I strongly support the Accelerator San Diego Program and I’m excited about how much impact this program will have on your business. Accelerator is a huge opportunity to grow your business through intense, facilitated learning and connections to Entrepreneurs’ Organization. EO San Diego members are involved as mentors to help the participants digest the content and apply it to your business.

There are only 30 spots, and this is going to fill up fast!

Post a comment with your email and I’ll connect you with the right people to learn more!

In addition to the peer learning, those in a regional collective will have access to specific training, resources, and online webinars with other practitioners and thought leaders to help you lead missional communities, centered on the gospel.

If you are interested, submit this quick GCM Regional Collectives interest form by by Dec. 15*. When we get your email, you’ll receive an invite to the Regional GCM Collective group within the GCM online community. This is where we will be putting forth all announcements of where regional GCMs are forming, training dates and other resources to aid the discussions and prayer within the regional collectives.

Our goal is to communicate with the collectives by early January, so they can begin meeting at the end of January or early February. So far we have over 120 and growing that have signed up!

If you have other pastors or leaders in your area that you know would be interested, feel free to send them a link to this post. The more information we gather of those interested up front, the easier it will be to set up the regional collectives.

We look forward to serve alongside you to make disciples who make disciples.

*If you are already a member of the Regional GCM Group by joining within the GCM Community, you do not need to take further action.

On two of the boards, I’ve advocated a move to a Functional Board of Directors (from now on this term will also serve for elder led churches). Functional Boards means that each board member has their role defined and is clear on what is expected of them. Prior to this we operated with unclear expectations and more of a coaching role on issues that surfaced but didn’t feel this was very effective or best using the talent of the board. Here’s how that transition occurred:

1. Create Unity on the Big Picture: Usually the process begins by facilitating an offsite day using a 1-Pager (we’ve used these type of tools with churches during the MonkDev Strategy Sessions as well) to help capture vision, values, obstacles and goal type information. When we’ve done this with organizations there are times where these elements have been thought through and people easily navigate and re-center on these things and other times where this type of process is brand new, so it takes more time. Take the goals and move to the next step.
2. Bring Clarity on Strategic Initiatives: After big picture goals are agreed upon, identify 5-6 strategic initiatives that are necessary to achieve those goals. For example, one of the 1-pager goals of a non-profit was to become self-supporting and move from the founder donating a large portion of the monies. The strategic initiatives under that were many, but included increasing revenue. At this point ‘triage’ the situation to see which element if focused most keenly on would have the biggest impact on driving the initiative. In this case, sponsorship was the largest source of revenue and the most immediate to become self-supporting.
3. Create Board ‘Chair’ positions to have key responsibility over an area: In this regard their are a lot of tools, my experience comes in the form of a Quad Report (so-named because it focuses on 4 things: Role Description (Core Purpose of Role, Responsibilities, What does Success look like?), Core Strategies (how does this role’s outcomes directly feed into the strategic initiatives?), A KPI dashboard (Google KPI Dashboard) and specific goals. In our example, a Board position was created for a Sponsor Chair to oversee growing the sponsorship function and since sponsorship revenue has raised ahead of projections. The position does need to take into account that this person is often a volunteer. They should champion the vision and seek to find people who can help execute. For the non-profit there is an executive director who has worked to tackle a number of the Quad deliverables such as clearer Media Kit for potential sponsors.

Some thoughts on how this applies to a church: One of the biggest breakdown I’ve experienced with a team is unclear expectations. This process can clear this up and release elders to be the first amongst equals in the area of responsibility they are over. In my experience, we’ve had a first amongst equals who sees how all the parts are working together for the greater whole (like the Chair position of President or Chairperson). For more on eldership/leaders structure from my blog, also read: Elders – Missional Movements, Plurality of Leadership & First Amongst Equals and other posts I’ve done on Triperspectival Leadership.

Why A ‘Roundtable’?
We started this project to gather thought leaders, practitioners and church comm experts to leverage best practices and talk through challenges. Each of our Roundtables are filled with individuals from a wide variety of churches, many are growing and influential churches who are able to implement communication strategies. “As iron sharpens iron,” Proverbs says, “so one person sharpens another.” This is an opportunity to share with and learn from your peers in deep and substantial ways.

