OnMovements

I’ve been working my way thru General Lee’s Army by Glatthaar these last three weeks during our Gettysburg student leadership conference. I was struck over and over again by the critical nature of leadership in the battle between “flesh and blood.” I’m confident the same reality exists in the spiritual battle—leaders make the difference between victory and collapse.

I walked again last week the short mile that Pickett’s division charged against the bloody angle on Cemetery Ridge. Pickett would lose half his men on that fated charge, but as equally tragic was the lost of over 17 brigade and regimental commanders. The Army of Northern Virginia couldn’t afford to lose seasoned leadership, especially those “battlefield leaders” who directed the “units of maneuver” (brigades and regiments) in Napoleonic warfare. Following Gettysburg, Lee would increasingly find it difficult to find and develop such leaders. Several times in the Wilderness battles of 1864 Lee would have to charge to the front to lead brigades and regiments at strategic points during a fight. In each instance, those particular units wouldn’t allow him to lead in such dangerous situations–demonstrating again and again that even the lowest ranking soldiers recognized “good leadership is critical and can’t be wasted.”

Paul knew that kingdom and movement building depends as equally upon leadership. “Be strong” he writes Timothy, “entrusting what you have learned to faithful men and women who can teach others. . . and so prove to be a good soldier of Jesus Christ.” Perhaps his warning to Timothy about “entangling in civil affairs” relates directly to our need as “leaders” to obey our commander by consciously and  continually “multiplying leaders.”  Kingdom victory depends upon it.

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Be Christ-like

9. It is not necessary that we do so many things, or that we have our own way, but it is necessary that we should be Christ-like.

Strive for Excellence

10. We should never be content with second best.

Build Teams—thinking, planning and acting together as groups.

11. Group thinking, planning and action constitute the most highly multiplying method. Christ sent workers out two by two and in groups. We cannot know the full mind of our Lord or achieve the finest and largest results if we play a lone hand.

Look for Loyalty

12. Loyalty is the cardinal virtue in Christian work. After wide observation and prolonged study of biography, I place it first. Loyalty ensures unity, confidence, liberty and power in all Christian movements which, year in and year out, achieve the greatest spiritual results.

Trust the Next Generation–Constantly weave them into your movement.

13. We must be constantly weaving into our organization the new generation. My work the world over and across the many years has shown me that young men can be trusted with great loads and great responsibilities. You have never disappointed me when I have put heavy burdens upon them.

Continue to Grow and Grow

14. We must preserve the power of growth and continue to grow. Remember the word of the Psalmist, “He shall be full of sap; he shall bring forth fruit in old age.”

Have a Sense of Immediacy

17. We should live under the spell of immediacy. “I must work the works of Him who sent me while it is day, for the night cometh, when no man can work.”

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More Mott on Movements

Raise the Bar

4. Make the gospel difficult and you make it triumphant. “Christ never hid his scars to win a disciple.” The application of the principle of sacrifice invariably ensures the most abundant harvest.

Be Strategic and Look for Opportunities

5. It is highly important that we study and employ strategy. This constitutes the means of doing with smaller forces that which we cannot do with large forces without strategy. One of the most strategic times to work is in time of war. Man’s extremity is God’s opportunity.

See the Strategic Potential of Youth

6. Give right of way to work on behalf of youth of adolescent age, say, twelve to seventeen. Other strategic classes, for example, are students, men of the armed forces, rulers of nations, places, methods and times.

Work Hard at the Front Lines

7. Nothing takes the place of hard work. It was said of the great statesman and Christian, William Gladstone that he “toiled terribly”. And remember: no great work can be satisfactorily administered from an office chair. We must appear on the battlefield.

Put First Things First by Planning Well

8. In any work abounding in pressing needs and great opportunities, we must make a study of priorities. We must plan the use of our time. No man can do:

• all the good that needs to be done;
• all that others want him to do;
• all that he himself wants to do.

Therefore, he must acquire the habit of putting first things first. Every ambitious worker should form the habit of planning each year, month, week, and day. Each day we should be asking, “What does Christ want me to be and to do today?”

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John Mott, global Christian statesman and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1946 for developing volunteer Protestant movements, distills the essence of Christian movement-building for us.

LESSONS I HAVE LEARNED IN OVER 50 YEARS OF HELPING TO ESTABLISH NATIONAL AND WORLDWIDE MOVEMENTS

by John R. Mott

Centrality of Jesus Christ

1. Jesus Christ constitutes the only enduring foundation for a movement with objectives like ours.

Vital Processes:

Exposing people to Christ, Discipling people intensively in the Scriptures,

Practicing Prayer, Multiplying Leaders

2. The vital processes should have right of way. What are the most vital processes?

• Exposing men to Christ Himself. He will then make His own impression and if He makes the impression, it will be profound, transforming and enduring.
• The intensive and appropriate study of the original writings of the Christian faith - Bible study.
• The practice and discipline of prayer and intercessory action.
• Augmenting the leadership of the Christian forces. “He who does the work is not so profitably employed as he who multiplies the doers.” Count the day lost that you do not do something, either directly or indirectly, to multiply the number of unselfish workers.

