Greg Darley:

I saw an awesome billboard yesterday while driving down the interstate.  The message was clear, but the material could have been better.

The board read “Trees Trees Houses Trees“ in big bold letters.  It was for a new housing development. Instantly I knew what kind of neighborhood it would be.  It would be one with more trees than houses, rather than all houses and a couple of trees.  What a powerful picture. Espeically for new neighborhoods. Most new neighborhoods are cleared, cookie-cutter homes are stamped out, and a few “trees” are planted in the end. But this neighborhood was proclaiming a different message.  The status quo was changing.

I was thinking about what that message would look like for the church.  Here are some ideas:

Judge   Judge   Me   Judge

Fake   Rude   Everyone   Judgemental

Racist   Rich   Members   Selfish

What if they looked like this:

Love    Love You     Love

Acceptance   Forgiveness   Neighbor   Grace

Help   Help    Me    Help

Food   Shelter  Billions  Hope

You see, the status quo has got to change. The church has lived up to the expectations that society has set for us.  It is time to change that. My heart is to see the Church be the hands and feet of Jesus.  If people saw our churches and their mind went to the “billboard” like mentioned above, we’d have to knock the walls out to make more room.

This is a main goal of World Causes and our Free Chains campaign.  The Church should be leading the fight against issues like child sex slavery.  If we did, think about the impact we make.  Not only for the innocent girls, but also on those around that have missed the point.

Some friends of mine are making this very impact in the heart of Columbia, SC.  Midtown Fellowship is beginning to be known as the leader in the community when it comes to loving and helping the homeless. They are invited to city meetings about the issue.  This is monumental and I commend Dustin, Lee, Alan and the entire team.

As a side note, I’ve been thinking about what my billboard looks like to others and what I want it to look like. What would your’s say?

Had the opportunity to have lunch with Brad Lomenick today.  If you haven’t heard of Brad, you have heard of his organization and their event.  Brad is the puppet master behind the Catalyst Conference…the cutting edge leadership conference held in Atlanta each year.  I had a great time and got to ask a lot of questions and got posed some tough, but needed questions.  What I really enjoyed about the time with Brad was the fact that he was focused on our conversation.  This is a guy that gets to hang out with the best leaders in the country. Take a look at this year’s speakers for the conference for proof.  He didn’t rush our time and take phone calls and things like that.

It showed a lot about his character and his belief in reaching young leaders. I was challenged but at the same time encouraged.

Thanks Brad for the time and I look forward to hopefully more in the future.

Growing too fast has its downsides.

The up and coming Twitter seems to be over tweeting right now.

Can you plan for something like this? 

This past weekend, we had some friends come into town for a day. They are getting married next weekend. It made me think about my wedding and how it seems like yesterday it was all happening. There are some things that I wish I could share with Greg before he got married. Things that would help him be a better husband. Things that would help him lead the type of home he wants to live in. Here are a couple of the things that I wish Greg would have learned back then…

1. If you want something to be a habit for the family, start early and continue often. Here are some things that fall under this umbrella: Budgeting and Spiritual disciplines as a family. If you want to pray together as a married couple/family, then start early and do it often. Do not wait, for habits form very quickly.

2. Learn to listen. Hearing doesn’t count. Listening does. Listen for her point of view before yours. Its amazing how much frustration is eased when you understand where the other person is coming from.

3. Be intentional with your marriage. This includes how you spend time, date nights, praying together, cutting the cell phone off, cutting the computer off, cutting the tv off, etc.

4. Exercise doesn’t fit into your life unless you make it fit. Life gets busy. Make it a priority to stay healthy.

What are some things you would have told yourself the week before you got married?

As a sub note, as I have been implementing these practices into my marriage, our relationship seems to grow at an exponential rate. But, they take time and you need to take a long term view…nothing great happens over night!

First day of Ministry @ the Max was just that…sooooooo much information.  There was a lot of good information.  A lot to digest. A lot to dig through.  It was pretty much the opposite of the Q conference last month which centered around big ideas, future thinking, innovation, creativity, etc.  This was more of the nuts and bolts of how to make all that happen. (In other words, all the stuff I’m not good at).  Let me give a brief overview:

-85% of start-up businesses (and ministiries) fail within the first five years because of inadequate planning, structure, and systems.