As a Conclave Member, you’ll receive:
Dinner at the Nightwood Restaurant
Lunch
A Disruptive Learning Event from a renowned author
Church Communication Key Findings and Best Practices report from the content generated at the Roundtable
Networking opportunities with some of the brightest minds in the church comm space

Schedule

Wednesday, October 26th – 6-9 pm
- Dinner at Nightwood (http://www.nightwoodrestaurant.com/)
- Facilitated Discussion – Rick Bailey author Coherence: How Telling the Truth Will Advance Your Cause (and Save the World)

Thursday, October 27th – 9:30am-5 pm
- Rick Bailey to present 1-Hour “Building Coherence” session
- Church Communications Roundtable
- Lunch
- Church Communications Core Challenges & Opportunities
- After Party (6-9pm) [OPTIONAL]

Suggestion: Stay Friday and see the city for those out of towners!

Learn more at the Conclave Sessions website.

As a Dallas Roundtable Member, you’ll receive:

A 30 min Pre-Event Coaching Session
Dinner at the III Forks Restaurant
Lunch at the Aloft Hotel
A Disruptive Learning Event of Important Trends
Key Findings and Best Practices report from the content generated at the Roundtable
A Communication Strategy to Traction Plan Session
Networking opportunities with some of the brightest minds in the church comm space

Coming to Chicago in the Fall!

Mission: More then a Slogan
March 11-12th, San Diego
This conference is intended to help planters, pastors, and leaders better navigate through the minefield of competing missional ideas while remaining faithful to the rich story-line of the bible.

Christian Web Conference 2011 | Biola UniversityCWC / 2011 – Christian Web Conference. Affiliated with The Imagination Summit. At Biola University / April 14–16. The Christian Web Conference is designed to equip individuals with the vision, knowledge, and relationships that are necessary in order to be thoughtful practitioners and consumers of developing web technologies

Hawaiian Islands Ministry Honolulu March 24-26, 2011 | Hawaii Convention Center – Save the dates, more information to come but I will be doing three sessions, two on technology and one on creating gospel communities on mission.

CLA Conference April 25-28th in Dallas, TX. Join us in April to the Ministry Internet & Technology Summit (MITS) during the 2011 Christian Leadership National Conference. MonkDev hosts this summit at the CLA National Conference because in our experience, it is great for equipping ministry leaders like you in the range of skills and knowledge needed to navigate the challenges of leading ministry in the future. With more than 120 workshops in 14 tracks, 25 full-day seminars and cutting-edge summits this is truly a one-of-a-kind educational opportunity. Thousands of ministry leaders from across America will be there, and I’m hoping you’ll consider joining us too.

Exponential Conference April 26 – 29, 2011 in Orlando, FL.We are putting together the Exponential Communication & Technology sessions. Stay tuned for more details. The Exponential Conference and the Verge Conference are joining forces to host an historic, international event in April 2011. Join thousands of other church planting leaders for a time of inspiration, encouragement, equipping and challenging. Our theme is “Missional Communities: Discovering Old Truths in New Paradigms.” Regardless of your current approach (attractional, incarnational, mega, multi, micro, etc), you will be challenged to apply old truths and principles in fresh ways to reach those far from God.

Cultivate Conference May 4-5, 2011 at First Christian Church in Huntington Beach, CA. Cultivate is about bringing you together with the skilled, the experienced, and the insightful, and together you will drive the content. Together you will discover breakthrough insights. Cultivate is about organized conversations, and each conversation will be designed to nurture collaboration without confining the experience to a box. Expect to be stretched. Expect to be challenged. Expect to cultivate a new way of thinking. If you are creative, strategic, and responsible for influencing how your organization communicates, there is a chair waiting for you.

