Tim Clark’s Blog

As I work with college students, one of the recurring issues I tend to deal with is initiative. As much as I may love an individual, I’ve discovered I can’t do much to develop a young adult who has little or no initiative. I’m just not built to be a hand-holder (some are, and thank God for them). For me, proper stewardship of my life dictates that I can help direct a moving vehicle, but I need to stay away from attempting to steer parked cars.

But even among those with initiative, I’ve found there is a nuanced difference in the type of initiative they show:

Reactive initiative happens when you realize there is something you want, or need, and you change course to take care of it on the spot. Someone showing reactive initiative may be driving along and see a person in a parking lot with whom they have been wanting to connect, so they make an instant decision to adjust their schedule, whip a U-Turn, park and jump out of the car to have a 10 minute conversation.

If that seems like a no-brainer to you, then you have at least some level of initiative. Many people would notice the person and just keep driving while making a mental note to email or call that person later (and then forget about it in 5 minutes.)

Proactive initiative, however, happens when that person knows they want to connect with an individual, and therefore writes it down on his or her to-do list and then takes time to set up a lunch appointment.

I’m not saying reactive initiative is always a bad thing—most of us react to things occasionally. But I do think the total lack of proactive initiative is something with which to be very concerned, because it usually implies a lack of discipline.

And while initiative is really important for a leader, discipline is non-negotiable. I work with a lot of twentysomethings who are self-motivated and highly creative, but without learning discipline they will never realize their full potential.

I have a little test I do with many of the students in my life (I’m giving away secrets now!): I get quite a few requests for discipleship meetings, and I often answer those requests by saying that I do my devotions at a particular Starbucks at 6:30 on a certain morning, and that they are welcome to join me—and then I never remind them.

While many take up that challenge and set themselves to be there, I’m always amazed at those who do not. No matter how much they protest that they really want to get together with me, they just can’t bring themselves to remember the time, or to pull themselves out of bed that early.

In a slightly different variation, when some see me at a service they try to set an appointment then and there. I always ask them to email or call me later in the week. I don’t do this because I can’t figure out my schedule when they ask, but I’m challenging them to develop a life of proactive initiative as opposed to simply reactive initiative. I get maybe 50% (at most) who follow through.

Initiative is good, but much like intention it must be driven by the engine of discipline, or it will produce very little impact in or through a person’s life.

So, for the last few years I’ve been following the TV show LOST. I’m not a pastor who uses his favorite shows as the foundations for sermons—I think the Bible is the best place to start there—but I don’t mind posting a few thoughts about it in a personal blog. (WARNING: If you have not seen the finale and intend to watch it, the following does contain SPOILERS)

1. Mystery: This show has taken viewers through a massive mystery. What is the smoke monster? What is under the hatch? What brought everyone to the island? But if you’ve watched it you realize the answers to all of those mysteries (and more) was not a “what” but a “who”.

One of the tensions created by this show was that though the sci-fi and mythological mysteries didn’t all get answered, the character arcs did find conclusion. People who wanted satisfaction regarding all the ‘why’ questions didn’t get them (See this TED talk to better understand original LOST creator J.J. Abrams’ take on the importance of cultivating and keeping mystery in a story).

At the end of the day, I’m reminded that in real life we don’t always get the answers we seek about what is happening or why it happens; our real job is to focus on the, ‘who’. Who is it we need to worship? Who is in control? Who is it that we get to live our lives with? Who do we need to encourage and support? That leads me to my second thought.

2. Community: In the end, this show was really about the important connections that are made between people.

“Live together or die alone” was a common refrain for the survivors of flight 815. When they didn’t know what was going on they knew they had to stick together or they were done for. Though a theme that emerged is that every one of the individuals on this show was a deeply flawed and broken human, each of them could be accepted as part of the family, with a clean start, if they chose to join the community.

The touch and connection that came through community was a part of the path of redemption for these messed up characters. And this was the core of the deep spirituality found in LOST.

3. Death: Speaking of spirituality, although it was an extremely spiritual show, LOST only borrowed from Christian spirituality. Ultimately there were great theological flaws because it liberally picked from false spiritualities as well.

