Chris McAlister
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3.2.1 Launch
Just a quick note to say thanks for the prayers.
1. Discovery Church had a packed house for launch. The energy was palpable. Incredible privilege to lead this great group of folks. We had almost triple our core team. God does give churches and their leaders 2nd chances! If I were to tell one thing to pastors leading transition it would be build great friendships. Great friends kept me encouraged to get here. I couldn’t have made it without them.
2. I have too much fun with our staff leadership team. Would love to hang out with them more during the week. One day
I can’t believe how smoothly and quickly God brought such a stellar team together. I watched them fly on launch Sunday.3. I can’t believe our space is debt-free and we’re just launching! We own the building. We will pay the final construction bill soon. We owe some on the a/v that we hope to pay off by the end of next month and we’re done. We wouldn’t last four weeks without everyone’s generosity but with the ability to do multiple services we’re positioned for God to use us greatly. We’re just getting started.
If you think about it pray for Oct 26th. I will be doing another Peak Performance Retreat. These are huge moments for ministry leaders. They can keep a ministry from the ditch and extend the impact of leaders.
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Pray for the launch!
Hey folks,
A few items to update you on:
- The church launches this Sunday at 11am. Pray for us. Come to the party if you’re around! Momentum is building and it is very exciting but…
- There is no reason I should be here. I wanted to quit. Yet, a matured identity and clarified mission changed that.
- A clarified mission attracted a solid community. Can’t believe the staff leadership I am surrounded by. Phenoms. We’ve got more of those than we should have for a church our size when you look at our volunteers. Many of them have been at the building getting trained or staying really late as we put on finishing touches.
- I’m teaching two religion courses at a local liberal arts university. Privileged to be doing this. Daunting task. Very academic approach. I don’t preach. I do present all sides and believe at the end of the day the truth will draw the seekers. (Worded appropriately for those who are Reformed and those who aren’t. Truth in the tension baby)
- I estimate by this time next week this will be close to sold out: http://peakperformanceretreat.eventbrite.com Not sure yet when I’m doing the next one. Love to have you come. You will learn a filter for your leadership that will simplify transformation and boost performance. If I could only have one conversation with you this would be it. I know it changes how you see God’s work around you and in you. I do them in small batches because it is deeply experiential.
- School is progressing. Slowly. I’m afraid I’ll have to hole up in a hotel room and work for a week straight to get some real dissertation work done.
- In over ten years of pastoring I’ve always had admin help. For the last year and a half it’s been severely reduced. For the last month and a half I’ve had none. It’s a tribute to those ladies and what they put up with in my constant striving and moving forward. We’ve streamlined things for the launch but I have to believe that admin help is again in my future…so does my bed. It misses me.
- Still have our mess to clean up from things in Hot Springs. Funny how complex life can be and how different areas of your life can be awesome and others a real drainer. Thankful for the awesome. Ready to chop off the draining part at the neck so it can die. (The problem can die. Say problem. That’s all I was saying.)
- Last year Ashland Theological Seminary was rocking my world. (And it still does) But this year it’s Ben Arment. In the past I’ve hired a coach and a counselor. Feel like I know those fields and what is possible. But Ben is a dream coach. He will not let you give into your inner resistance. Hope he lets me do it again. He’s that freaky good.
What’s going on in your world? -
Feeling vs. Acting on intense emotions
A couple of weeks ago my children were having a rare moment of acting out intense emotions. (Insert sarcastic tone at “rare”)
It seemed like a good teaching moment so I dove in.
I wanted them to know it is ok to feel intense emotions. Emotions help define our humanity. And we often act out from our intense emotions. Imagine my delight when I explained that Jesus had intense emotion and acted on those emotions. Laughter and crying seemed to make sense to them and help them relate to the humanity of Jesus. But when I told them the story of Jesus acting out His intense emotion in the temple they couldn’t believe it. I promised that it was in the Bible. Then they believed it.
So is it ok to feel intense emotion? Absolutely.
Is it ok to act out of that intense emotion? Yes. Joy, sadness, and everything in between will bring different actions.
If your sister steals your seat on the couch give yourself permission to feel strong emotion.
But you can’t ALWAYS act on those intense emotions. So don’t push your sister. Remember my audience? You’ll have to insert your own application.
Where do you feel intense emotion? Any actions to take? Any actions to avoid? The BEST way to avoid taking action in intense emotion that you should be avoiding is to pray or dump those feelings on God. He knows. He cares.
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Prayerful thoughts.
As I’ve stated before, I learned a great lesson in 2008-2009 about the need of others praying for me. Paul was clearly dependent on the prayers of others and I am too.