Christian Alliance for Orphans May 12-13, 2011 at Southeast Christian Church in Louisville, KY.
The Christian Alliance for Orphans unites more than 80 respected Christian organizations and a national network of churches. Working together, our joint initiatives inspire, equip and connect Christians to “defend the cause of the fatherless” in adoption, foster care and global orphan care. Through the annual Summit, the Orphan Sunday campaign and an array of other initiatives, we seek to help grow communities in the local church known for “defending the cause of the fatherless” (Isaiah 1:17).

The Danger of Overgeneralizing

Using TriP as a kind of quick profiling of personalities is not really helpful or healthy. The danger in any DISC or Meyers Brigg type of assessment is that it leaves out what can not be discerned on paper (e.g., human interaction through relationships in community, the work of discernment by way of the Holy Spirit, past performance, passions and aspirations). Making statements like, “oh, this person’s a priest, so they can’t…” or “they’re a king and we really need a…” is going to slow you down in the long run because (as we’ll see below) there are variances to consider within their perspective that may allow them to be a great fit for a role you wouldn’t have initially considered.

Also, I’ve heard of churches use the TriP language to all but shun one of the perspectives because they thought they knew what “type” of person was needed. This betrays the point of TriP, which is to see each perspective relying upon and informing the others. God is the only one who is omniperspectival. We need each perspective to help us develop in our own area of weakness. Additionally, as you mature you move closer to the center of the PPK triangle since you’re growing in Christlikeness by listening and applying truth from other perspectives.

Ok, enough of the warning label.

Drilling Down PPK

There are different kinds of prophets, priests and kings based on their secondary perspective. In fact, their secondary perspective is sort of like their delivery method. In other words, you might be a priest and enjoy counseling, but your secondary is king. So you enjoy working with people that need pastoral care by applying wisdom to their particular situation like finances or work related counsel. This is effortless and easy for a kingly priest, but not so for a priestly priest. Let’s break it down.

PROPHETS

Prophetic Prophet

Prophetic prophets are usually concerned about the precise clarity of the word preached. They are more concerned that what they’re preaching is true than whether or not it’s practical or inwardly transforming. Not that these aren’t concerns for them, it’s just not what they are most concerned with. Think of John Piper or John Macarthur. These types of prophets are really, really needed and helpful to ensure we don’t pragmatically slide or emotionally decide what is true and accurate. Accuracy, doctrinal soundness and precept upon precept are words a prophetic prophet is comfortable using. Of course, the tendency is to slip into a kind of intellectualizing of the Gospel if not shaped and informed by other perspectives.

Priestly Prophets

Priestly prophets connect existentially with their hearers. They are able to take truth and effectively move the emotions and affections of others through their communication. Tim Keller is an excellent example of a priestly prophet that is gifted in communicating to the heart. This doesn’t mean they aren’t still normatively oriented, but the vehicle they use to communicate truth is existentially oriented. We need priestly prophets in our church. They help us to grasp the feel of the passage and move us to worship. In fact, their goal in preaching is heartfelt worship over intellectual stimulation or practical application. Heart, affections, adoration, and feeling the presence of God are words and ideas priestly prophets are comfortable with.

Kingly Prophets

Kingly prophets are excellent at vision casting and communicating strategy. They motivate by showing what God is like and what He wants His people to do. They are greatly concerned with the application of the word in the life of a Christian and community. They labor to make sure you see how this passage is worked out and applied. In fact, they’ll often think that unless the truth is proven by their life, no matter how much they claim to emotionally connect or intellectually understand, they haven’t yet grasped it. Examples, figures and facts are regularly used by kingly prophets. In my sphere of relationships, Mark Driscoll and Jeff Vanderstelt are excellent kingly prophets. Mark has tremendous gifts at vision casting and Jeff’s use of a white-board is legendary.

PRIESTS

Prophetic Priests

It’s easy to assume that priests are “nice guys” that help clean up the mess prophets make. However, there are different kinds of priests and when building a leadership team it’s important not to jump to conclusions about their ability to contribute to a specific need.