How do we not become a statistic?

Ministry Venture’s 5 Best Practices are a step.

1. Prayer

God is a God of order.

“Putting things in order is Wise and faithful stewardship”

That is a very convicting statement for us dreamers, visionaries, idea guys, and big thinkers.  Have to work on that.

3 Biblical Principles:

1. Build on a solid foundation of prayerful planning.

2. Build a ministry that can withstand adversity.

3. Build around process and not personality.

I’ll be attending a seminar tomorrow that is supposed to help with the foundational issues of leading a non-profit.  I’ll post notes tomorrow and share all the info that I’m taking in.  Should be a great time of learning about systems and effective communication.

Always striving to get better (and Lord knows I’ve got a long way to go!)

I think I have a slightly better understanding of what happens when a non-Christian looks at a believer when they are clearly no living out what they say is a foundational belief for them. Be it love, patience, faithfulness, honesty, you name it. Any of the foundational truths that a Christian should not only profess, but live.

So, I go tonight to pick up some dinner for my wife and I. I need something quick, so I think where can I get something that is Hot’n Ready?  Where can I walk in and walk out with dinner in just a few minutes?  According to Little Caesar’s, you can get a pizza that is hot and ready for you.  Well, after sitting for 15 minutes to get my pizza, I also watched the other 7 people waiting for their pizzas.  I was thinking…this is why we come here over the other guys!  This is what you’re supposed to be doing!  This is what you’re known for…allegedly.

I wonder how me people have had the expectation of me and they sat there amazed because I didn’t live up to my key brand.

Mark Batterson talks about the importance of unlearning in his book, In a pit with a lion on a snowy day. Thinking Steps Not Programs is the practice that we have to unlearn some stuff, before we can effectively apply this practice.

Having a program is natural for those who grew up in church. You have a need, you build a program…its simple. But that is not necessarily the most effective way to achieve results. Here’s the difference.

A program is a system/project to meet a need.

A step is a series of actions taken to achieve a goal.

A program asks “what is the need?”

A step asks “where do we want people to be?’

The goal is to figure out where you want people, then create steps to get them there. You want to have teenagers have an intimate walk with Jesus, don’t just create a “youth program” create steps that will help get them there. There are numerous applications.

For World Causes, we want people to ultimately commit to being a part of the solution of the issues of poverty, injustice and epidemic disease. Commitment is the goal, and the steps to get them there are:

1. Raising awareness to the issue (this is one of our “wins”. To raise true awareness. To shorten the gap between our reality and their reality. Repeating a statistic is NOT awareness)

2. Getting people to respond to those needs.

3. Creating ways and possibilities to commit.

Commitment means altering lifestyles, changing behavior, changing character. Its big stuff. But that is where we want to take people and that is the only way that 2.5 million girls will be freed from sex trafficking, and 1.2 billion people can live on more than $1 a day. There are also distinct forms of commitment that we’ll be shooting for with different groups. Individuals, churches, business owners, students…commitment may look different for all the groups, so we’ll need steps for all different groups to get them there. Andy calls this “doing ministry with the end in mind.”

What are your steps?

I’m re-reading through a fantastic book by Andy and North Point Ministries. World Causes is not a church, but there are so many great and practical applications in the book for where we are as a ministry and where I am as a leader.  (both are young, small and need lots of prayer and support!)

I’m going through each chapter and trying to take out the material that I can implement for World Causes. There are also tons of great applications for individuals, families, etc.  I’ll point out those as well.

If you are in ministry/leadership, I would highly recommend this book.

Chuck Colson mentions David Woodward of Clemson University in his Break Point article today. I bring this up for two reasons, one, to mention my beloved Clemson (even though its not in the best context, I still love Clemson, for God really met me there) and two because Chuck’s teaching has impacted me greatly.

Chuck praises Woodward for speaking up for what he believed in, even when “he was denied an administrative position on the grounds that he was ‘ideologically incompatible’ with the values of the university” and was ridiculed my many. But David recognized that a clash of worldviews is under way and the so-called culture war is a war of worldviews.  If you have not read Colson’s How Now Shall We Live?, you need to. It has done more for my thinking and walk with God than anything over the past year. In fact, it prompted my joining the Centurion Program, which I would also highly recommend to anyone who wants to impact our culture for the gospel.