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You Don't Create a Culture

Over the past year, I've become a pretty devoted user of BACKPACK, not only as a part of my implementation of GTD (see my GTD stuff here and here), but as a way to collect and organize information for our team environment at Redeemer Fellowship.

In addition to the multiple productivity benefits BACKPACK has given me, I've thoroughly enjoyed reading the 37signals blog, Signal vs. Noise. They have consistently great stuff on a wide range of topics that interest me. What is most beneficial about the blog is the perspective that their team brings to whatever issue is at hand.

Take for example Jason Fried's thoughts on how leaders create culture within their organizations:

From time to time during conference Q&A sessions I’m asked “How did you create the culture at 37signals?” or “What do you recommend we do to set up an open, sharing company culture like yours?”

My answer: You don’t create a culture. Culture happens. It’s the by-product of consistent behavior. If you encourage people to share, and you give them the freedom to share, then sharing will be built into your culture. If you reward trust then trust will be built into your culture.

Artificial
Artificial cultures are instant. They’re big bangs made of mission statements, declarations, and rules. They are obvious, ugly, and plastic. Artificial culture is paint.

Real
Real cultures are built over time. They’re the result of action, reaction, and truth. They are nuanced, beautiful, and authentic. Real culture is patina.

Don’t think about how to create a culture, just do the right things for you, your customers, and your team and it’ll happen. (source)

Read the full post and comments for some great discussion, as well as George Ambler's reflections on the post.

Kansas City Church Plant Update

“Wait! I thought you were living in Canada”

“No, I finished my coursework at Regent and we are in the process of planting a church in Kansas City.”

“Oh...Wow! I had no idea. So, how do you like living in KC?”

“Well, we’ve actually been living in Little Rock since last summer...it’s kind of a long story”

This pretty much summarizes the opening segment of every conversation I’ve had for the past eighteen months. The good news is, we are finally in Kansas City!

(our  house in KC)

And, by God’s stunning grace, our plans to plant a new church in the urban core of KC are moving forward at a blinding pace and in ways much different and more beautiful than we ever could have conceived.

What follows is my attempt to provide a brief sketch of some of what has transpired in the past year and to update those who are interested on what we are currently doing in Kansas City.

ESV STUDY BIBLE PRE-ORDER DISCOUNT + A29 RECEIVES 5%

Pre-Order ESV Study Bible at 35% Off and Crossway Donates 5% to Acts 29 Church Planting Network

DETAILS

Technorati Tags: A29, puppy

Church Planters @ T4G

I got a few emails from people yesterday wondering if there were any planned gatherings for church planters at Together for the Gospel this year. I also got a few others from people wondering what Acts 29 Network people I knew that were going to be there.

The answer to the second question that I know with certainty is: myself, Pete Williamson, Joe Thorn, Kevin Larson, and Brian Brown. I'm also told there will be folks from LifePoint Church (Ozark, MO) and no doubt there are others (folks from Sojourn maybe?).

Because there is a decent group of A29 people, and because the answer to the first question is, "I don't know"-- we have decided to try and facilitate a gathering of like minded church planters (A29 or otherwise) at this year's T4G conference.

For Those Interested in Joining Us: We will meet Wednesday during the 4:45-7:00 pm dinner break at The Irish Rover in Louisville. Head straight there at the break and we'll try to get tables. Larson and Thorn are quasi-gods in Louisville, so I'm trusting that they can get us the hookups. If you're more inclined to make arrangements than you are believe my myths about quasi-gods in Louisville, then you're more than welcome to call ahead and see if you can get us a table or three reserved.

Please FWD this to people that would be interested in joining us, and let me know if I can do anything else to get the ball rolling.

See you there...

Irish Rover
2319 Frankfort Ave
Louisville, KY 40206
(502) 899-3544

Technorati Tags: A29, T4G

UPDATES

People continue to comment to me that I haven't added anything in the way of real content to this site in almost three years, and I continue to laugh them off and tell them that I've had other stuff going on. However, I realized last week that it has been over a year since I have even made minor additions here (like updating my book and music lists). 

Since this site has become little more than a repository for photos of my son's growing head, I decided that it's time for some real updates.

Not that you should be expecting the re-emergence of a steady flow of posts, but there is a lot of exciting news that has happened since we moved to Arkansas last summer that I'm eager to share. Most importantly, I want to update those who are interested about our church planting progress in Kansas City.

My major update will be finished sometime this weekend, and I will post it sometime between now and when I head out for Together for the Gospel bright and early next Tuesday morning. In the meantime, I will be posting smaller updates and tweaking a few things on the site that have gotten squirrelly as a result of my neglect.

I am also working on some major site updates at our Reach Kansas City website. Those that have found that site useful in the past should watch out for a decent amount of updated content.

Speaking of updates, everyone should be refreshing their Schrute consciousness in preparation for the return of The Office tonight!!

