image: “Binoculars” by Peter Miller on Flickr
Today was “Vison Sunday” at SLW—not that “vision” is contained just to this one day each year, but it’s the Sunday when we take some time to celebrate God’s faithfulness over the past year and get a glimpse of what’s to come. As part of that, we hosted our Local Church Conference. What follows are the personal reflections given as part of my report this year:
This Saturday, The Bridge is hosting our biggest event of the Summer as an opportunity to connect with our neighbors and build new relationships in Penn Hills. Two weeks from Sunday, we’ll be hosting our first public worship gathering (we’re calling them “Monthly Celebrations” because “preview service” doesn’t really make a lot of sense to people who aren’t familiar with church or church planting). All that to say: we’re in the middle of a big push to gain and hold momentum. It has meant a lot of long days for Rick, our families, and me, and a ton of behind-the-scenes coordination and ‘procurement’ by people on our launch team.
We’re pushing the limit in terms of energy and emotional RPMs. But just as much as we have been determined to push hard for what’s taking place in the next couple of weeks, we have noted the need to take time to refresh and renew. Our sense is that ministry, apprenticeship, strategy, training, preparing, executing… all come in seasons — a season of pushing hard and a season of resting.
We’re determined to communicate with excellence, to have worship environments and ministry areas where everything is done very, very well. We’re also determined to raise up new leaders… but apprenticeship is messy and sometimes our apprentice leaders won’t do things as well as we think they should or know they could–and ‘excellence’ can suffer. So, there are seasons of pushing hard for excellence, and seasons of learn-by-doing-with-permission-to-really-mess-up.
The best illustration we’ve found (in the Ferguson brothers’ Exponential) is the idea of riding a bike and working the pedals: pushing on one pedal and resting on the other. Momentum continues and the work is sustainable–but only if the pattern of push-rest-push-rest is properly applied. For ministry-leader types, though, resting can seem like work. So can letting off the pedal of ‘excellence’ to push harder on the pedal of apprenticeship.
I’m hoping that, like riding a bike, we may falter and fall at first, but will develop a proper sense of balance and harness momentum. Time will tell.
In the meantime, I’d better get back to pushing hard toward this weekend’s event. And then I’ll rest hard… next week :-).
In the June 7th Forbes Magazine, Rich Karlgaard noted some of the shared characteristics those companies which seem to have grown stronger and better despite the Great Recession. His article is good and well worth the read, but I’m taking those ‘seven secrets’ and applying them to how we’re thinking at The Bridge:
Design.
I’m not a designer, I’m not even artistic. But it doesn’t take too much to see bad design–in fact, in the past, I think a lot of our effort was just avoiding bad design. Our design is getting better… thanks to GotPrint, t-shirt producers, and Cloversites, I don’t have to be an incredible designer to have good design. We could be better, and we’re growing, but I’m glad we’re not settling for “free” when an investment in design speaks volumes about us. We’re moving to a place where we’re pursuing beautiful design rather than just running away from bad design. I’m excited about that.
Speed.
In general, things are moving much faster than we thought they would… and this is building serious momentum–we’re planning to launch and daughter faster than we thought could happen. We can’t take credit for this, but it’s happening. We also are focusing on making sure we follow up fast and do what we said we would when we said we would.
Cost.
We’re working hard to show that when someone invests in The Bridge, we’re being wise in how we expend limited resources. ‘Cost’ for us has less to do with what a customer gets from us, but how we manage the results we demonstrate to our investors. In our community, it also means ‘free’ doesn’t suck. We’re trying to do as much as we can at no cost to the people we’re ministering to… but we’re trying to do it as though they paid a premium to be there.
Service.
When it comes to our investor churches, we genuinely believe they are getting something by partnering with us, whether it’s people who participate and take a renewed passion back, or a sense of legacy, there are many benefits to being part of what God is doing through The Bridge in Pittsburgh. But when it comes to serving our community, after just a couple of events The Bridge is already ‘the church that gave the free car wash–that’s great!’ We’re finding fun ways to show our community we care, we want to know our neighbors, and that God really loves them.
Courtesy of 'altemark' on Flickr
Communication outside.
Right now, this has to do mostly with face-to-face contact. Rick, especially, has been knocking on doors and being ‘the face’ of The Bridge. This will only go so far, and we’re analyzing where to best put some communications dollars: radio? adsense? street corner with a sandwich board? As we learn our community more and more, we’ll discover the best ways to communicate outside.
Communication inside.
We could do a better job at keeping launch team members on the same page, but we’re learning how to make sure communication among senior leadership is open. Thanks to GoogleDocs, Calendar sharing, and Facebook, we’re growing in our communication and how we collaborate; we’re not ‘there’ yet… but I think we’re well on our way.
Purpose.
We’re here to help people connect with Jesus and see them grow in His likeness. 
More than that, we’re here to keep doing that by planting churches that plant churches to reach those far from God. The Bridge exists to love, learn, and live Jesus Christ in our context at whatever cost. We hope we have the purpose thing down… now it’s a matter of staying on mission when things, good and bad, tempt us to drift.