A prophet priest is someone that primarily processes through an existential grid yet is able to effectively communicate and bring the word to bear upon any given situation. This type of priest may actually have excellent communication skills and is able to use them to see grace renewal taking place. They use their secondary perspective to deliver their primary desire; a heart transformed by grace. In counseling, they may tend to be more monological than a priestly priest. For those who have been through gooey, “how did that make you feel when mommy spanked you?” kind of counseling, this is an excellent person to bring truth and see it believed in a counseling context. Think of Jay Adam’s as a prophetic priest. His primary concern for counsel and change is Christians thinking right thoughts. It’s no coincidence he wrote a book entitled A Theology of Counseling. If you’re ensuring that gospel-shepherding is happening in your church you probably want to discern if you’re looking for a prophetic communicator, a structural catalyzer or a gospel-counselor. If not, you might call someone to lead in a role they are not really suited for or competent in. Just being a priestly type isn’t sufficient. You have to ask yourself, “what kind of priest are they?”

Priestly Priest

A priestly priest is typically a great listener and someone who is quite concerned with leading others to feel right feelings in order to experience gospel-transformation. They are wonderful shepherds for those who have been “truthed” to death by their last church. They will usually have their finger on the pulse of the broken hearted in the church and will want to see change happen at a deep, deep relational level by encourage we listen more than speak. The idea of systems and structures are probably not going to be welcomed without a clear understanding of how the structure will serve to love the hurting. If you’re looking for someone to develop, communicate, and lead the church to engage in pastoral care, a priestly priest will need to be helped to accomplish this end. However, if you’re looking for someone to be a lead shepherd for gospel-counseling, they might be a perfect fit. They are a vital part of any church and should be cherished. We need priestly priests in our midst and shouldn’t be merely accepted but seen as vital to our health. Without them, our people may feel burned out and misunderstood. Priestly priests are much more concerned with individuals and are usually one-on-one, high-touch leaders. Helping priestly priests connect structure and truth-telling to their counseling will allow them to flourish. They will help us slow down, pray, listen and move slowly so that people are feeling loved and experiencing grace. Think of Dan Allender as a preistly priest. The Wounded Heart is a great book to grasp how a priestly priest thinks and counsels.

Kingly Priests

Kingly priests are not only concerned with shepherding the flock, they are able to effectively use structure and organization to accomplish their primary concern. They ensure the priestly function is flourishing in the church by organizing, managing and coaching other priests. They are also excellent when helping a saint apply the gospel to a particular situation. They are often concerned that you live out the gospel in your actions. In fact, they will usually counsel someone to live out their convictions until their heart catches up. They will help you walk out the implications of being changed by grace. Grace isn’t merely an abstract concept or inward feeling to them. Ed Welch and Paul Tripp are great kingly priests. Where a prophetic priest will help those who haven’t been given much truth and priestly priests will help those abused by so-called truth, a kingly priest will help someone who hasn’t been shown how the gospel is lived out in practice.

KINGS

Prophetic Kings

Prophetic kings are greatly concerned that the vision and cause are clearly communicated and understood. They won’t be content with structure unless it is connected to a greater value or truth. They are able to quickly problem solve issues of vision and values and can bring concrete clarity as they help to work out how this truth should “look” within the community. Prophetic kings are good communicators that can easily speak and teach about structure and help leaders think through bottlenecks at an organizational level. They enjoy casting vision and will typically thrive in an environment where they are asked to give a reason for why they do what they do and why others should follow. However, prophetic kings are not managers and may not be detailed. If you’re looking for someone to implement systems, a kingly king not prophetic king, will get you there. A prophetic king will help to initiate a project and then want to move on or find others to lead the needed components of that structure and manage it. A prophetic king will essentially tell you how a thing should work and what you should do to get it done. We need prophetic kings, especially when we’re in the process of change or attempting to launch a new initiative.

Priestly Kings

A priestly king is concerned with how the church is coming together and being organized for renewal and change. They’ll want to ensure the community clearly understands their function in a priestly way and that the church is organized to make space for gospel-shepherding. A priestly king won’t find the creation of structure enjoyable unless they connect it with loving people. They are highly relational kings and will help a church thrive that is needing to change in a way that isn’t disruptive. A prophetic king will tend to forget the feelings of others during change and structure, a kingly king might be pragmatic when helping a church change, but a priestly king will regularly push-back when they feel the structure won’t accomplish grace-renewal during change. This is needed since prophetic prophets tend to become convinced about a truth and then ask a king to create structure to accomplish their goal without properly caring for the people. We need priestly kings that will help our church to grow in loving service.

