Here's to Harold Bare in Charlottesville

Yesterday morning, I had a lengthy conversation with the pastor of a local Protestant (evangelisch) church. He had invited me to his office to share with him the insights from my dissertation which centers on the growth of evangelicalism in 49 countries. He had read a small sample of my literature review; recognizing a few names (e.g., Fink, Stark, Weber).

In many places in Germany, local Protestant congregations are getting smaller and older. Subsequently many of their pastors (and those in our circles, too) are looking for ways to reinvent their parishes. I mentioned the leadership conferences from Willow Creek in which they have brought top business executives and consultants to Germany. (This year's line up includes Bill Hybels, Jimmy Carter , Carly Fiorina [former CEO of Hewlitt-Packard], and Patrick Lencioni (author and consultant.) The pastor stated that he objected to marketing approaches to church ministry; rather one should begin with Jesus. And I have no objections to a Christo-centric approach to ministry.

Then my mind went back to our pastor in Charlottesville, Virginia - Harold Bare. "Pastor Bare" had finished his dissertation at UVA on "The Evolution of a Sacred Bureaucracy". We have spoken several times at length with each other about his study. He begins by using the premise from Max Weber that sacred and secular organizations operate on consistent sociological principles, i.e., sacred organizations are bureaucratically no different than secular organizations. Using my conversations with Bare, I was able to encourage the local pastor (here in Germany) to think differently about the situations he is facing in his own parish.

The twins are back at it again.

Since returning to Germany, Colin and Kevin have spent much of their free time learning new tricks on the Skateboard. This is a video that the twins recorded themselves and then Colin did all the editing by himself. I simply did the uploading to YouTube. Enjoy!

Visit from Charlottesville

This past weekend, we had the unusual pleasure of hosting some friends from the States. Rob and Jeanne Kantas were our neighbors and co-workers from Charlottesville, Virginia. Their kids are also the age of our guys. It was not uncommon for us to Rob and Jeanne let our kids stay at their place. We even stayed with them during our last family visit to Charlottesville.

The Kantas' have since moved to Houston, but we've maintained some contact over the past few years. In celebrating their 25th wedding anniversary, they embarked on a European tour that started in London, Paris and Strasbourg and will take them still through Germany, Austria and Italy. Over the weekend, we showed them a few of the sites near Stuttgart including the Mercedes-Benz museum where this photo was taken.

How Close Knit is Your Leadership Team?

Not too long ago, I was talking with a pastor who was having some difficulties with his leadership team (various ministry leaders). It quickly became apparent that his team was not all "on the same page." While reading today, I thought of this pastor's situation, and also reflected on our teams in Eastern Europe.

Lencioni contends that the cohesiveness of the leadership team is more important than strategies and plans. But how do you know if your leadership team is really cohesive? He suggest that each leader to ask himself/herself the following questions:

• Are meetings compelling? Are the important issues being discussed during meetings? A lack of interest during meetings is a pretty good indication that the team may be avoiding issues because they are uncomfortable with one another. And there is no excuse for continually holding boring meetings.
  
  
• Do team members engage in unguarded debate? Do they honestly confront one another? If not, it is likely that there is a lack of trust.
  
  
• Do team members apologize if they get out of line? Do they ever get out of line? Teams that can genuinely forgive and ask forgiveness develop powerful trust.
  
  
• Do team members understand one another? Members of cohesive teams know one another's strengths and weaknesses and don't hesitate to point them out. They also know each others backgrounds, giving them insight to their behaviors and thinking patterns.
  
  
• Do team members avoid gossiping about one another? This is not to be confused with talk about others that is intended to be harmful. Ironically, members of cohesive teams are not overly concerned about the prospect of their colleagues' discussing them in their absence if it is in the best interest of the team.
  

Lencioni's Obsessions of an Extraordinary Executive

I've been working my way through yet another Lencioni classic: The Four Obsession of an Extraordinary Executive. In his usual fashion, Lencioni begins with a fable describing a realistic scenario.

