goes she knows that it is only God can the actually perform the work that needs to be done. She is only His vehicle. So she does what every good Christian would do in this situation. She prays and she requests prayer from others.

Now there is nothing wrong with praying or requesting prayer when God requires us to act. But what I find interesting here is that Esther doesn’t pray for weeks or months. She doesn’t have endless committee meetings to discern God’s will, she already knows what God’s will is. Esther calls for three days of prayer and fasting and then approaches the King.

I find that for many of us today, prayer is a crutch. When we don’t want to act, we pray. The lesson from Esther is that we must pray, but we also must act.

Are you acting?

Disclaimer: I never promised you anything new or earth shattering on this blog, just life as it happens to me. This is where God is working in my life. Therefore that is what I write.

Reading Esther 4-5 and had a few thoughts…

There comes a time when action is not only advantageous, but it is necessary.  Enter Esther, the King had decreed that all of her people were to be slaughtered.  Mordecai asked Esther for her help, but she refused, fearing that the King would kill her for entering his court without being requested.

This got me thinking.  How many times do we not take action simply because it is easier to do nothing, or because action would cost us something?  We convince ourselves that “it’s not our problem,” or that it will go away if we ignore it, or maybe we just let fear of the unknown keep us silent.  Perhaps we think like Esther, that there is nothing that we can do.

Esther was reminded by Mordecai that she held a royal position for such a time as this.  In other words, there was nothing that she could do, but God had put her in a position so that He could work through her.

Where are you? Are you in a position to do something? Has God given you a task that you are putting off for some reason? Is there a hard conversation that you need to have with someone?

These are question that I constantly have to ask myself. It helps keep me moving.

Check back tomorrow for part 2.