I work on Sundays…Sunday is my Monday. I took last Sunday off. I didn’t work. I spent the day with my family. But I did go to Browns Bridge. We drove there as a family. Julie and I, together, dropped our son off in Waumba Land and our daughter off in UpStreet. We walked into the auditorium and sat together, worshiped together, and listened to the sermon together. We went to KidStuf Live as a family and drove away together. We even went by Target and had lunch with some friends afterward. It was good to act like a normal person for one Sunday.
I learned a few things from my day off…
Browns Bridge Community Church is an amazing church. From start to finish and in every environment, it was a great experience. I left genuinely excited that Browns Bridge is our church.
There are some things we need to work on. Browns Bridge is not perfect and never will be. It was so valuable coming to church as a guest. I got to see what we do with a different set of eyes.
I’m extremely thankful to work at a church that I’d actually want to come to on my day off from working there.
Any time you can look at something in a fresh way, it brings a new perspective. Find ways for you and your team to see things in a fresh way.
Julie and I love Shark Tank. Have you seen it? Five successful multi-millionaires (aka the sharks) listen to entrepreneurs pitch their business ideas in hopes that one or more of the sharks will invest in their product.
People don’t always take the shark’s offer. There are a number of reasons why, but there’s one reason that makes me yell at the TV every time. There’s one thing that distracts the entrepreneur from seeing clearly. The shark can give them the money they need. The shark can give them priceless wisdom. The shark can broaden their customer base. The shark can increase their sales. But they turn it all down because they’re distracted by emotions.
They are too emotionally attached to their product. Their emotions blind them to an opportunity that will clearly give them and their product a better future. Instead of walking away with a deal that would benefit them and their product, they walk away feeling like they won. Their product is still their product. They still control it. And it will remain “their” baby.
I wonder what I’m too emotionally attached to in my work world. What system, program, decision, environment am I too emotionally attached to? What opportunities for improvement and new ideas am I missing because my emotions have distracted me from reality?
My daughter decided on Sunday afternoon (with the encouragement of KidStuf’s very own Mr. Take-Out) that she wanted to collect clothes for people who were hurt by the recent ATL floods. Awesome! Definitely one of those proud parent moments. She spent Sunday night and Monday designing the flyer to try to get others to donate clothes. On Wednesday she started (not finished) putting the flyer on every mailbox in our neighborhood. My wife also emailed our neighborhood to let them know what she is doing…and so they wouldn’t get mad about the flyers. By that afternoon she had already collected five bags of clothes. Then this morning happened.
At breakfast this morning, Julie shared the great news that one of our neighbors had emailed overnight to say they would be donating some clothes. It was a neighbor my daughter knew. Julie and I were excited! Our daughter was very upset. Why? Because she knew she had not put a flyer on their mailbox yet. She did not want them giving clothes unless she had given them a flyer.
In just a few days, she had lost focus of why she was doing what she is doing. She’s collecting clothes for people who may have lost everything they own. A beautiful vision. But she quickly got distracted. Now, she’s seven years old, so I cut her some slack. But you and I do the same thing all the time. Insider churched people are skilled at this.
How many churches, ministries, projects, etc. have you seen started for all the right reasons? But at some point the people most involved in this “thing” begin to get more focused on how it’s getting done. Or they start caring more about distractions and stop paying attention to what they are trying to accomplish. And the more they focus on the how or the distractions and the less they focus on the why or the goal, the less effective the “thing” becomes. And eventually it stops being effective all together. It’s finished. All because they lost focus and started caring about the wrong things.
Stop caring whether or not the people got the flyer first. Celebrate that they are giving clothes to people who have lost everything.
(By the way, if you’d like to donate money, clothing, etc. to ATL flood victims, go to hopeATL.com.)
I had a birthday recently. We went to our favorite Chick Fil A for dinner. Exit 13, of course. It just so happened that my birthday fell on the day that severe rain hit the ATL. This meant our normally crowded CFA was strangely empty. So empty that we could hear Gene coaching his staff behind the counter.
I’ve come to appreciate Gene. He’s the manager and knows how to walk that line of connecting with his customers without annoying them. His restaurant is consistently great when it comes to the physical environment, the staff, and the food.
As we were eating, we overheard Gene coaching two of his staff members. One was an Assistant Manager we’ve seen before and the other was an employee we’d never seen before. Yes, we go there a lot. Gene was coaching them on two things.
First, stay with your customer. From the moment you engage your customer, stay with them until they have been fully served. Don’t drop them. Don’t pass them off. Own them. Take responsibility for them.
Second, look for your next customer. Find the person who needs to be served. Even if the person is not in “your area”, go serve them. Don’t let people wait long to be served.
Thanks, Gene! At church, at home, no matter where we are, am I fully serving those around me and looking for the next person to serve?
Your…
parking lot.
music style.
carpet.
web site.
preaching.
lighting.
wording.
greeters.
bulletin.
wall colors.
chairs.
volume.
traffic flow.
kids’ space.
schedule.
location.
[add whatever you can think of here.]
Nothing is neutral in church. Everything causes everyone to feel something. Here’s the challenge: Does it cause the people you care the most about (i.e. unchurched people, churched people, families) to feel what you want them to feel (i.e. safe, worshipful, reflective, accepted)? Everything can be leveraged to create the kind of environment you want to create. This isn’t manipulation. It’s strategy and intentionality and knowing why your church exists.
Is it possible you don’t feel something about everything? Yes. It just means you’ve grown numb to those things. There was a time they made you feel something. And it was probably a positive feeling, otherwise you would have done something about it. Time has made you numb, though.
How are you making people feel this Sunday?