However, LOST was a great window into how our pluralistic culture may feel about certain spiritual issues, especially about death and what happens after death. As Jack’s dad told him in The End, “Everyone dies sometime, kiddo”; but usually our culture does not encourage people to look hard at what they believe happens after they die. As it wrapped up, one of the big themes of this show seemed to be that while we won’t get answers about why and how things like death happen, they are going to happen, and we’d better learn to prepare for the inevitable.

While LOST suggests that we prepare for the end through community, and reconciliation, and forgiveness, and redemption, and sacrifice, and selflessness, and right choices (all ideas that can be found in Christianity), it stops short of revealing relationship with a personal God as the doorway to these things. The message of the gospel is that humans are not good enough to earn redemption on our own but that we need a Savior, an unflawed Shepherd who will sacrifice Himself to purchase forgiveness and redemption for us.

That redeemer was Jesus Christ. And for a culture not used to really thinking much about what happens after they die, the finale of this show might have opened a window in our culutre for Christians to share the truth with others.

4. Good TV: Finally, we need more TV that is well written. Though I’ve admitted that I didn’t always agree with the worldview of LOST, it was written well and well produced. It was intelligent TV that made you think even if you didn’t like the answers, or non-answers, it provided. It inspired spirited conversation and encouraged communal experiences with groups of people getting together to watch, and then dissect, every show.

In fact, I won’t miss LOST as much as I will miss the small group of friends who gathered at our house every week to watch the show, eat popcorn, and share life together.

Because by next January, when we would normally be gathering on a Tuesday night to start a new season, someone else will be living in our house that just sold, and many in our group will be scattered all over the country due to new jobs and ministry assignments.

It’s even possible that this unique group of valued friends may never all get together in the same way again: Maybe, not even until we die.  But because we all know Jesus, the day will come when we can sit in the same room and enjoy our community once more…

…and maybe then we’ll even understand why Walt was so special!!!

Most churches I know have a great volunteer challenge. It takes a high percentage of volunteer workers in order for everyone to be served well within a given structure. But, season-by-season, those workers are hard to come by, and sometimes even harder to keep.

Most mature believers will step up to the plate and fill a slot that needs to be filled—for a while. But when push comes to shove, they’ll look for a gracious way out. I’ve even known people who leave the church altogether because they served too long in a role they had no passion for, and didn’t know how to say they were done—so they simply left.

John Fehlen is a friend of mine who pastors the effective and exploding West Salem Foursquare Church. Earlier today he tweeted the following question: “Awesome 3000: a study in volunteerism. How come churches can’t find volunteers for children’s ministry but a race attracts hundreds?”

The Awesome 3000 is a huge annual run in his town of Salem Oregon. Hundreds of adults come out to volunteer and thousands to celebrate as over 3,000 kids participate in this non-profit fundraising event for local schools.

Anyways, I couldn’t stop thinking about John’s question today. But my mind wandered from the kids ministry volunteer question to why non-profit runs that take place all over the country attract so many participants in the first place, and how anyone who works with volunteers can learn from this:

A Calling: Let’s call it passion—something that really floats your boat. Some people just like to run. Give them any opportunity to do so and they will sign up. But many didn’t figure that out until a friend invited them into the activity. You usually need to be introduced to something to catch the ‘bug’ and find the passion. Most volunteers don’t just ‘find’ their calling, they have to be introduced and invited into it.

A Community: Running solo is for the few, the proud, the…(fill in the blank).  What people really love is carbo-loading before the race; running with others; knowing there are people cheering them on; looking forward to the after party—that is what attracts even non-runners to this thing. It’s also interesting that most long runs have ‘mini-versions’ of the race too so even more folks can be included into the community—and for every runner there are usually multiple people providing logistical support, encouragement, and participating in the community in other ways. Volunteers, too, can’t operate in a vacuum, but are seeking a real community to join.

A Cause: In many of these runs there is more than just running going on. Whether it is raising money or raising awareness, there is usually some focus for which the race exists. Another example: I’m never going to buy a candy bar from someone simply selling sweets door-to-door, but when it is tied to a cause that I understand and believe in, I’m at least tempted to do so (even if I’m on a diet). What is the clear cause our volunteers know they are joining?

