I like building networks. Networking is usually my first impulse. Give me a job to do, and I will immediately start looking for others who are doing the same job and try to build a network with them. I’m extroverted and generally feel less smart than my peers, so a network connects me with people and knowledge at the same time. 

I’m not talking about networking for advancement or self promotion. I mean networking for collaborative problem solving, ongoing learning and experimentation, and mutual support. I mean networking as a team of youth ministers from various churches inventing things to do together that none of them were doing very well on their own. 

Not everyone is looking to network, though, because networking makes you vulnerable. Maybe the network is smarter than you. Maybe it wants to steal your ideas. It wants your time and attention, and those only go so far. 
So my question is whether a network is ever not useful.Is it ever harmful? Like any tool, a network is good at some things and bad at others. Is the impulse for networking ever counterproductive?
 

I spent last week with 30 teenagers and the Asheville Youth Mission (AYM). AYM is one of several mission trip options in the U.S. that are doing a type of “mission immersion,” combining the service work of a traditional mission project with personal reflection and social analysis. People are running these programs in D.C., Charlotte, Philadelphia, and, through the DOOR Network, Denver, Atlanta, Los Angeles, Miami, and Chicago (full disclosure: the church I serve in Chicago runs one too).

I love mission immersion programs. They expose participants to life among marginalized populations in a city setting and force them to question why conditions there are the way they are. They don’t have youth build things for needy people. They partner youth with local leaders and organizations that are working on systemic, sometimes intractable, problems.A week at one of these places is eye-opening and challenging. Mission immersion doesn’t allow for the feel good moment of completing a building project, a trouble spot for veterans of mission trips for a sweet spot for me.

The other great thing about mission immersion experiences is that many of them are staffed by young people–college, or even high school, students. They are terrific tools for leadership development for the staffs, and they expose youth participants to peers who are dedicated to social change and transformation.

Mission immersion: I’m a fan.

If you ask too many questions, people may think that you’re unintelligent. Ask them anyway. 

If you ask too many questions, people may get irritated with you. Ask them anyway. 

If you ask too many questions, people may suspect your intentions. Ask them anyway. 

There is still no shorter route between not knowing and knowing than the asking of a question. 

We’ll be back posting then. You can follow our mission trip blog here if you like.

Thanks!

You make a thing to share with the world, and you put it out there. Once, for a season, over the course of a career, you ply your trade and make your art and people consume it. But you don’t get to choose the people who choose you.

I saw the indefatigable college band Guster play the Ravinia Pavilion last night, an outdoor venue on Chicago’s North Shore which draws an older, wealthier crowd, maybe half of which picnics on the lawn beyond the pavilion where they can’t even see the stage (that’s where I was).  It’s not the sort of venue Guster has played a lot over their two decade history, and the scene was clearly jarring for the lead singer, Ryan Miller.

He passive-aggressively chided the audience for not standing. He threatened to send his bandmate into the audience in search of chablis. He bantered with a member of the audience about the martini he was drinking. Then he summarily announced, “Let’s hear it for the one percent!” My wife had the best response: “Dude, this is your audience now. Deal with it.”

We think our audience is a reflection of ourselves, and we fear that if our work appeals mostly to people who are too old, too boring, too (insert pejorative here) then that must mean so are we. But beware. The march to irrelevance starts as a search for a cooler audience.

 

Preparation serves the project you’re working on today–the curriculum, the mission trip, the sermon, the relationship. But there’s more. Your preparation on this project will serve you on the next one too, when maybe you won’t have the same kind of time or energy to prepare. You might get sick. You might be moving. You may have to wing it.

If you’ve made a habit of preparing well, though, on the occasion that you have to wing it you’ll be better positioned than you fear.

It’s true that we default to our training.

I was explaining something I want to try yesterday, a Big Idea, and at one point in the conversation the person to whom I was explaining this Big Idea offered a suggestion for getting it done and I replied, “I don’t just want to get it done. I want to find out first if it will be helpful.”

I’ve kicked that sentiment around for several hours since then, and I’m not arriving at any surefire way to determine if the things we plan will, in fact, be helpful before we have to just launch them. Certainly if someone says, “Don’t do that. It will complicate my life and create more work and accomplish nothing” then we don’t do it. But people don’t really say that, do they? They say, “Yeah, sure. Sounds good,” and then abstain from participating when the flaws they saw in the Big Idea come to light.

Maybe we have to be completely direct. “I’m thinking of moving confirmation from the 11:00 hour on Sundays to the 10:00 hour so that I can lead one of the 11:00 youth groups. Does this add value to your church participation? Does it help you?”

Or, “I’m interested in bringing a group of teenagers to your corner of the world for a mission trip. Would that be helpful to you?”

An honest “No” is so much more valuable than a tepid “Yes.”

We’re into the summer rhythm of ministry now. During June, July, and August, we trade many of the weekly gatherings that fill Sundays from September through May for less-frequent-but-longer gatherings. Sunday School for camp. Youth group for the mission trip.

The church I serve is experimenting this summer with weekly activities for youth for the first time since anyone can remember. We’re trying this on Sunday mornings and this during the week. Participation in June was very light, but it certainly seemed like the teens and adults who took part got something out of it. We’ll see.

I’m wondering about rhythm. We talk a lot (a lot a lot a lot) about how busy our people are today, and I’m starting to notice the way busyness is really nothing more than a rhythm of commitments. For busy teens, orchestra rehearsals and weekly traveling soccer tournaments give a rhythm to life. That’s healthy. It’s also shared, since most of these activities are team or group-based, and since the activities pace their parents’ lives too.

So where does gathering for worship and formation with peers in the church play in the rhythm of busy people? Is it something separate from all the other commitments, either more demanding or less so? Or is it part of the total rhythm of our lives, humming vibrantly alongside our commitments to work, family, and important causes?

And how much influence do church leaders have over the rhythm of our peoples’ lives?

A guy on our moving crew got fired before the move even started. From the moment the crew arrived and began the Herculean task of  wedging a 100 foot semi truck into a narrow, car-lined city avenue, this individual was announcing to all who would listen that he knew this would happen. He knew this neighborhood was going to be a problem, because he grew up here and went to school here, and he knows how small all the streets are. He knew it. His colleagues, me, every passing pedestrian: he made sure everyone knew just how much he knew.

Meanwhile, the driver of the truck was examining angles. His three other associates were giving directions. I was knocking on neighbors’ doors trying to find the owner of a white Audi SUV parked in the way. Even a passing neighbor took a picture of the car and uploaded it to the neighborhood Facebook page trying to find the owner. Everyone was contributing to a solution except the person who, to hear him tell it, knew the most about the problem.

Then he was on his boss’s phone. Then he was yelling, “This is bullsh**!” into his  boss’s phone. Then he was handing his boss’s phone back and saying goodbye to the rest of the crew. Then he was gone. I learned later in the day that he’d been fired for an incident that had occurred days before on another job.

I would never find relief in a person losing their job, but I take no joy in working with people who describe problems but don’t contribute to a fix.

 

 

Taking care of business isn’t always  rewarded. Sometimes you handle things on your end, turn paper work in on time, make reservations months in advance, and still there are complications. Not everybody takes care of business. Things get complicated. Comcast gets involved. 

You have to stick it out, right? Keep taking care of business like a pro and resist the urge to let things slide because, hey, this other guy is falling down on the job. 

Being the one who dots the I’s and crosses the T’s isn’t always appreciated, and it doesn’t always pay. But when it does it really does. And even when it doesn’t you’re still a pro, and that’s worth something. Always.