Kingly Kings

A kingly king will be concerned with the planning and execution of a church by laboring as an organizer, manager or coach. They thrive in an environment where they can be part of creating and leading structure. To them, if a church isn’t well organized, the vision it communicates and loving environment it creates is significantly hindered. This type of king is excellent at execution but will need to continually be brought back to why we’re doing what we do and what we’re trying to disciple in our people. Kingly kings are necessary to the church because they won’t let us get away with theorizing alone. They want will work towards concrete action and are naturally adept in probing to make sure we do what we say. They make great coaches because they help us to put our commitments to actionable steps. They also are great at gathering the necessary detail and facts before we pull the trigger on our initiatives. A church needing a theology of structure or a visioneering king may become frustrated if they expect this from a kingly king. Kingly kings may come across as either too practical or pragmatic, but if led well by others they can thrive as part of a team.

As you can see, it’s important that you assess someone appropriately before jumping to conclusions about where a person will fit within a leadership team. Also, I wouldn’t suggest you wait to move forward with a team until you find the perfect fit or exact kind of PPK your’e looking for. Instead, we should bless God with what He’s providentially given and simply be aware of the strengths and weaknesses as we move forward. Realizing this, we can enjoy the gifts and perspectives of one another and also the limitations so we don’t grow frustrated.

Regardless of whether you are a church planter or an entrepreneur, recently I read a helpful book, called Predictable Success: Getting Your Organization On the Growth Track–and Keeping It There that has helped me ‘see’ what I’ve felt. (btw- of course I wouldn’t say you can be guaranteed ‘predictable’ success, but non-the-less its a helpful read.)

Snapshot: ‘Predictable Success’ is the peak of the mountain, it’s what every organization does (or should) aspire towards. It is when everyone in the organization expects to succeed, where there is a healthy state of innovation and entrepreneurial new vision and the company has the necessary amount of systems and processes to help realize these expectations. It’s that state where the engine is tuned perfectly and you know that if you put gas in the tank, turn on the ignition, put it in gear, take off the brake, and press the accelerator – the organization will go forward.

The author, Les McKeown, breaks down an organizations state into 7 different phases that are:

1. Early Struggle
2. Fun
3. Whitewater
4. Predictable Success
5. Treadmill
6. The Big Rut
7. Death Rattle

Here is a quick summary of these phases:

‘Predictable Success’ is the pinnacle, the top of the hill, what every new organization aspires towards. But let’s face facts, most businesses are born and die in the first one. In the ‘Early Struggle’, existence is all about finding the right customers with the right product or service and making a sufficient level of profit just to survive. It becomes ‘Fun’ when cashflow is positive and the business is succeeding and growing. But as the organization grows it reaches the ‘Whitewater’ – where the volume of orders and demands from customers exceed the organization’s ability to cope – fast and loose becomes fast and lost, and the organization begins to struggle because it needs more structure and process to cope with its own success. If the organization succeeds in establishing the systems and processes necessary to manage their growth, then they enter ‘Predictable Success’, but usually at some point organizations go too far with systems and processes and the culture and success of the organization begins to suffer. Left unchecked the organization falls into ‘The Big Rut’ – where people begin to work for the systems and processes instead of for the customers. And left unaddressed, companies in ‘The Big Rut’ will continue to bleed cash until they face the ‘Death Rattle’ and end up being sold or going bankrupt. Quote Source: Blogging Innovation

Reading this book caused me to reflect on my involvement in 6 church plants and 3 start-up companies since moving to San Diego CA in September of 2001. (Prior to that I started 2 companies in the 90′s and was at Mars Hill Seattle when it was relatively new at about 100 people). In all this time I’ve had some successes (eg. selling a couple companies) and failures (closing the doors on a couple companies) but all in all it’s been great to see the up’s and down’s first-hand and gain experience. But in many the phases cited by McKeown seem to hold true.