A Competition: The thrill of victory; the agony of defeat—It may sound unspiritual, but I’m convinced that if we could clearly articulate what we are fighting for, people with a competitive spirit would have an inner drive to step up to the plate to help bring the win.

A Completion: Even in a Triathlon, there needs to be a finish line. I’m not talking about having a defined season of service (an end date to your volunteering), but about understanding the definition of completion in your ministry. Andy Stanley says that every ministry needs to establish what a win looks like, because people need to be able to determine whether they are winning or how to adjust if they are loosing.

A Celebration: At the end of a race there is usually a massive celebration. It’s the afterglow that makes it all worth while; the stories of how you felt when you hit the wall, the play-by-play of the little and big details that made running satisfying; the hours on the couch with your friends while your body recoups. This celebration is the culmination of all of the other elements combined. Volunteers want to be able to regularly celebrate with one another for the important and impacting things they are accomplishing together.

For a first hand account of the kind of experience I’m talking about (that, frankly, I can’t provide) you might want to read this ‘running’ post from a guy I met in Wisconsin a few weeks ago.

But lets get back to John’s original question: Why will hundreds of volunteers show up to help with a kids race but not sign up to help in kids ministry? It’s not just about their personal calling, community, cause, competition, or completion (though I think it is part of it), but it’s about helping the kids discover these things, too. When you volunteer for an epic event that engages kid’s imaginations and impacts the way they see the world, you know it was worth it.

Does our children’s ministry engage the passion of both the adults and the kids, or is it mostly about asking adults to fill necessary slots and about providing obligatory care and teaching for kids in the church without fully contending for that which is epic and passionate and impacting and memorable? I think the answer to this could make a big difference with our volunteer situation.

I was just asked an important question from a bright young pastor: “Why is Easter a week when we would expect that un-churched people would want to come to church?”

It is, in fact, a very good question with an answer that is not as easy as you might think. Let me rephrase it: “In a post-modern, increasingly post-Christian America, why would anyone think that Easter is a more important day to go to church than any other Sunday in the year?”

For Christians, of course, Easter is our Super-Bowl Sunday. Jesus died for our sins, and was resurrected for our salvation! And because HE experienced resurrection, we are going to, also.

For those who come from a Christian background or culture, this is the day they might be open to going to church with you. If a person who had dropped out of Church, but who still had a soft spot in their heart for Christianity, was invited to an Easter service, there might be something inside of them that said “I probably could go to Church on Easter”.

But even if a person has no cultural background or connection to Christianity, it makes sense to invite them for Easter. Though my church is continually pointing to the death and resurrection of Jesus as the central fact of our faith, Easter is our “High Holy Day” when everything we do focuses on this amazing reality—and we are very intentional to make sure that every person will be able to understand the clear and uncompromising message of the salvation and eternal life that Jesus secured for us through His death and resurrection.

Furthermore, this is not just a message that can be read in a book, but it comes alive when the presence of the Holy Spirit is evident within a worshipping family of believers. Christians have been transformed by Jesus’ death and resurrection, so when we get together to specifically celebrate that, it is something worth checking out.

In short, if someone is at all interested in experiencing what is most important about the Christian faith, Easter is the time when it is most clear.

So, on Easter we invite people because they may be culturally open to coming—and the Holy Spirit will regularly use open doors like that to engage people. More than that, we invite others because on Easter we have a great opportunity to say, “This message, presented in this community in the presence of this God, is what my faith is really about”.

And if we don’t ask people to join us because we think Easter is for Christians, then we’ve missed the point: Here we have the chance to welcome others into our unique celebration of the most important thing that has ever happened in human history in hopes that they, too, will welcome the risen Lord into their lives.

Seeing the commercials for the ‘return of Jay Leno’ over the last couple of weeks has made me think…

Five years ago, NBC announced that half a decade later Conan would sit in Jay’s chair hosting the legacy Tonight Show. At the time I was impressed. Here was a network full of Baby Boomer executives that was actually doing some forward thinking regarding the upcoming generation. They were rightly concerned that a demographic sea change was on the horizon, and they were doing their best to get in front of it to ensure the continuance of current younger fan-base as well as to reach out to ones that didn’t yet exist.