Here’s some that are on my mind recently and I’d love to have you pray these with me:
1. To not get “re-addicted” to the adrenaline of ministry. Been there and don’t want to go back. Working incessantly, uptight with my family, and missing intimacy with God. Honestly the temptation is strong right now. Things are going so awesome as we prepare to launch Discovery. I sense the beginning of a movement. But at the end of the day my prayer is “God you love me no matter what. I don’t want to replace knowing you with serving you. I want my service to you to be an overflow not an attempt to earn worth.” When I’m in this place I’ll watch my little pony with the girls instead of “sneaking” in some work.
2. As Discovery Church prepares for launch there is soooo much left to be done. Only a broken person who struggles knowing his limits would re-launch a church, oversee the construction of our new space, overhaul every system, launch a website, assemble a new staff leadership team and continue to pastor (while beginning a dissertation). Here’s my prayer “Help me rest in the fact that you are guiding me and have given me the time I need to get done what I need to do.” I pushed back my school work by over a year. Hard to do but great lesson for me about learning my limits. I don’t want to model something broken for the church. Our vision is built on transformation and discovering life. You can’t do that going 100 mph.
3. I continue to be burdened by assisting leaders in understanding the transformation God has for them. We were all designed and created for perfect care taking. Nobody got that growing up and this drives us to the gospel. When we lead to get something internally that the gospel has already given us we will hurt ourselves and others. God has given me a model to help leaders gain deep awareness into what is driving them so they can experience transformation and boost their performance. I did a retreat in the Spring with some leaders and I’ll probably do the next retreat this fall. My prayer is “Guide my steps for this message to go where you want and when you want Father”.
4. I’m obviously praying for our launch date as a church. It is crazy awesome to lead a church that will start out debt free with facility and construction. (It is even more awesome to lead a church with a core that has been through hell and back with me over the last year!) However, as the timing of our launch was delayed it threw off some projections. Our one gap for complete debt free is A/V. Praying about how to close that gap today and sensed the Lord say, “Be strong. Take courage. I am with you.” So my prayer is “Lord help me keep moving forward in your courage”.
Pray these with me, will you? What prayers are you praying?
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Church in the Making
I recently finished Church in the Making (my amazon link) by Ben Arment. A few quotes, a few thoughts, and them some implications.
Quotes to stir things up:
When a new church struggles year after year to see fruit from its activity, we should assume it’s not quite time to plant. Instead, there is tilling, watering, and cultivating to be done. pg 27
…I’m not saying that ministry is easy. We will be under constant spiritual attack when we’re trying to further the kingdom of God. But growing churches is God’s job. That’s not our burden to bear. pg 43
It doesn’t matter how good your service, your worship, or your preaching, your church is ultimately judged by social network. pg 81
Thoughts:
- The way Ben focuses the content around 3 big ideas of Good Ground, Rolling Rocks, and Deep Roots makes it easy to add a sociological filter to church start, growth, and development.
- We’re comfortable with a theological filter, leadership filter, and even economic filters in the church but not with a sociological filter. Ben’s arguments from Scripture are exegetically sound and left me saying, “How have I missed this?”
- This book will give you practical guidance on how to recognize and cooperate with God’s work among people around you.
- I read it as a pastor and leader of a church that is over 60 years old and about to re-launch. Still, it was as applicable to me as I imagine it would be for a church planter.
Implications:
- Ministry leadership has to learn from Jesus as a model and become as adept at finding good soil as we are at studying theology or being informed of the general culture.
- Pastors have to learn to acknowledge the sociological factors when recounting their stories of God working in their midst. It will help the hearts of so many leaders and give those leaders permission to follow the work of God in their context.
- If you lead 1 or 1000 you have to get this book and apply it, if you want to round out your ministry leadership with the crucial but overlooked skill of sociological discernment. Not learning to recognize the sociology as a part of God’s working will cause you to overspiritualize and overagonize while missing God’s leading in ministry efforts that don’t gain traction. For those that gain traction, not recognizing the work of God in and through the movements of people will cause you to overestimate your part and succumb to pride.
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Cheat somebody
I’m cheating right now. I’m cheating the church I pastor. (I wrote this last week so I could cheat with all my heart.) And it’s good for them and good for me. It’s good for them because I’m responsible to manage my heart so I can lead them from an overflow. It’s good for me because leading my self and my heart is foundational to who I am.
Near the end of last week I hit a wall. As we’ve been preparing for our launch (on top of doctorate work and facilitating a gathering for pastors on peak performance) I am fried. Admittedly I shouldn’t have come this close to the red line but alas, I have.
Here’s what I know:
- My kids don’t give a flip about all the things in my world and that’s ok. At 7,6, and 4 they need me giving them my best.
- My wife deserves a husband who can be sensitive and comforting, not one easily irritated.
- When I’m in the red line the grumpy factor settles in and playfulness goes away.
- I get stressed by the chaos too quickly and lose clarity.
