Our conference minister, Kent Siladi, in his address to the annual meeting, invited us gathered to imagine:

+ All God's children welcomed, valued, and loved
+ Looking at our congregations and asking who is not here and ask why
+ Churches addressing  injustices in our community: education, farm labor, etc.
+ Churches attracting people, reaching out to others
+ Building bridges to one another, connections to one another
+ Seeing our churches as centers of experimentation.
+ Reaching out to other faith communities
+ Listening deeply to one another

Good stuff!

Let me take a moment to explain my awe with Coach Jose. Coach Jose is my son's T-Ball coach. T-Ball, remember that? 5 year-olds and 6 year-olds (with a couple of 4's thrown in just to keep it interesting) on a ball field spinning around, kicking dirt in the infield, pulling up grass in the outfield, poking each other, and watching baseballs rolling by them.

If it's a boy or girl's first year, they know nothing about the game, especially if they have a non-baseball dad like me. They have few skills and a six-minute...tops...attention span.

Coach Jose has a background coaching baseball, real baseball, I think, high school kids. He is very knowledgeable. He told us he had never coached little kids before. Over the past several weeks, I have watched Coach Jose do drills, run bases, and explain the game to these kids. He is ever so patient. He goes over and over the fundamentals. Most of them don't remember. They will drill for an hour: catch the  ball..step...point...throw it to first base. The next practice, they have to start all over again except for maybe one or two that have a vague memory of doing something like that last week. Coach Jose doesn't get upset, he simply starts over again...catch...step...point...throw. I honestly don't know how he does it. It seems like somewhere deep inside he is 100% confident that each of those kids is going to get it, going to be a star, despite all the evidence to the contrary.

I get so agitated when people don't get it...when I don't get it. I have been on this spiritual path for so long and yet I feel like i never even get the basics down. I screw up, I don't pay attention. Then I look around at those I lead and, I hate to say, I get even more frustrated. "C'mon! We have gone over this time and again and it still hasn't sunk in even a bit!"

For myself and my fellow sojourners, I am going to follow my new idol, Coach Jose. "Alright Yankees, let's do it again: catch...step...point..throw"

"If in preaching the gospel you substitute your knowledge of the way of salvation for confidence in the power of the gospel, you hinder people from getting to reality."                     -Oswald Chambers



And yet, this is what happens over and over again. We make the gospel our pet, our servant. The history of the church is a history of taming the gospel. We fear it's power. 

I want people to get on board with my cause, sign up for my class, propagate my philosophy, but come in contact with the raw power of the gospel? Without me controlling it and mediating it? Are you kidding?

Forgive me God. May your fire of love purify my ministry, burning off anything that stands between me and the power of the gospel for those that I lead.

I'm reading an excellent book by Seth Godin, a marketing guru, that isn't really about marketing at all, but about leadership. It's tilted Tribes. You can see my reading notes here.

In it, he talks about faith versus religion:

"Religion and faith are often confused. Someone who opposes faith is called an atheist and widely reviled. But we don't have a common word for someone who opposes a particular religion. Heretic will have to do. If faith is the foundation of a belief system, then religion is the facade and the landscaping. It's easy to get caught up in the foibles of a corporate culture and the systems that have been built over time, but they have nothing at all to do with the faith that built the system in the first place. Change is made by people, by leaders who are proud to be called heretics because their faith is never in question." (84)

I like that, "facade and landscaping." This, of course, is nowhere as obvious as it is in the church. We have so identified with our religion that the faith, for many, is almost lost. We have safely insulated ourselves from its power.

How do we as the church, as a religion, re-engage the power of our faith?

My dad, an old Baptist preacher, sent me this list compiled by another old Baptist preacher--no one famous, just a conference minister in New Orleans. But man, he is right on the money with these.

Andy Stanley wrapped up the day with "Five Random Thoughts on Leadership." They were all wall-worthy. Actually, they are thoughts he has on his wall. He is still struggling with each of them:

1. "To reach people no one else is reaching, we must do things no one else is doing."
- Craig Groeschel (Pastor of lifechurch.tv)

2. "The Next Generation product almost never comes from the previous generation."
-Focus, Al Reis

3. Ask yourself: "What do I believe is impossible to do in my field...but if it could be done would fundamentally change my business?"
-Future Edge/The Paradigm Book, Joel Barker

4. Ask yourself: "If we got kicked out and the board brought in a new CEO, what would he do? Why shouldn't we walk out the door, come back in, and do it ourselves?"
-Only the Paranoid Survive, Andy Grove (Intel)

5. "When your memories exceed your dreams, the end is near"
-Michael Hammer

And a bonus: "Success breeds complacency, complacency breeds failure." - Andy Gove