Seth provides an insightful post on why we all love Starbucks so much. Here’s his take:

“…this is the Starbucks marketing effort, almost in its entirety. They don’t advertise, they don’t launch new products every day, but they are selling the way it makes you feel to purchase something there. And I have to tell you, it made me feel great.”

If buying a cup of coffee did that for Seth, makes you wonder what people experience when we offer them Jesus, doesn’t it?

I was enjoying a quick nine holes with a good friend of mine this evening. We got on the topic of finding good talent. His business is hiring several people right now. He talked about the challenges of finding the right people for the right roles.

It was probably a ploy to get me to play stinky golf (which I did), because I started thinking about the talent that surrounds me on a daily basis. This is how it works. Every time you have the chance, you just hire the most talented person you can find who loves Jesus and the church. You give them the freedom to do their best everyday. Then, seven years later, you wake up one day and realize: everyone around me is far more talented than I am. You recognize the fact that it’s only by God’s grace that they still pay you to show up every day.

Now, do me a favor. Please keep this a secret. Don’t let Tim (my boss/friend) know what’s up. He still thinks I’m actually adding value to the ministry. It’s a charade. Every once in a while, I try to razzle-dazzle him to divert his attention. The reality, of course, is that my team surpassed me years ago. I’m just along for the ride now. It’s a pretty fun ride.

By the way, I lost by 5 strokes. I hate playing stinky golf.

My good friend, Mark Waltz, has recently written a few excellent posts on “life-sucking silos.” He defines these as a situation:

“…wherein every ministry of the church watches out for their interests with bulldog ferociousness, convinced that their “baby” is the precious birth and prodigy of the Holy Spirit himself.”

Ever experienced that in your church? Mark has offered some great insights on this topic in three separate posts. This is one of those universal leadership lessons that every church of every size needs to understand and apply. (Having worked in the marketplace, I know silos can be a problem outside of churches as well.)

Here are Mark’s three posts:

• Part 1 — how do silos form
• Part 2 — preventative maintenance
• Part 3 — 5 bad moves you’ll want to avoid

Are you attracting the very best talent to your team? Well, take a look at the people you’re interviewing for the position. For a moment, forget about education, experience and skills. Set their resume aside and answer these questions:

• Does this person love our church? Have they demonstrated that they fully embrace our mission, vision and values?
• What motivates this person? Will they soar in the role I’m offering, or will it just become a job to earn a paycheck?
• Does he or she want to continue to grow? Does she like to read? Does he take time to think? Does she make it a priority to dream and to create?
• Is this person a leader? With a limited amount of money to invest in staff, I need someone who will help me multiply the ministry. Will this person help me do that?
• Does this person have a track record of success? Do they have the potential to help the church reach the next level?
• Do I like this person? Does he or she have a fun personality? Am I going to enjoy spending fifty hours or more each week with this person?

These are the types of Christ-followers you want serving at your church. For the rest of the story, see the entire article from this week’s Ministry ToolBox at Pastors.com.

Proverbs 14:8 indicates “The wisdom of the prudent is to give thought to their ways.” Furthermore, we’re assured in verse 21:5 that “the plans of the diligent lead to profit.” That wisdom certainly applies to my personal life but I’ve also experienced the benefit of a clear corporate vision at Granger. A clear vision:

• Sets expectations and fosters unity,
• Helps facilitate decision-making that impacts our future,
• Creates a framework for defining ministry priorities,
• Attracts talent (both volunteers and staff) and financial resources, and
• Defines success for our ministry.

Agreeing on a clear vision allows you to empower others to lead and carry out ministry. It’s also a lot easier to get everyone pulling in the same direction if there’s agreement on what you’re hoping to accomplish.

You can read more on the advantages of establishing vision and values for your church in my most recent article on Pastors.com, Does your team champion clear vision and values?

Since the theme of today is innovation with the release of the list of Top 10 Innovative Churches, I thought I’d preface the that post with a quick hit on creating a culture that fuels innovations. Here’s an excerpt from Simply Strategic Volunteers on that topic:

“A leader who is committed to unleashing the power of innovation also understands the proper balance between championing efficiency and pushing people into the uneasy chaos of change. It’s vital to value excellence and continuous incremental improvements for the systems and strategies that currently work. If you focus only on efficiency, however, you will always do what you’ve always done. If a ministry intends to remain culturally relevant through future generations, it must be willing to step into the mire of unformed ideas. Finding new strategies sometimes means challenging current strategies. It can be messy. It can be uneasy. But it’s in the chaotic world of change that the next big ideas can be found.”

