I’m amazed at the number of churches that still view the web as primarily an advertising mechanism to let people know who they are and what they’re doing. Go ahead. Visit several church websites. Really doesn’t even matter what size the church is. With few exceptions, you’ll find their web strategy is essentially a bullhorn approach. The church is standing on a streetcorner of the web yelling at the people passing by:

• “Come to our services on Sunday!”
• “Let me tell you about our men’s ministry!”
• “Join us for the golf tournament or fishing derby!”
• “Serve on one of our ministry teams!”
• “Give money to our church!”
• “Here’s what we believe!”

It’s a one-sided relationship. The church views the web as a place to promote their agenda. No interaction with the audience. No stories of life change. No solutions to help people experience community or discipleship online. At best, you may be able to watch a video of a service, but you certainly won’t have the opportunity to engage a conversation with others about what you’re watching.

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A couple of months ago, I wrote about “The New Traditional Church.” That particular post focused on the discipleship strategy. I thought I’d pick up where I left off and share a few more characteristics of the new traditional church. Today, I’m going to focus on music.

Remember the days when the only worship music was hymns? We were stuck there because that was clearly the “sacred” style of worship music. Then the 80s hit and Willow Creek made it possible for us to use current music styles in worship services to connect with the unchurched.

Only it’s as if we got stuck in the 80s. While the church still leans on a mix of rock and pop music as the preferred worship genre, our culture has shifted once again. Now, according to iTunes, 1 in 3 of the top 100 songs in the country is either hip-hop/rap or R&B/soul. My guess, though, is that you can’t name a church in the country that’s using these genres of music for worship. Why is that?

Now, before you let your “it’s-not-our-culture” bias set in, consider this. Most of the hip-hop and R&B music has been recorded by black artists. 14% of the U.S. population is black. But, remember, nearly one-third of the music purchased on iTunes is one of these two genres. You do the math. White people like hip-hop.

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‘Tis the season to shop for Christmas gifts, so I recently made a trip to Target. I love Target because I don’t have to spend a lot of money, and I avoid going to Wal-Mart.

After spending a little bit of time in the store, it struck me how different Target is from most churches I’ve visited in the past. That led me to wondering how Target would be different if it operated like the typical church. So, with that in mind, here’s my initial list:

What if Target Operated Like a Church?

• Instead of having men’s and women’s clothing departments, they would be called clever names like Impact and Embrace that are completely meaningless to new shoppers.
• Each department in the store would have its own logo to go with their clever name. And, of course, all those logos would be different than the logo on the front of the store.
• The workers in each department would all have their own t-shirts and flyers to promote what’s available in their departments. The youth clothing department would, of course, have the best flyers.

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I used to be a 5-year-plan type of guy. I was all about defining the vision and then establishing specific, measurable goals.

Now I think I’m more of a 5-day-plan type of guy. I still think organizations need to clarify their vision and their strategy, but I don’t necessarily think it’s helpful to define the 5-year goals.

Part of the reason why I don’t find long-term goals are helpful is that our environments are changing so rapidly. What we may perceive as success today, could look very different a few years from now. The goal may be too high or too low or we could be trying to reach a goal that has nothing to do with the long-term health and viability of our organization.

Additionally, I don’t think we sense the urgency today when we’re shooting for a goal 5 or 10 years from now. We delay the changes we need to make now. That’s probably because we fall in love what we’re doing now and think it’ll somehow produce different results in the future.

I do believe leaders instinctively have one eye on the future and the big picture as they’re making decisions today. I’m just in a place, though, where I think prioritizing our time and resources today is a much more valuable exercise than defining where we hope to end up 5 years from now.

And, rather than measuring where we are today against some goal in the future, I also think it’s wiser to measure current trends. We can hide behind future goals and forecasts, but getting honest about current trends forces us to reassess our strategy our structure and our team.

Instead of figuring out where we hope to be in five years, I think the more important questions are:

• Do current trends suggest we’re moving in the right direction? If they aren’t, are you being honest about it or explaining away the numbers?
• Do we have the right people in the right roles to help us move forward? I’d rather have the right people with the wrong strategy than the wrong people with the right strategy.
• Are we focusing our time and resources on the right priorities? Honestly, I think most organizations can only handle one new project or initiative at any given time. Healthy organizations get everyone on the team pulling in the same direction to see that initiative through to success.

How about you? Are you still making long-term plans to clarify your personal or organizational vision? Or, have you landed in a similar place as me?

As we end one decade and launch into a new one, I’m really curious to hear how you’re approaching the future.