Alas, it was all talk. Sure there was the actual switch, but you could tell that they were nervous from before it happened. Because they could not bring themselves to sell out to this generational transition, they hedged their bets and kept Jay on at 10— where nobody thought he would thrive, but where he was guaranteed to upstage the younger host. And they told Conan to change his presentation and personality so he could more respectfully reach the aging population who may not “get” him so much; in the process he lost the very thing that made him appeal to millions of younger viewers. Predictably NBC tanked in the ratings for both shows.

Now I don’t watch much late night TV anymore and I really don’t have anything invested in the goings-on at NBC. But, all week I have been wondering about the church leadership implications. In a time when denominational overseers talk a lot about restocking the shelves of pastoral leadership and reaching an emerging generation, I wonder if they are really committed to the follow-through without hedging their bets. I wonder if they are taking the long view and planning to place competent but younger pastors who can reenergize legacy churches to connect with an emerging generation. I wonder if they are willing to do this with the knowledge that if these new pastors are free to maintain their own personality and style, that they just might loose some of the older folks. And, I’ve wondered if successful pastors who have brought on younger leaders to wait in the wings for their retirement will ever truly be able to let go.

I’m not suggesting that the current aging generations (The Silent & Baby Boom Generations) are irrelevant and shouldn’t continue in leadership. Neither am I contending for younger pastors to irresponsibly alienate our valued elders. I am questioning whether, as humans get older, we have an inordinate need to go back to the way it was, while not investing everything in the way it will need to be—more than anything I question if we unconsciously but instinctively neglect the next generation of lost people in our most important leadership decisions.

I hope that I remember these lessons in 25 years when I am at retirement age. And I pray that I take a note from the life of Moses who was told to “commission Joshua and encourage and strengthen him, for he will lead this people across and will cause them to inherit the land that you will see” (Deuteronomy 3:28).

My friend Charles Lee is starting a sermon series on the Book of Acts at the church he pastors. As a part of his presentation, he included the following video that briefly explains the Missional Church. I saw it tonight and I like it. Though I’m not certain whether it can come across as too black and white (I DO think that a church with a good preacher, good music and, yes, even occasional big events, can have at its core a Missional passion), the last 30 seconds simply but effectively represent my understanding of the Lord’s strategy and call for the church I pastor.

With appreciation to Charles…enjoy, and reflect!

Groups of people (companies, organizations, churches, etc,) develop traditions that are based on strong values, but the tradition may continue long after the underlying value is forgotten. This can become a problem; when traditions start to conflict with values, then we have trouble my friend (“with a capital “T”).

Eleven years ago I was in Seattle planting a church and working for Starbucks. The coffee company was considering whether to replace the manual espresso machines with much more efficient, effective, and consistent automatic ones. However, the new equipment just wasn’t the same: there was fear of losing the “human touch”; the sound of clanking and tamping, etc…

It’s a long story, but I had the opportunity to write a fable and get it into the hands of Howard Schultz (the CEO) who was concerned about the change. The narrative was about a woman who had fond memories of going to her grandma’s house for the best fresh peach pies she’d ever had. One day she had a vision to open up a bakery that sold those pies and also replicated the culture of grandma’s house: Swing music playing, 50′s style furniture, table games out—the total “grandma’s house” experience. Since grandma always claimed that the perfect pies were a result of the oven, this young woman bought the exact oven from her mother (who now owned grandma’s house) and used it in her first store.

The concept exploded. City people loved the country desserts as well as the oasis of a down-home family space. Soon more stores opened, and the oven—including its glass front and manual dials—had to be duplicated. Ten years and hundreds of stores later, the company was doing great, but the experience had started to deteriorate. Some of the employees didn’t understand the culture very well, and the original idea of having a “place to come home to” had morphed into lines out the door while people waited for fresh baked goods to take home with them.

One of the biggest challenges was that the ovens which had served the stores well at first were not so great for the exponential demand. The original appliances were temperamental and a bit slow. Though R & D could design equipment that would work more consistently and twice as fast, the founder was worried that the experience would be compromised—after all, the ovens had always been the centerpiece of the store design and feel; one of their biggest traditions.

