Andy Stanley on becoming a student

I thought this Andy Stanley podcast was one of the best.  It is on learning to be a student instead of a critic of new ideas.  Strong emphasis on something I think we know instinctively but are afraid to admit:  the best ideas for church tomorrow don’t come from those doing it now, they come from the next generation.  Being a young man of 35 who turns 36 next month (ouch) I recognize I’m not in the aforementioned category anymore.  So the question I have to ask myself is:  Who am I listening to?

Here’s a few random takeways from the podcast:

• The best ideas for tomorrow don’t come from our generation but the next generation;
• Whatever we are saying is “dumb” and has no ministry value but is being utilized by the younger generation is the NEXT thing that WILL BE used for ministry;
• It’s okay to fail, celebrate failures.

You can subscribe to the podcast in iTunes but here is the most recent podcast on the subject of becoming a student.

 

Andy Stanley’s Leadership Podcast

I think the most helpful leadership podcast I have listened to is Andy Stanley’s Leadership Podcast.  The format is simple:  A short excerpt from a talk Andy has given somehwere and then a follow up interview to help digest what he just said.

It’s great because you get the practical leadership lesson explained and described and then you get it again with more examples.

Check it out on Itunes.  Just search for Andy Leadership Podcast.

 

Andy Stanley – Talk 2 – Catalyst One Day

“Don’t be that couch”

• Their goal was to create a church that unchurched people love to attend.
• Then creating churches that…
• Then creating churches that create churches that unchurched…
• Programming was always intended to answer a question…to meet a specific need.
  • How do we create community?
  • How do we get people into groups?
  • How do we get parents to take responsibility for the spiritual dev of their kids’ life?

1.       Whereas programming begins as an answer to a question, over time it becomes part of organizational culture.

• As culture changes many of the questions remains the same, but the answers don’t.
• The tendency is to institutionalize our answers.
• If we instit. An answer, the day will come when it is no longer an answer.

Just like the couch your g-parents had and they moved it with them everywhere they went.  The couch began to take on emotion and memories.

2.       We must continue to be more committed to our mission than to our programming or our model.

• It’s okay to like your model but don’t fall in love with it.
• Over time, sustaining the model can become the mission.
• Over time, the model that we fall in love with can work against mission.

3.       Points of discussion (at their staff meeting when he presented this)

• What have fallen in love with that’s really not as effective as it used to be? What are we emotionally attached to?
• Where are we manufacturing energy?
  • He tells his CPs that he wants them to be proud of everything they do.  If there is a cringe factor, you need to have a meeting.
  • If we got kicked out and the board brought in a new CEO, what would he or she do?  Why shouldn’t we walk out the door, come back in, and do it ourselves? -Andy Grove

• What are our organizational assumptions?

i.      Leaders must bring the underlying assumptions that drive company strategy into line with changes in the external environment.

ii.      We have wrong assumptions that don’t line up with what is happening in the world.

-They sat down and asked each other what they assumed about every aspect of ministry: the city, singles, students, etc.

iii.  The assumptions the team has held the longest or the most deeply are the likeliest to be its undoing. Some beliefs have come to appear so obvious that they are off limits for debate.

1.       What do we assume about people and how to reach them?

a.       Put people in rows and talk to them

b.      Christians naturally love to stand and sing

2.       What do we assume programmatically?

3.       Which assumption is false?

a.       Inspiration and information results in transformation

b.      Moments create movements

4.       Which are true, but not fully leveraged?

a.       People don’t stick to a production. They stick to a relationship. How do we create sticking points in all we do?

To reach people we aren’t reaching we have to do things we are not doing. To reach people nobody’s reaching we have to do things nobody is doing. (Quoting Groeschel.)