Why not run down the list yourself and give your church/organization a quick checkup?
Over the past six weeks a single phrase has been uttered in the Gomez house more than any other. My wife and I have been persistent in reminding one another of the need to ‘finish well’ as our time at Carlisle Wesleyan was drawing to a close. I took extra care to make sure my study habits and the resulting times of preaching were as excellent and prayed-up as possible. We were purposed in granting care and counsel to those in need. We went out of our way to demonstrate love in as many tangible ways as possible. All of this because we knew of the temptation, when ‘the end’ is in sight, to simply “coast” until things wrap up.
Yesterday was my last official day (though there are still some lose administrative ends to be cared for) as Carlisle Wesleyan’s pastor. I think we finished well.
But that wasn’t the most significant ‘job well done’ I was a part of yesterday.
A good friend, Deemer, also finished well. He finished so well, in fact, I’m beyond-a-doubt certain he heard the sweetest words any of us will ever hear: yesterday at about 2:45 in the afternoon, he heard, “Well done. You have been my good and faithful servant. Well done!” I wish I could have been there when Deemer was finally free of the prison of his own body… when he was released from the claws of ALS (Lou Gehrig’s Disease) and able to move, to breathe, to touch, to speak, to walk on his own… when he finally saw the One he has followed so faithfully.
Deemer finished well—in his last days he, literally, took great pains to communicate his love and care for those around them and to share that his faith in Christ remained steadfast even in the dark, stormy place he found himself. He offered hospitality, shared his wisdom, and even injected humor… though each of those things took more energy and focus than I can begin to fathom. He brought glory to the name of Christ. He could have ‘coasted’ until the end came. He could have been self-focused, irritable, mournful, and angry… and no one would have thought otherwise; but he wasn’t any of those things. He finished well.
It makes my own feeble attempt at ‘finishing well’ seem inconsequential.
And I am reminded of why the death of his saints is a precious thing to God.
Used by permission. From 'skinnyde' on Flickr.
Seat position? Check.
Mirrors? Check.
Hands at ten-and-two? Check.
Pedals from left-to-right: clutch, brake, gas. Check.
Herd of cattle in the middle of the road? Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. (There were
quite a few cows present.)
I was at the very beginning of my adventure of being a driver. I don’t even know that I had a Learner’s Permit yet, but our family friend, Albert, was going to spend a few minutes with me while I played my hand at driving his aged and well- loved Chevy S-10 pickup. We were on a quiet dirt road behind my grandparents’ place and it was time to test my standard-transmission-driving mettle. It was a perfect day for a drive.
Except, of course, for the dozens of cattle lazily staring at the white half-ton truck and its occupants.
I would begin to move forward and then stop. Start. Stop. Start. Stop. The cycle repeated itself as I tried to intimidate our cud-chewing companions.
Albert was patient.
For a while.
The cows in the road were distracting me. They were big. They were stupid. And they were in the road. One of those cows would easily be victorious in a ‘Half-ton Pickup Truck vs. Bessie the Cow’ match; forget trying to take on the entire herd before us. This wasn’t my truck and I hoped Albert would let me drive it again sometime—but if our adventure together resulted in a cow-shaped dent on the vehicle, I had a feeling no further opportunities would be coming my way.
Start. Drive a little. Get too close to cows. Stop.
What was I to do? Honking the horn didn’t work–the animals didn’t even flinch. Should I get out of the truck, wave my arms, and try to ‘shoo’ them (they outnumbered me…and maybe that’s what they were waiting for before making their ‘move’)? What about trying to identify their leader and negotiate a settlement with these bovine invaders: you move off the road and we won’t barbecue anything but chicken for the rest of the year? I hoped Albert would just drive the truck to some other cattle-free lane and I could try my hand at driving there.
But then Albert gave me some of the most important advice anybody has ever given me when it comes to life and leadership. I didn’t believe him at first. In fact, I thought it was the dumbest thing I’d ever heard. His advice was counter-intuitive and, from my perspective, possibly an invitation for an insurance claim. But he insisted, and I was amazed when I actually did what he instructed.
He told me,
Rather than stopping because I saw the obstacle, I continued to move ahead…and the cows cleared the way. They didn’t want to be hit by the little white truck any more than I wanted the little white truck to hit them.
Now, I know it’s a simple story—and probably reveals a little too much about my upbringing—but I wonder how many times we’ve stopped in our tracks or changed course in our life journey because of an obstacle that lays ahead when if we had just kept moving, we would have discovered the ‘obstacle’ wasn’t has scary or formidable as we had first thought.
No, not every difficult situation or obstacle we’re confronted with can be overcome just by continuing to blindly move forward; there are times when continuing on a chosen path can bring destruction and the obstacles mean we really do need to re-think our next step. But do me a favor and reflect about what obstacle lies in your path today when it comes to your plans for the future, your desires for your family, the activities of your job, the current state-of-affairs at your church, or even the dream God has placed deep in your heart. Maybe that obstacle is nothing more than a ‘herd of cattle,’ and you should heed Albert’s advice: Just keep moving. They’ll get out of the way.