I share that because the churches Terry and I will be highlighting later today have been down that road. They’ve taken the risks. They’ve experienced the chaos. And, on the other side of that journey, they’ve created new paradigms for how you and I approach ministry in the local church. Their innovations are helping all of us see a new vision for how the church can be more effective in today’s culture.

Here’s the bottom line from my latest article in today’s Ministry ToolBox from Pastors.com:

“There are unlimited opportunities for people to find condemnation in this world. There is no shortage of places where people can be beat down. Wouldn’t it be something if the church could give people room to discover joy rather than offering another push or another slap on the hand? We should leave people feeling challenged but encouraged about their spiritual journeys toward Christ. After all, we want them to find forgiveness, but we also want them to find joy.”

You can catch the rest of the article here.

You’ll find my latest article in the July/August issue of Rev Magazine. Unfortunately, the online edition only includes a few stories from the actual magazine. You can either email Rev and encourage them to include more content on their website, or you can sneak over to your local Christian bookstore and pick up a copy.

The article is called “The Staff Should Serve the Servants.” Here’s a quick hit to whet your appetite. At Granger this leaders-as-servant model includes the following roles:

• Reminding people constantly that the volunteers do the ministry and the staff supports the volunteers,
• Resourcing the volunteers with appropriate tools like facility space, equipment, leadership support, money, etc.,
• Completing administrative tasks where needed so volunteers can focus on doing the ministry, and
• Being the champion of the church’s mission, vision and values so volunteers remain focused on the right ministry direction.

Sorry, you’ll have to read the rest in Rev.

Here’s the personal note I just received from Dick Costolo, the CEO and Co-Founder of FeedBurner regarding the problems I’m encountering with my feed:

Tony,

I just read your post, and I want you to know we’ll do everything we can to keep you at FeedBurner. I realize there’s an obvious issue if Bloglines isn’t updating your FeedBurner feed. We will continue to attempt to create a dialogue with bloglines to make this issue go away.

I realize how annoying this must be for you, and we take it very seriously. I just wanted to shoot you a note to say that this is a priority for me personally, and we’ll continue to try to conceive of inventive ways of addressing this issue when it occurs.

I know it doesn’t do any good to get emails like this and then see your feed continue to have issues at Bloglines, but we’re on the case, and we want this issue to go away. Thanks for the post.

best,

Dick

I’m not only posting this because I’m grateful the FeedBurner team is working on my side to fix the problem. I’m also sharing this note because it speaks volumes about being a good leader. Here’s what Dick said to me:

• You’re important to us.
• I want to keep you as a customer.
• It’s not even really our problem, but we’re willing to make it our problem to find you a solution.
• Your situation is a priority for us.

That’s the CEO modeling that kind of leadership and quality customer service. I love that!

Let’s go Bloglines. It’s your turn now. I want to cheer for you as well.

I’m a simple guy and I tend to lose focus when I’m listening to long, drawn out explanations and teachings (more on that in a different post), so I think that’s why I’m attracted to quick lists of insights. Just give me the nuggets and I’ll decipher whether or not they’re applicable to my ministry/leadership environment. Here’s one of those lists that I found on Russ Hollman’s “Strategize” blog. These insights are attributed to Bill Swanson, CEO of Raytheon, from a Business 2.0 article available on the Raytheon website:

1. You can’t polish a sneaker. (“Even if you polish a hollow shell, it’s still nothing more than a hollow shell.”)
2. Learn to say “I don’t know.” If used when appropriate, it will be used often.
3. You remember 1/3 of what you read, 1/2 of what people tell you, but 100 percent of what you feel.
4. Look for what is missing. Many know how to improve what’s there; few can see what isn’t there.
5. Never direct a complaint to the top; a serious offense is to “cc” a person’s boss on a copy of a complaint before the person has a chance to respond.
6. Treat the name of your company as if it were your own.
7. Have fun at what you do. It will be reflected in your work. No one likes a grump except another grump!
8. When faced with decisions, try to look at them as if you were one level up in the organization. Your perspective will change quickly.
9. If you are not criticized, you may not be doing much.
10. When something appears on a slide presentation, assume that the world knows about it and deal with it accordingly.
11. A person who is nice to you but rude to the waiter — or others — is not a nice person. (This rule never fails.)
12. When facing issues or problems that are becoming drawn out, “short them to ground.” (Find the quickest path from problem to solution.)

Good list for leaders. I guess that’s how someone becomes CEO of Raytheon. You have to know smart stuff and make it easy to understand for simple guys.