In this book, Lencioni focuses on what leaders do to make their organizations healthy -- to have a healthy climate/culture. Essentially, there are four disciplines exercised by leaders of a healthy organization:

1. Build and maintain a cohesive leadership team.
2. Create organizational clarity
3. Over communicate organizational clarity
4. Reinforce organizational clarity through human systems
   

Although each of these points are critical, and are usually followed in the order presented, I was struck by the importance of the second step. A healthy church minimizes the potential for confusion by clarifying ...

• why this particular congregation exists
• which behavioral values are fundamental
• what its specific calling and ministry is
  
• who the competition is (and this may or may not be another local church)
• what it plans to achieve
• who is responsible for what

Sounds simple, doesn't it? But the consistent application of each of Lencioni's steps is hard work.

Back in Germany -- cut off from the world

Although Claudia and the kids came back to Germany a week earlier, I arrived on September 11 in Frankfurt and then connected to Stuttgart. When I got home, I had some shocking news. Due to some remodeling/re-structuring of the building in which we live (the former Bible school building in Rudersberg), we had no Internet service in-house. In fact, it's taken a week for us to get back online.

The kids are now in their second week of school -- and it's been very hectic for us. The kids are in three different schools; each grade has their own schedule of afternoon classes. (In Germany, particularly in the lower grades, it is common that children do not have afternoon classes, or perhaps only one or two days in the week. To make it worse, sometimes they will not have class in their first school hour). So.... we're still sorting out the schedules.

In the meantime, Claudia has left me this weekend. She is attending a women's retreat in Wüstenrot. When she returns, we will have some friends to visit us -- Rob and Jeanne Kantas, formerly Charlottesville, VA.

Lord's Supper and World Missions

We had an excellent World Missions service / conference this weekend in Tampa. The guest speaker was David Pleasant, Jr. from Ft. Myers (Covenant Community Ministries). Using 1 Corinthians 11, he used the topic of those excluded from communion due to social / ethnic status.

During the middle of the sermon, he introduced communion to the congregation. The ushers handed out the elements as usual. But what I could not see from sitting on the third row, was that the communion elements was given only to those sitting on the first five rows. It was a surprise to the congregation, only the ushers and church staff knew what was going on.

David then proceeded with the communion ceremony in the typical fashion. After the ceremony, he explained how that many church members were excluded from the Lord's supper due to their social / economic status.

Pleasant then related the concept of exclusion to those who have never heard of Jesus Christ. How can they participate in the Body of Christ if they have never heard of Him?

At the close of the sermon, he then had the usher to reissue the elements for communion to everyone in attendance.... much to the relief of many parishioners.

In retrospect, it was funny to see the restlessness of the choir during the first "communion service." They thought that someone had simply lost it.

Claudia and the kids are back in Germany

Just a quick update on our family. Claudia and the kids returned to Germany on Tuesday/Wednesday. They made it home safely without any complications with their flights. They left 90° degree weather in the States and must now live with cooler temperatures (like in the 50's as a high) in Germany.

In the meantime, I am attending a missions conference at the University Church of God in Tampa, FL. (Claudia's would be jealous if it weren't a sin. But the kids had to be back in time for school.)

The video below is a short clip that Claudia made to show our family and friends in Germany what Lake Michigan looks like. The kids are climbing up one of the sand dunes along the Indiana shore.

We Speak to Nations

During the month of August, Claudia and I have just completed a short fundraising tour in Indiana, Illinois, North Carolina, and Kentucky. We have had the joy of visiting a large diversity of churches -- some very small, and very country/bluegrass; others rather large and very contemporary in style. Farm communities and mill towns. Some churches are growing, some are in decline. In most of these churches, Claudia and I had never been to these churches previously -- truly an introduction of ourselves and our work in Europe.

I learned several years ago, it is very difficult to predict the response of any local church in regards to supporting world missions (whether missionaries or projects). There is no correlation between the size of a church and their commitment to missions. But it is usually a good indicator of the church's level of vitality.

If the local church is the hope of the world, then the church must be willing to "speak to the nations" and take on the responsibility to accomplish the Great Commission.