Most people I have run into in recent weeks have been asking me how things are going at West Ridge Church. Though it’s not a full-time job for me, that’s where I’m spending the majority of my time these days. The bottom line is that I’m convinced God has great things in store for our church.

We’re blessed by the fact that momentum is working in our favor right now. God is moving in a big way. Here’s a taste of what’s happening:

• Attendance is up. We’re coming off of one of our largest non-holiday weekends ever.
• Brian announced plans this week to launch our first multi-site campus in 2010. (We’re hoping to launch five campuses in the next five years.)
• Brian and I are taking steps to establish a new church planting network to equip leaders and launch churches across the country. (You want to join us?)
• Over 50% of our adults and students are engaged in small groups. We have plans in January to engage the other 50%.
• We are trying things we’ve never tried before. (And this weekend’s services are no exception.)
• We’re partnering with John’s company to retool our web strategy.
• Our team is planning and executing a strategy to double our attendance Christmas week. (Got some fun stuff planned!)
• Through our Engage Atlanta initiative, we’re partnering with a number of local churches to serve and reshape our community.
• In January, we’re putting a family on the ground in Burkina Faso, Africa as the next step in our effort to reach a country for Jesus.
• We’re planning a new series in January that has the potential to transform our church.

In the mean time, I’m working with my teammates to bring a laser-sharp focus to our strategies for discipleship, volunteers, groups, care, children’s and student ministries. We’ve had some fun conversations in recent weeks about how we can help lead people on a life-changing journey to follow Jesus Christ.

I’m truly honored to have the opportunity to serve with my friends at West Ridge. I can’t believe I get to do what I get to do. And, if you can’t tell, I’m really excited about what’s coming next.

First of all, let me introduce you to Rosabeth Moss Kanter. She’s a professor at Harvard Business School and one of the most respected voices on management principles, especially change management, in the business world today. Here’s what she had to share this week about leadership in today’s organizations:

“Today, people with power and influence derive their power from their centrality within self-organizing networks that might or might not correspond to any plan on the part of designated leaders. Organization structure in vanguard companies involves multi-directional responsibilities, with an increasing emphasis on horizontal relationships rather than vertical reporting as the center of action that shapes daily tasks and one’s portfolio of projects, in order to focus on serving customers and society. Circles of influence replace chains of command, as in the councils and boards at Cisco which draw from many levels to drive new strategies. Distributed leadership — consisting of many ears to the ground in many places — is more effective than centralized or concentrated leadership. Fewer people act as power-holders monopolizing information or decision-making, and more people serve as integrators using relationships and persuasion to get things done.”

Wake up! In case you missed it, the world is very different. Kanter has adeptly identified several shifts that have happened in organizations in recent years:

• Power comes from “self-organizing networks” rather than top-down hierarchies. You may have positional power, but your influence is fleeting if you don’t acknowledge and embrace the networks around you.
• We can’t continue to try to make decisions and move the ball forward by running problems up the chain of command and then waiting for it to come back down the ladder in another department. Instead, we need to engage “horizontal relationships” and build our networks (and influence) across departmental (and organizational) lines.
• We have to empower leaders at all levels of the organization. A “distributed leadership” will be more nimble and more receptive to organizational changes that are necessary to stay connected to a rapidly changing environment.

Kanter goes on to write:

“Power goes to the ‘connectors’: those people who actively seek relationships and then serve as bridges between and among groups. Their personal contacts are often as important as their formal assignment. In essence, ‘She who has the best network wins.’”

[You should really read the rest of Kanter's article.]

If you’re a leader, you better know the connectors…and you better become one. Those are the folks that are shaping your message. (You don’t control your message.) Those are the folks that are creating your culture. (You don’t control your culture.) Those are the folks who are mobilizing your people. (You don’t control your people.)

Command and control is dead. Power to the connectors!

In conversations with several people in recent weeks, I’ve realized it’s been some time since I did a post on Google Reader. If you’re not using Google Reader, you need to try it out. Don’t worry…it’s FREE.

If you’re not using it, you’re wasting a lot of time. You’re likely either cluttering your email inbox with lots of unnecessary enewsletter subscriptions or your surfing from site to site and blog to blog to try to keep up. There’s a better way.

Here’s what Google Reader offers:

• It constantly checks news sites and your favorite blogs for new content.
• It brings all the content to one place.
• It recommends new content based on your reading habits.
• It creates an “easy button” for you to share content with friends.
• It goes with you everywhere, so you can read content on any computer or your phone.

Once you sign up for Google Reader, your next step is to begin subscribing to content. Ever wondered what that icon with the white radio wave-like symbol was all about? That’s an indication that the site you are visiting has an RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feed available. If you have signed up to use Google Reader, you can just click on that button anywhere on the Web and you’ll have the opportunity to subscribe to the content. It’s simple…really simple.

Now, are you ready to give it a test-drive? Here are the two easy steps to get started.