After replacing the oven in a few stores, it was quickly discovered that customers could get their product more quickly, and that the employees had more time to devote to maintaining the culture and values upon which the stores were initially based.

I never found out if my story influenced Howard’s decision—but hey, within six months all the manual machines were being replaced by automatic ones (a guy can dream)!

Five months ago Brad Abare wrote something I’ve been chewing on since. Traditions aren’t always bad, but where they don’t fully support the values, they should be seriously examined and probably adjusted.

Here’s what Brad said:

Traditions guard.

Values guide.

Traditions perpetuate the good and the bad.

Values parse the good from the bad.

Traditions make way for the predictable.

Values make way for the potential.

Traditions are inherited.

Values are imbedded.

Traditions can stall progress.

Values can stimulate progress.

Traditions can be eliminated.

Values can be illuminated.

Traditions can stop a company.

Values can sustain a company.

Traditions are neutral to meaning.

Values are necessary to meaning.

Traditions are contextual.

Values are collective.

Continued from part 2…

If God is a creative God and humans were created to reflect that image, then all-God/all-man Jesus paints a picture of what a fully creative human being might look like. In the first chapters of Mark, we discover a few things about creative, out of the box ministry from the life of Jesus:

1. Creative ministry is fueled by prayer. Mark 1:35ff “Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed.”

There are congregations that want to be on the cutting edge of creative ministry but they don’t want to put in the time to listen to the Lord. If a church is known as creative but is not deeply driven by prayer, it may be hip and relevant to someone, but it won’t be truly prophetic to the world or relevant to God. 

2. Creative ministry does things in ways they have never been done before. Mark 2:12 “we’ve never seen anything like this.”

Jesus certainly did this; David did, too. David took on the giant with a method that would drive the “experts” crazy. He had confidence that he could do the job, in God’s power, by using stones and sling. NOBODY had ever seen a battle won that way before, but young David was anointed by God; connected to God; and his questionable but creative and obedient actions immediately turned the waning momentum in Israel around.

3. Creative ministry is not just about novelty, but carries spiritual authority. Mark 1:27 “What is this? A new teaching —and with authority?”

Doing something in a new way is only good if it is done with anointing and authority. Many churches are caught up in looking for what is new, what has never been done before, what can set them apart from all the other churches, but their ministries lack real authority. I’ve learned that something can’t just be a “new teaching” (or program or style, etc,) it must also come “with authority.” It must spiritually and practically impact people at their core.

4. Creative ministry elicits a response. Mark 1:17 “come, follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.”

Creativity is winsome. Creativity in ministry draws people into a conversation in which they are asking themselves questions about how they are going to respond with their lives. French writer Antoine de Saint Exupéry once said “If you want to build a ship, don’t herd people together to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.” Both are important, of course, but the latter (an unquenchable desire to cross the ocean) will fuel the former (inspiring people to build a ship).

The goal of creative, prophetic communication is never to simply give information, but it must often result in powerful transformation.

Finally, a quote from Mosaic Pastor, Erwin McManus (who I think does an outstanding job of cultivating creativity for Kingdom purposes through the church he leads): “We risk too little; we dream too small. Each church has enough creative capacity in it to make a huge debt on the problems of humanity.”

If only we’d follow Jesus out of our boxes!

“In the beginning God created…” (Gen 1:1 NIV)

The very first thing we learn about God in the Bible is that He is creative—and for the first 26 verses we see God at work masterfully creating an unfathomable cosmos, life-sustaining systems, invisible atoms and everything else imaginable (and unimaginable).

Then, as a grand crescendo He creates human beings (have you ever considered that people are so valuable to God that we were His grand finale? What a mind-blowing thought!) And this is the first thing we learn about people:

“Let us make human beings in our image, make them reflecting our nature…” (Gen 1:26-The Message)

The first word on God is that He is a creative God; the first word on humans is that we are a reflection of that creative God.

Creativity is primary to our essence. People are born with creative capacity because it is part of the basic package that makes up humanity. However, separation from God (Gen 3) caused the special spark of God-reflecting creativity to be dimmed. Humans remain creative without God because its part of our design, but without relationship with God we are missing the connection to the ultimate source of originality, beauty, and inspiration. Redemption turns us back towards a pre-fall state, but we tend to forget that getting back to inspired creativity is a huge result of breaking the curse of sin.