Dwell Urban Church Planting Conference

DWELL CONFERENCE

Speaker Topics:
Mark Driscoll - Dwelling in the Text & Dwelling through the Text
Tim Keller - TBD (2 sessions)
Ed Stetzer - Dwelling in the Kingdom & Dwelling in the Mission
CJ Mahaney - Dwelling in the Cross
Darrin Patrick - Dwelling with non-Christians

Technorati Tags: EdStetzer, TimKeller

Updates on Kansas City Church Plant

We have had an amazing and amazingly packed fall. I have made over half a dozen trips to Kansas City and have been thrilled at all the connections God is creating for us there. To be honest, time previously spent blogging has been filled with new faces, coffee, BBQ, photography and hanging out with Katie in preparation for our little boy's arrival, Lord willing, sometime within the next month!

Hopefully, this explains the tumbleweeds gathering in the corners here. I was reminded twice yesterday about the lack of even menial updates like books and music. However, I have been making some behind the scenes changes (like this updated bio), and hope to roll out a few more updates and improvements over the weekend. In the meantime...

TWO THINGS YOU NEED TO SEE:

1) The Arkansas Democrat Gazette recently wrote a profile on Fellowship Associates (the church planting leadership residency that I'm currently participating in). You can download the article here.

2) Our Fall Newsletter is Available!! I made a small oversight in the way I sent them out via regular mail, so if yours arrived looking more like confetti than a newsletter, feel free to download a fresh one.

October Newsletter

If you did not receive a newsletter (either via email or regular mail), and would like to receive them in the future, please feel free to contact me. NOTE: since we're more excited about building relationships than sending out newsletters, please let me know a bit about yourself and why you are interested in our vision to cultivate communities of disciples for the glory of God and the good of the city.

Visit our vision casting and fundraising website: Reach Kansas City

Church Planting Q&A

A few weeks ago, I had the privilege of meeting with Ariel Vanderhorst. We met at the Broadway Cafe, drank coffee, talked all things Pinback, Kansas City, Westport, & church planting. Ariel is a good man, and I have enjoyed getting to know him more through his blog.

Ariel is also a glutton for punishment, because after listening to me talk for over an hour, he interviewed me for a paper he's working on for a church planting class. I talk fast-- and faster still when people get me rolling about things I'm passionate about. Therefore, Ariel had no small task in taking notes during our interview. You can read his notes here.

THE BASIC OUTLINE OF OUR INTERVIEW
1. What’s been the greatest challenge(s) of church planting?
2. How do you deal with the financial needs?
3. How do you deal with the “people” needs? (Finding people to work with and attend the church.)
4. How did you (or would you) put together a core group?
5. What was or is the role of your “mentor” or role model?
6. What is the role of sponsoring/partnering churches?

If you have any questions in response to my answers to Ariel's questions, feel free to post them in the comments here as well, or you can email me with questions.

As always, you can track our progress as we work to plant a gospel-centered church in the urban core of Kansas City.

Kansas City: The View from the Middle (NPR)

NPR's Day to Day profiles life in Kansas City: Kansas City: The View from the Middle. Though the piece carries a subtle tone of condescension, it offers a nice profile of a great city that we are growing to love with increasing intensity.

The term "middle" conjures up a host of pejoratives: middling, middle-brow and middle-of-the road.

But settle down in what folks on both coasts deride as "flyover country," and you discover something different: a political environment that celebrates consensus as much as conflict, a space where culture and business are comfortably intertwined, and a place where history and modernity don't just live, but thrive.

[...]

Kansas City is the embodiment of the middle. It's near the geographic center of the continental United States. It's the dividing line between a traditionally "blue" state (Missouri) and a traditionally "red" one (Kansas). And it's a sprawling — but human-scale — metropolis, with a reviving downtown and so many construction cranes that locals joke "the crane is the new state bird."

The first thing you notice as an outsider is the architecture. The way glassy modernist sculptures like the still-under-construction Sprint Center arena nestles amidst stately, century-old apartment buildings. Or how the city's colonnaded grande dame, the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, has sprouted a funky new wing that glows softly at night.

You can read more, and listen to the show here. To read more about our efforts to plant a new church in Kansas City, check Reach Kansas City

Are Church Plants the most effective form of Evangelism?

Drew Goodmanson answers the question with three key ingredients that lead to greater conversion taking place within the context of church plants:

1. Jericho Walls - Church planting requires a tremendous amount of faith and a slight bit of gospel insanity ... Church planters need to have a sense of calling because church planters have to look at the Jericho-sized walls of starting a church and addressing the world's unbelief and pray to God as desperate men who have to have God show up in order to plant a church.  And this is where God tends to arrive most, when there is a humble people lifting their hands desperate for Him to show up...

2. Fat Cats Don't Hunt -  When church plants begin, there is a smaller number of people and they often have a much greater external focus.  Larger churches often see a great necessity for taking care of the people that are already showing up.  Therefore, a larger church tends to spend more time on internal programs...

3. Risk & Reward - New churches have greater freedom to be flexible, change on the dime and try new things.  This means they can experiment with new methods, sounds, styles and often this can reach untapped people groups.  The same principles are seen when start-up companies are more innovative and surpass the larger bureaucracy-laden companies in tapping new markets.

read the whole thing