Axiom Chapter 15—Incrementalism
Hybels once again does a great job of sharing a very important principle with us. It is almost a continuation from last week’s chapter about keeping the heat turned up. We are all challenged with the “ebb and flow” of passion. One week we are ready to change the world and tackle the toughest devils and the next week we just want to make sure our kids are doing well in school. Then the next week we just don’t understand how anyone has time to change the world. And we incrementally drift away from the very thing that made our lives so exciting and fulfilling. Soon we are able to discount the value of our time, talent and resources and our effectiveness and influence are shrinking.
Incrementalism turns growing vibrant churches into maintenance mode churches that are just trying to keep what they have instead of aggressively moving forward and taking more territory and touching more lives. As Hybels explains so accurately, that is the road to a dying church since natural attrition is about 10%. His explanation of that also makes it easier to not take it personally when someone doesn’t choose to make CAML their church or if someone leaves CAML. As Chris Hodges says, “Don’t focus on the few you will lose. Concentrate on the thousands you will change.”
Let’s hear your comments this week on ways you have found to overcome incrementalism and keep the passion for changing our city and our world alive.
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Turn Up the Heat
Axiom Chapter 14
I really like the statement at the end of the 3rd paragraph: “Whatever the value, if its alive and well in a local church today, it is not by accident. Its only there because of intentional, committed, dedicated effort.”
Whether it is our church, our personal lives or our business, we must be intentional about our values. For instance, in our church, if we are not intentional about thinking big church-big influence strategy we will quickly slip into doing good things that have little impact. We receive offerings very rarely for a couple of reasons—to remove the misperception of being all about money and to make our offerings have huge impact. If we begin asking people to constantly give to “good” projects, we will lesson the impact on the “God” projects that create lasting influence.
We must stay committed to those things we value. That means when other things are demanding our attention, time, talent and resources that we remain committed to the values and vision. Being dedicated means we do not have the option of letting our values or vision slide while we give our attention to other things (beware the squeaking wheel). At Lockheed, when we said a machine was dedicated to a certain process that meant the use of that machine was that process only. Even if someone had an extremely urgent project that needed to be done, we did not do it on the dedicated machines because, in the long run, the whole process would suffer. Don’t fall for the trap of letting urgency determine priority.
Lastly, it takes effort to keep our values and vision hot. I have noticed that being wild, barbarian church planters does not get easier. The challenges are different but they do not get easier. It takes effort, intentional effort, to make sure everything we are doing is infused with God’s presence and not just something we have become good at doing. It takes intentional prayer, Bible reading, being around like-minded people, and seeking God’s face. Otherwise, we slip into a program driven church with a maintenance mindset instead of being the Wild Barbarian Church Planters that were so attractive to those looking for a place to see their lives transformed.
Examine yourself. Are you still a wild barbarian or have you settled into just doing what you do? Be intentional, committed and dedicated to put some effort into turning up the heat this week!
I really like the statement at the end of the 3rd paragraph: “Whatever the value, if its alive and well in a local church today, it is not by accident. Its only there because of intentional, committed, dedicated effort.”
Whether it is our church, our personal lives or our business, we must be intentional about our values. For instance, in our church, if we are not intentional about thinking big church-big influence strategy we will quickly slip into doing good things that have little impact. We receive offerings very rarely for a couple of reasons—to remove the misperception of being all about money and to make our offerings have huge impact. If we begin asking people to constantly give to “good” projects, we will lesson the impact on the “God” projects that create lasting influence.
We must stay committed to those things we value. That means when other things are demanding our attention, time, talent and resources that we remain committed to the values and vision. Being dedicated means we do not have the option of letting our values or vision slide while we give our attention to other things (beware the squeaking wheel). At Lockheed, when we said a machine was dedicated to a certain process that meant the use of that machine was that process only. Even if someone had an extremely urgent project that needed to be done, we did not do it on the dedicated machines because, in the long run, the whole process would suffer. Don’t fall for the trap of letting urgency determine priority.
Lastly, it takes effort to keep our values and vision hot. I have noticed that being wild, barbarian church planters does not get easier. The challenges are different but they do not get easier. It takes effort, intentional effort, to make sure everything we are doing is infused with God’s presence and not just something we have become good at doing. It takes intentional prayer, Bible reading, being around like-minded people, and seeking God’s face. Otherwise, we slip into a program driven church with a maintenance mindset instead of being the Wild Barbarian Church Planters that were so attractive to those looking for a place to see their lives transformed.
Examine yourself. Are you still a wild barbarian or have you settled into just doing what you do? Be intentional, committed and dedicated to put some effort into turning up the heat this week!
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