1. Register for a Google Reader account.

2. Come back to my site and click the “RSS” link.

That’s it. Now you know why they call it “really simple syndication.” Here’s the best part, you can also subscribe to other websites using your same Google Reader account.

Hope you enjoy the new, free tool. Let me know what you think.

Every organization provides something of value to survive. Some organizations create products or offer experiences. Other organizations deliver content, relationships or offer services. Some organizations offer combinations of all of these.

What’s interesting to me is how the Church is unique in it’s delivery approach. We’re really not a product industry. If anything, we are a services, content, relationships and experience industry. Product and experience institutions are still primarily location-centric. We have to go to a certain place at a certain time to process transactions. Of course, with Amazon and Ebay and Craigslist, even product delivery systems are becoming less and less place-specific.

When it comes to organizations that deliver services, relationships and especially content; however, most institutions approach decision-making very differently. For example, here’s the way that the Church processes content delivery. We have teaching or training or learning opportunities we want people to engage, so we ask these questions first:

• What do we need to tell people?
• Who’s available to teach it?
• When are we going to offer it?
• Where are we going to offer it?
• What are we going to do with their kids?
• How will we promote it?

The way most other organizations process these decisions is very different. They’re asking these types of questions:

• What are people interested in knowing?
• Who is a trusted voice on that topic?
• How can we get the content available online?
• Will people love it and want to share it with friends?
• Who do we know who will be willing to share this in their network?

Same thing goes with relationships. The church asks: Where do we want people to meet? When will they meet? What are we going to have people do together? The way other organizations encourage relational connections is they ask questions like this: How do we create environments where people will want to gather (either online or offline)? Are those environments encouraging people to connect with each other? Is the relational network growing?

When I watch television or view a movie, I watch it when I want to through sites like Hulu and Netflix or by using my DVR. When I want to learn something, I learn it when I want to by going to websites I trust and searching for the answer. When I want to connect with other people, I connect when I want by using Twitter, Facebook, texting and email.

When the Church wants to teach or train or connect people, we immediately ask: how do we get people to an event or class? When most other organizations need to teach or train or connect people, their first question is this: how can we create great content and deliver it online?

Is it just me, or are we asking the wrong questions?

Last time we talked, Casey Graham from my sponsorship partner The Change Group shared some common financial mistakes he sees in churches. This time around, I asked him to highlight some opportunities churches have to encourage financial health. The result is this list of the five cycles of generosity Casey has observed in healthy churches.

The Change Group will be hosting two FREE conference calls for lead pastors and ministry leaders on Wednesday, November 11 at 2:00 pm EST and Thursday, November 12 at 3:30 pm EST that will equip your church to take advantage of each cycle next year.  If you are interested in participating, sign up online by Friday, November 6.

Here’s Casey’s overview of the 5 Cycles of Generosity:

Most church leaders we work with don’t ever think about the cycles that effect people’s giving.  This will help you with a general understanding of the cycles.

1. Holiday Cycle – People are very generous near the year-end.  Creating an intentional strategy for year-end giving is worth the time and effort.  I did a post that outlines a simple strategy for you.
2. New Year Cycle – People are creating priorities for their finances for the next year; why not help them see that the Kingdom of God should be on the list?  At the beginning of the year, focusing on vision, personal finances, and people’s financial priorities can bring great benefit to your people and your church.  On the call we will develop a very simple New Year plan that will add tremendous value quickly.
3. Pre-Summer Cycle – People and pocketbooks are notorious for leaving in the summer months.  Pre-Summer Cycle is a great time to help people move their gifts to online giving to help minimize the summer giving slump.  Join our call to discover a simple strategy for increasing giving in summer.
4. Summer Cycle – The summer is a great time to connect with people relationally! We are going to discover how you can use the summer months to develop higher levels of trust with your key ministry and giving leaders.  This trust will lead to greater generosity.
5. Fall Cycle – Attendance is up and morale is usually really high!  This is a great time to make some sort of financial ask that allows people to fund the mission and vision of your church.

Again, you’ll have a chance to make a connection and learn more about these cycles in on of the conference calls. Take advantage of the free opportunity by registering today.

Earlier this week, I had the opportunity to talk with Marcus Buckingham in a telephone interview. For those of you not familiar with Buckingham, he’s an author and a speaker who is primarily focused on helping individuals discover and capitalize on their personal strengths. His previous books include First, Break All the Rules (co-authored with Curt Coffman) and  Now, Discover Your Strengths (co-authored with Donald Clifton, 2001).

In our conversation, we talked about women. Driving the conversation is research revealed by numerous studies indicating a drastic decline in female happiness over the last 40 years. Buckingham has recently released a new book, Find Your Strongest Life: What the Happiest and Most Successful Women Do Differently, offering strategies for reversing this trend.

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If you’re interested, you may purchase Find Your Strongest Life using my Amazon link. As Marcus suggested in the interview, you may also access additional resources related to this topic on his company’s website.