If this is the case, then the Church—the body of Christ—ought to be the most creative force on the face of the planet. However, far too often the Church is not creative; in fact we are frequently copycats of a culture that is missing that Divine reflection, or we duplicate other churches that seem to have tapped into this creative capacity. And that is tragic because God wants to do something uniquely beautiful in each person and through each congregation.

Perhaps you are a Christian, possibly even a pastor, and you think, “But I’m not creative—I can’t sing or write or draw to save my life…and there is nobody very creative in our church, either!”

That’s because when we think of creativity, our minds immediately go to the artistic—but creative and artistic are not the same thing.

Art is about shapes and shades, sounds and syncopations, esthetic beauty and spacial relations. An artistic person who is creative can form amazing and impacting pictures, sculptures, novels, movies, etc…

However, artistic capacity reflects only one set of gifts. Add creativity to any gift and it brings out beauty and uniqueness through that gift. Think about it: Have you ever seen a creative businessman, a creative homemaker, a creative schoolteacher or a creative public servant? These are not artistic endeavors, and yet we are amazed and attracted by the beauty they can produce in their unique fields.

So, it follows that if the Church is the body of Christ, if we all contribute from our unique gift-mix in a way that reflects the creative capacity of God, we should have the most wonderfully original God-inspired things happening through the church that anyone has ever seen!

But that is going to take getting out of our boxes…

(To be continued)

In 2009, the church seems to be more and more concerned about being relevant. I don’t think that is necessarily a bad thing. Like missionaries, we want to understand our culture and communicate the message of the cross in a language they can understand. But what does being relevant really look like?

Two years ago I was reading a chapter in a book about church relevancy, and the author, Alex McManus, said that a relevant church is first relevant to Jesus, which was a very easy statement to agree with.

Then he said something that gripped me: “The second thing we must ask is, “Is church relevant to outsiders? Many of the contemporary churches (a.k.a. the classic baby boomer churches of the ‘80’s) are still relevant [today], specifically for baby boomers. Many of the newer emerging churches are relevant for today’s twenty-something Christians who don’t like contemporary churches. But what about the person who isn’t reacting against traditional or contemporary churches?

What about the person who isn’t shopping for the church that is right for them? What about the person who is looking for more than just an enhanced experience? What about the person who…wonders if God can find them? Is church relevant to them?”

If people are looking for a ‘cool’ church, they might easily find it in 2009, but what if they are looking for the presence of God? Is much of what we consider church relevancy really simply a way to please ourselves with structures and styles and music that we, and we hope others, happen to like? Maybe a church shouldn’t try so hard to be either traditional, contemporary, or on the edge—maybe that completely misses the point. Maybe we ought to be looking to encounter God together and stand in awe as He reveals Himself to us so that through us He can engage those around us who have lost—or who never had—any sense of God.

I’m not at all against fresh styles—on the contrary, I am quite eager for them; in each genuine move of God over the last century one of the results, but not one of the causes, was that a new generation, and in fact a whole culture, was enfranchised as well as transformed in ways that nobody would have thought of before the outpouring began. I am really hungry to see that kind of genuine supernatural outpouring that transforms the whole culture and that has a new, fresh, and creative style. But in the case of the church, style must always follow substance!

So, perhaps the church shouldn’t care as much that we are being something “new”, but should care primarily that we are being something prophetic. That word—prophetic—doesn’t have to carry baggage; it simply means that we are people who communicate God’s words, God’s heart, and God’s life to others.

And when that happens, when people are not just filled with information or moved through inspiration, but when they encounter true revelation that leads to transformation, that’s when something is going to shake loose.

Oh, and when that happens, we’d better get ready to be uncomfortable. Because church will no longer be about what we get out of it, it is going to be about what God wants to do. And then people won’t come to church because we have great coffee (though I hope we still do) or because our sermons tell them how to be nice, but they will walk through the doors and fall on their faces “and worship God, and declare that God is really among you” (1 Cor 14:25).