A Huge Heroic Vision

3. It is easier to attempt and carry to success large and exacting undertakings than small ones.

• a. It is the impossible situation which brings out our own latent powers.
• If we do not have tasks that we honestly know are too difficult for our own wisdom and strength, we are by no means so likely to avail ourselves of our superhuman resources.
• The heroic appeal makes possible to heroic response. The strongest men can be inspired to accomplishment by putting before them something that is really baffling and truly significant.

(Source: On Leading Well)

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I’m still wanting to explore a Blue Oceans approach to Movement Building. Ran across the following article which I’ve rewritten to apply to our need as a church/para-church to think differently–even though the articles uses a different metaphor than Red or Blue Oceans.

Why not encourage the areas you influence to “build movement labs” –selected places where new discoveries might be made. Why? Well because:

Labs are For Experimenting

If we don’t try new things, we can’t expect new results. There are ways to experiment that will limit our risk, expand your knowledge base, and give us more informed results. Labs would help us experiment often, and learn from failure.

Labs are for Observation

It might be beneficial to know more about the new tools, methods, or approaches before jumping right in. If so, we ought to consider observing how others might use them. As we do so, we see if we can find patterns in what others does. Then we analyze the results of their efforts.

Labs are for Measuring

If we don’t figure out ways to measure the impact of our efforts, how will we know whether the effort is worth your time? We must be creative in thinking of ways to measure our efforts.

Labs are for Prototyping

We learn thru prototyping. Campuses or mission teams who experiment with new methods and approaches to movement building will help us accept or reject new dimensions to our movement building efforts. we learn through experimenting. A movement lab will help us figure things out.

– Source: Chris Brogan (one of the best blogs out there on social media/social networks….sign up for his newsletters)

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I ran across the following quote from Ivy Seazine…I keep thinking that our future in movement building requires fresh thinking, new road-maps and routes—new stories.

If your survival needs are taken care of — food, shelter, relative safety — chances are excellent that you have at least one or more ‘audacious goals’ that you’d like to see blossom into reality. Your visionary, audacious goals might be related to your housing, location, wellness, relationships, or livelihood, or something else.

And part of you — maybe a big part of you — may harbor doubts about whether this big, visionary yearning, your audacious goal, is possible, or even whether you deserve to accomplish and enjoy it once it’s manifested.

Many of us who want to create new outcomes or new realities sabotage ourselves right from the start, by failing to realize that if we want new outcomes, we need new road-maps and routes. In other words, we have to identify our existing ’stories’ and mythologies, and determine what about them needs to be rewritten.

Old stories don’t support our journey to new destinations; they keep us living the old story.

The great physicist, Albert Einstein, said, "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." He also said that the problems you face can’t be solved by the same level of thinking that created the problems.

Jesus commented that you can’t put new wine into an old wine-skin; the Buddha counseled that "with your thoughts, you make your world."

In other words, to change your reality or your outcomes, transform your thoughts and your "ways of doing." Change your stories, which are like your journey road-maps and your routes, and you’ll arrive at new destinations that may be more in keeping with your sense of true vocation.

Source: Ivy Seazine

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In response to Hirsch’s challenge (last post) to go after the "populations" for which the typical models, methods or approaches of church planting (movement building) have no appeal, I pulled off my shelf a well-known book on business strategies that seemed to offer some principles that might apply.

In their book on innovative business practices, Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make the Competition Irrelevant, the authors describe the red ocean as where most companies compete, seeking customers from the same market as their competitors. Kim and Mauborgne suggest that companies break out of the red ocean of bloody competition by creating uncontested market space in the blue ocean that makes the competition irrelevant.

Red Ocean Strategies, they argue, focus on existing customers, compete in existing market spaces, center their efforts on beating the competition, make value-cost trade-offs, and attempt to align their whole system on differentiation or low cost.

Blue Ocean Strategies, on the other hand, focus on non-customers (those to whom current products have no appeal), create uncontested market spaces, make the competition irrelevant (bec. no one is working in this area), create and capture new demand, break the value-cost trade-off calculation, and align whole systems to pursue differentiation and low cost.

Guiding Principles

As you create your blue ocean strategies, be aware of four guiding principles.

The first is to break from the competition and reconstruct market boundaries.

Innovation is the cornerstone of blue ocean strategies. We must allow our efforts to break from typical models/methods and pursue atypical and innovative ones.

