March 2013 – Page 2 – The Flipchart

When pruning means cutting growth

We started a new ministry two years ago.

It was popular. It was reasonably well attended.

But after one year we cut the programme.

Why? Because although it had grown, our detailed analysis revealed some interesting facts.

First, although the event had grown its growth was mainly due to people who would have gone to any number of events that were reasonably accessible, reasonably competently run, and populated with people they knew.

Second, it was an inclusive, welcoming environment, and people of all ages and abilities came and worked together on great projects. However, that highlighted the difficulty of bringing established congregation members into something they perceived as too creative and out of the ordinary.

Consequently, and third, the church in which this event was hosted never got behind the programme. In other words (or in our words) the event was not renewing the people we wanted to renew.

So our event was inclusive, and welcoming, and creative, and accessible, and, to an extent, growing. But it was unsustainable. And it was taking a considerable amount of our available leadership resources.

And so we cut it when it seemed to be in its prime. It was sad, but we needed the resources for something more effective.

Anyone who’s pruned roses knows the problem. Roses need pruning in the spring to prepare for growth, and then fast growing suckers need to be removed once the growth starts so energy isn’t drained form the main plant, and they need dead-heading, and they need pruning at the end of the season. All this if they are to reach their best.

In other words, to get a beautiful rose all season the plants need to be pruned surgically and often, from before the beginning until after the end of the growing season.

The only time roses aren’t pruned is in the winter when everything is dead.

And that’s probably true of some churches too.

Creativity – the No1 Skill of the Future

The graphic below was taken from the IBM 2012 Global CEO Study (for the full page on Creativity check it out here or download the study itself here).

The graphic speaks for itself.

Perhaps those of us who have clipped other skills on to our core skill of Creativity will find it easier to move forward in the increasingly compressed and difficult world ahead?

Embrace Creativity if you have it. Get it if you don’t. Or get near people who have it if you can’t get it.

Connected blog … here

Graphic taken from the IBM 2012 Global CEO Study

The No.1 Competency

Last week a friend said to me ‘You’re an ideas person’.\r\n\r\nI baulked. Cringed. Panicked! Defended.\r\n\r\nAfterwards I wondered why, and then I remembered. Those (many) times over the years when the term ‘Ideas Person’ had been used as a way of excluding or confining or sneering or judging.\r\n\r\nAnd … how many of us like to be pigeon-holed? We like to believe that there’s still scope for change and improvement.\r\n\r\nI took note therefore when this week I read about the ‘IBM 2012 Studyof CEOs’ reported in The Times (I would give the link if The Times was accessible without payment). Checking out the IBM website shows this:\r\n\r\n“According to a major new IBM survey of more than 1,500 Chief Executive Officers from 60 countries and 33 industries worldwide, chief executives believe that successfully navigating an increasing complex world will require Creativity – more than rigor, management discipline, integrity or even vision.\r\n\r\nSo, YES! I’m an Ideas Person. I practice Creativity on a daily basis. It is the air I breathe and my second language.\r\n\r\nJust don’t forget that I can deliver too … look\r\n\r\nFor the IBM chart on Creativity see here

Serendipity. Coincidence. Guidance?

Not all coincidences or accidents can be taken as guidance. In fact, trying to ‘read’ guidance into dramatic physical occurrences can easily fall into the category of superstition (said Jesus in Luke 13).\r\n\r\nBut sometimes the dramas of life can lead in a clear direction.\r\n\r\nSo it was in the story of Arthur Tappan Pierson, a New Yorker, born in 1837 and named after his father’s employer. He was a bright student, language scholar and Phi Beta Kappa. He grew to be a powerful orator and was a pastor of great and large churches around America, and accidentally also in England, where he had been invited by his friend C H Spurgeon to help with preaching duties at the Metropolitan Tabernacle during the latter’s illness. A Presbyterian not a Baptist, Pierson found himself ‘in post’ when Spurgeon died.\r\n\r\nPierson was the one of the first members of the YMCA, and spoke at it’s first conference in Northfield in 1886 where he coined the phrase “the evangelisation* of the world in this generation”. From this conference 100 men dedicated themselves to overseas missions and became the founding core of the Student Volunteer Movement. By the time of Pierson’s death in 1911 over 5,000 Student Volunteers had sailed to mission fields abroad.\r\n\r\nBut what about the sign?\r\n\r\nWhen Pierson was 39 years old he was a prominent leader in his denomination, a well published writer of articles, sermons and poems, a powerful speaker, and successful parish minister. But he was dissatisfied with his successful ministry in high profile churches because he could not reach the poor in his local city, let alone the un-evangelised populations around the world.\r\n\r\nOn March 24^th 1876 Pierson met with around sixty of his parishioners to pray – not in the church building – that the obstacles that held his church back from reaching the poor be removed.\r\n\r\nWhile they prayed, and without their knowing, their beautiful church building was burning down. Everything was destroyed, right down to the desk where Pierson stored his Bible notes. Only, the Bible notes survived.\r\n\r\nPierson took it as a sign. The church hired the local opera house as a meeting room and in the next fifteen months hundreds of people came to faith under his new style of preaching – simple, direct, challenging. He never looked back from his new focus on evangelism and mission theory.\r\n\r\nComfortable yet Dissatisfied? Talented, Equipped, but Ineffective? Pray. Invite others. Maybe even pray for the church to burn down! (Metaphorically)\r\n\r\nAnd if you have the chance, read the story of Arthur Tappan Pierson.\r\n\r\n* NOTE: spell checker want to put Liberalisation instead of Evangelisation … in a strange way, maybe not far from the truth?

Six Words for a Simple Plan

It’s great to hear a church leader speak confidently and clearly about the aims of their denomination.\r\n\r\nSo it was this morning, when Chris James, Pastor of Vintage Community Church in Portishead, Bristol and Weston-Super-Mare, told us about the aims of the Assemblies of God churches in Britain.\r\n\r\n”We are Apostolically Led, Relationally Connected and Missionally Focused.” he said.\r\n\r\nThat’s it.\r\n\r\nSix words giving a simple and yet dynamic purpose for 600 churches.\r\n\r\nMemorable. Transferable. Legible.\r\n\r\nDefined but with enough scope to allow freedom of thought.\r\n\r\nIs that your church?\r\n\r\nIs that you?\r\n\r\nIf not, try it. Write a six word, memorable, legible, dynamic purpose for yourself or your church.