Do I need to stop what I’m doing and develop my “Vision 2020″ goals?

I’ve had the opportunity to lead a number of creative people over the last 15 years both in ministry and in the marketplace. And, from time to time, I’ve been known to be a “creative” myself. Creatives are different. They deliver new ideas and approaches, but they come with their quirks. You can’t lead creatives like you lead “normal” people.

Within the church, don’t assume creative people only work in your worship arts area. They’re likely to hangout there, but it’s also very possible they’re on just about every ministry team at your church. They may not sing songs or draw pictures, but they’re still creative. And, if you don’t learn how to lead them, they’ll find someplace else to take their creativity.

Here are some reminders for leading creative people:

1. Tell them what to do, but not how to do it. You can hold them accountable for the results, but don’t force them to embrace a certain process.
2. If you want their input, you’ll need to ask. If you stop asking, they’ll stop contributing.
3. If you ask, you better consider their input. If you’re not really going to use their input, it’s better not to even ask.
4. Know that they’ll be emotionally attached to what they create. So, if you decide not to use their creation, you’ll have to process that appropriately and not abruptly.

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On Friday night, Jacob had a basketball game. We don’t always make the other kids watch him play basketball, but for this game we decided to take everyone. That included Brooke, my almost-four-year-old daughter.

For those of you who are experienced parents, you know it’s a little much to ask an almost-four-year-old to sit through an hour of anything including watching older brothers play basketball. Brooke is no exception. She’s a smart little girl. I love her. I mean that. But, just to be honest, sometimes her mother’s feisty personality comes through in most inopportune times.

We were about midway through the game when Brooke decided to begin pestering her older sister. Abby, our eight-year-old was sitting to my right. We had Brooke strategically positioned to my left between my feisty wife and me. Brooke, though, was done with basketball. She crawled under my legs and began teasing Abby. She made faces. She poked. She gave Abby the raspberries. Basically she was trying to annoy Abby in any way possible to divert Abby’s attention from the game to her.

Abby has great patience, but she’s also very human and will sometimes react the way “more mature” people react. She let Brooke do her thing for a few minutes, and then she basically kneed Brooke in the chest. I guess as the father I was supposed to reprimand Abby for that reaction, but my initial thought was, “You should have hit her a little harder.”

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I finished Andy Stanley’s most recent book, The Principle of the Path, last week. Andy is one of those guys that seems to have figured out how to get from here to there, so I figured I’d read his book about how to get from where I am to where I want to be.

Here are some of the highlights from my reading:

• “To get from where we don’t want to be to where we do want to be requires two things: time and a change of direction.”
• “Direction–not intentions, hopes, dreams, prayers, beliefs, intellect, or education–determines destination.”
• “We should break the habit of drawing a circle around individual decisions and events and dismissing them as isolated occurrences. These are steps. Steps that lead somewhere.”
• “Prudent people look as far down the road as possible when making decisions.”
• “Christians start talking about forgiveness as if somehow forgiveness serves as an escape hatch from the outcome of bad decisions.”

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By the way, out of full disclosure, I received this book for free from the publisher. Most of the books I read are free from publishers or authors. With that said, this was a great book.

I’m growing more and more convinced that the worst thing an organization can do is try to reach a consenus about something. Think government. Think church committee meetings. Think declining big business.

On the surface, reaching a consensus seems like a positive thing because it means people have agreed to move in the same direction. That’s a good thing isn’t it?

Actually, I’m not convinced that’s the case. For example, here are:

5 Reasons Why Consensus Sucks

1. It embraces the status quo. Change, whether positive or not, is not human nature. We would prefer for things to remain the way they are today. So, when people get together to discuss the possibility of doing something a little different in the future, it’s normal for the majority to avoid making changes.
2. It gives the malcontents an equal voice in your decision. Reaching consensus gives everyone a voice at the table. When that happens, even the negative, bitter folks that don’t really embrace the vision have the opportunity to pull the rest of the group away from what could really be the most desirable outcome.

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Here’s the Christmas story as you’ve probably never heard it before.

James Griffin, one of our staff leaders in the student ministry area, wrote and shared this prior Brian’s message at our Christmas Eve services. It was one of several highlights at West Ridge Church over the last couple of days.

I went back and reviewed the traffic stats on all the posts from this past 12 months. Through the magic of Google Analytics, I know exactly what topics grabbed everyone’s attention in 2009. With the results officially tabulated, I’m going to reveal the top nine posts of 2009…beginning tomorrow.

If you had to guess, what posts do you think made the top nine?