- Spiritually I start to over question/analyze things.
At the end of the day I can never give enough to my kids. They’ll never reach the point where they’lll say, “Daddy, you’ve given a lot to us this week. Are there any projects that you’re behind or could use some time? If so, go ahead. We’ll be fine.” That’s never gonna happen. But if you struggle with workaholism like I can (I love working) make sure you cheat work regularly and often.I’m not breaking any new ground here. This post is influenced by Choosing to Cheat (Click for my Amazon link to order the book)
Need to cheat?
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Embrace the Chaos
For me, chaos has surfaced my inefficiencies more than anything else.
We did a bad, I mean really bad, financial deal that still complicates our lives. Lesson being learned, over and over again. It’s got a bunch of dangling loose ends that have the possibility of stressing me out. I could list lots of other examples of current chaos (the launch of the church, etc.) The one example that hits home more than any other is…home.
I am learning about my threshold for chaos as our children get older. We’re blessed with three amazing daughters but I saw a tendency within myself to power up when things got out of control or attempt to eradicate the chaos. “No loose ends” seemed to be the mantra. Why don’t we like chaos?
- It shows us our insufficiency, weakness, and lack of resources to fix everything.
- It reminds us of our lack of control and vulnerability.
- It requires an ability to navigate tension. It causes us to need empowerment and live in the moment. We want clear black/white lines. We want to be emotional or analytical. Chaos calls for us to live in both extremes and navigate both on a moment by moment basis.
What’s a better path? Embrace the chaos.
- Leading, living, and learning in chaos will grow your dependency on God as it keeps you humble with what you can’t do in your own power.
- It allows you to be accepting of yourself when you don’t have all the answers or “your act together”. In turn, you will be much more gracious and accepting of others.
- Rather than powering up you will be enter into the present moment with clarity, openness, excitement, and peace. In other words you won’t push people, including your family, away.
Any others you’d add? -
Agitators, skinny jeans, and tribes
I’m thinking quite a bit about what it means to lead a tribe (group of folks sharing something in common) and develop systems for that tribe as we prepare to re-launch the church. Here’s a progression I’m noticing:
1. Learn the tribe
This is where you buy the product, check out the church, or learn the lingo. You observe accepted behaviors and beliefs of the tribe whether this is conscious or unconscious to you.
2. Conform to the tribe
You attempt to fit in. You apply what you’ve learned. You conform to the beliefs. You buy the skinny jeans to be different and yet everyone else is wearing them.
3. Break away from the tribe or Agitate the tribe forward
This post is for leaders. Most will stop at number 2. That’s fine. Some however begin to see ways and paths of improvement. Places for innovation flash like a neon sign. You have a choice. Do you break away because those changes are too sacred to the tribe or because the tribal leader has stated your innovation is the undermining of a non-negotiable? OR if it’s a healthy environment and your innovation doesn’t undermine a key value are you willing to use your frustration to agitate tribal leadership forward?
As we prepare to relaunch Discovery and I’m walking this new path helping leaders with identity formation here are some takeaways for me:
- Are our tribal distinctives clear?
- Is there a path for tribal transformation and not just information?
- Are our tribal non-negotiables clear?
- Is there an environment for the agitators to help the tribe move forward?
Thoughts?
(This post influenced by Tribes -my amazon link to this book)
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2 kinds of self-discipline
Have you ever been around someone who’s commitment to discipline shamed those around them? I have been that person. I have exhibited strong external discipline while suffocating internally. We have different personalities and react differently to people’s choices. We have different opinions as to what choices we should make. We have different backgrounds that factor into our choices. (Search the word attachment on this blog for more info.) But we must grow in our journey of healing, empowered choices, and self-discipline. Let’s just be grace-filled in our discipline.
Grace filled self-discipline:
- Makes choices because they are loved by God.
- Forgive themselves quickly when they mess up. They even find joy in their weakness.
- Is comfortable with moments of carefree play.
- Admits needs, vulnerabilities, and insecurities.
- Knows they cannot “do enough” to get close to God and live wisely. The Holy Spirit must close the gap between our lack and our resources.
Insecure self-discipline:
- Makes good choices to earn God’s love.
- Punishes themselves when they mess up because they think they deserve it.
- Wants to be seen by others as a hard, serious worker having it all together.
- Hides needs, vulnerabilities, and insecurities making other insecure people feel inferior.
- Actually believes their choices are the sole factor for good results.
May your Easter lead you to grace-filled discipline. Today, I’m moving further away from insecure self-discipline but I have a long way to go. I can only describe this because I know it deeply. Any you would add?
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We’re so convinced we’re right…
yet, there is something that you believe or our culture believes that is so wrong. We’ll realize it tomorrow. Watch this and embrace humility.
(I was reminded about this video through the Monday Morning Memo email.)
What do you think?