You can see this isn’t just for companies. As a church you can see how this impacts you. For example, what happens when your church grows too fast and how do you ‘process’ people? (Something I experienced at Mars Hill when they went through rapid growth, at the time I handed Driscoll a copy of the E-Myth) People can feel too systematized (treadmill) or miss opportunities to move into deeper community (whitewater).

We have experienced these phases acutely at Monk Development, Inc. (MonkDev). Many of you that read my blog are probably aware of this company (MonkDev) I began in 2003 to help church planters get a great website, but more than that, a total church web strategy. At the time, I wanted to help church planters like myself attract more visitors as well as deepen the relationship and communication with their existing community.

Since the launch of our Content Management System (birthed by Etienne de Bruin one of my two partners at Monk) we have grown from 0 to roughly 4,000 churches and ministries that use our technology to manage their presence on the web. Today, we serve large ministries like World Vision, one of the top-10 largest churches in American (Calvary Chapel Ft. Lauderdale launching soon!), church planters with 5 people in their basement and everything in-between. In this time we have gone from 0 to 20 people and this year we were recognized by the San Diego Business Journal as the 12th Fastest Growing Privately Held Company in San Diego County. With all this growth comes its share of problems. The year 2008 particularly was our ‘Whitewater’ experience. We were landing so many deals that we could not keep up with the growth and the lack of systems couldn’t keep up.

I am very thankful that this drove the leadership to seek help. In addition to prayer, this was the year I joined EO, James (our other partner who oversees operations) joined Vistage, Etienne joined the Web Leaders Collective, we brought in the 180 Group to help align us and we also were selected by the Chairmen’s Roundtable who served as a Board of Advisors for about 6-months. I really believe that by the grace of God we experienced all this pain to clarify our calling and work through very difficult circumstances as a team. It has not been an easy process at all, but it’s amazing what clarifying and unifying around vision and strategy does to the health of an organization. We agreed that: MonkDev seeks to redeem culture for the good of all using technology. We believe this means that we seek the good of our world primarily through serving the web needs of churches, non-profits and organizations that share our passion.

If you are building an organization, I recommend the above books. Also check out Small Giants: Companies That Choose to Be Great Instead of Big. This is a great read for many of us who are not driven just by a profit motive but seek a broader cultural impact in the communities we serve. (Of course other classic business books come to mind such as Good to Great and The Leadership Challenge if you haven’t already read these.)

Instead of doing a National Conference, we held GCM Everyday Austin 2010 a local conference that gathered over 300 missional thinkers in Austin.  Our desire was  to not have people fly from around the country, pay for hotels and the like, when we can host these GCM Everday’s in cities near you.

1. To help us plan where we host these, please put the city you are in under your Profile (if you haven’t already) so we can strategically plan these trainings. To edit your profile, click on profile on the sidebar under the “Hi, your name”.

2. To share some of these resources, we’ve created a new group called GCM Everyday Training.  Go to http://gcm.cobblestonecn.com/group/browse/ to find this group & join.  All the resources are an “open source” collection created by all of us in the www.gcmcollective.com. Feel free to take these resources and tweak them for personal use:

• Gospel Fluency – Jeff Vanderstelt
• 3 Marks of Gospel Community Formation
• 3 Steps for Gospel Community Multiplication
• Missional Community Leader Checklist

Lastly, join in the conversation.  Recent topics include:  [To participate you must sign-up at http://www.gcmcollective.com/community/ ]

• Rate of Multiplication
• Working in the tension between the ideal and the real
• Traditional to Missional
• Cell Church
• How Do We Contextualize Missional Church Resources For Our People and More…
• How do u teach the gospel to small kids?
• Immigration and the Kingdom
• Moving from Mercy to Justice Ministry
• Can Missional culture survive in a business model?
• Do we need to meet in groups?
• A communal life vs. a busy life
• Frontyard Parties
• equipping parents to disciple their children
• “Sending” Songs
• Launch strategy query
• What gospel-centered international local churches and/or missionaries would you recommend?

and many more! Remember, to participate you must sign-up at http://www.gcmcollective.com/community/