The second guiding principle is to focus on the big picture, not the numbers.

Innovation may not initially lead to an increase in numbers, so leaders must stay focused on the big picture (i.e. the need to reach populations to which the typical models and methods no longer appeal)

The third guiding principle is to reach beyond existing demand.

In other words, we have to beware of just defining a particular niche and not going after new markets of appeal. Historic strategic planning processes encourage focusing on current markets and further defining niches, thus continuing a red ocean existence.

To have a profitable and robust strategy, you must follow the fourth guiding principle: get the strategic sequence right. The right strategic sequence of costumer utility, price, cost, and adoptions will ensure commercial viability.

All blue ocean strategies start with "utility" or "value to the customer." Assuming the certain appeal of the gospel message, what can we do in our models and methods that might get that appeal into populations for which old models and methods no longer appeal. The question is obviously not a "change in the wine of our message" but "in the form" it is communicated to populations—populations for whom the message would appeal if "encased" in new wineskins.

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Well, I’ve been on the road for the last month and am just beginning to capture some thots. At the end of 5500 miles of driving, Laurie and I ended up in Muscatine, Iowa with some of our kids and grandkids. While Laurie drove home from there, I caught a plane to Orlando for the Exponential Conference. Two "thought" mentors were speaking there— Alan Hirsch and Tim Keller–movement leaders whose books I’ve read but never met. Got to shake Alan’s hand and say hello and sat in on most of his sessions. As always, I was challenged by his prophetic thinking.

One illustration he shared has application to the challenges we face in building movements everywhere. He posed the question.

Can we can reach the increasing secular audiences around us by doing the same thing with the same kind of thinking?

As Einstein has noted, the "definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” Or as he similar wrote: “We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.”

Alan illustrated the idea in following diagram.

Most church planting (e.g. movement building) tends to find a typical model, method or approach (the red box) that has been successful in the past or is successful in certain situations and/or among particular target audiences. Because of that apparent success, other efforts to build movements attempt to mimic (or refine or improve) that typical model or approach. Unfortunately, the typical model only appeals to a certain percentage of the overall population we’re trying to reach–a percentage that is increasingly shrinking. As Alan said, we keep digging in the same hole and pretty soon we’re so deeply in the hole that we can’t see over the sides. As he added later, if all you have is one solution, you’ve got missional poverty.

So, the challenge is to "think differently" — to give permission to our teams to go after the rest of the population in new and creative ways. We need to develop new solutions, new approaches, new methods, new models.

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“People do not need the intricate directions, time lines, plans, and organization charts that we thought we had to give them. These are not how people accomplish good work; they are what impede contributions.

But people do need a lot from their leaders.

They need information, access, resources, trust and follow-trough. Leaders are necessary to foster experimentation, to help create connections across the organization, to feed the system with rich information from multiple sources–all while helping everyone stay clear on what we agreed we wanted to accomplish and who we wanted to be.

We instinctively reach out to leaders who work with us in creating meaning.” — Margaret Wheatley

I love Wheatley’s stuff on “self-organizing” systems–the dynamic taking place in spiritual (organic) movements. As you consider your own movement leadership, are you empowering or controlling, growing communities or building a congregation?

How would you answer the following?

Where am I fostering experimentation?

Where am I creating connections across the movement?

Where am I feeding the system with rich information?

Where have I helped everyone stay clear on who we are and what we want to accomplish?

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The Back of the Napkin by Dan Roam

I ordered this book yesterday. I can often remember sketching out ideas on napkins–sometimes alone, at other times with team leaders. Often, those pictures led to insights that produced significant changes, or solved plaguing problems. I’m a believer in Roam’s philosophy: almost any problem can be made clearer with a picture. Fortunately, according to Roam, solving problems has absolutely nothing to do with drawing pictures or innate artistic ability. It’s has to do with forcing us to think visually.

Visual thinking means taking advantage of our innate ability to see - both with our eyes and with our mind’s eye - in order to discover ideas that are otherwise invisible, to develop those ideas quickly and intuitively, and then to share those ideas with other people in a way they simply "get."

The process of visual thinking is comprised of four steps, each of which we’re already good at. Looking, seeing, imagining and showing.

Do an experiment.

Take a problem you’re facing in building movements on your campus or location. For example, how do we build healthy missional teams? How do we raise up missional team leaders? What can we do to "passionately proclaim and compassionately demonstrate the gospel" in more effective ways?

Apply Roam’s Method: get some napkins, a pen and: look, see, imagine and show.

Look at your data, at your problem, at your opportunity:

* What is there?
* What is not there?
* What do you know?
* What do you not know?
* What does it look like?

See what it means:

* Do patterns emerge?
* Does anything stand out?
* Have you seen this before?
* Is it analagous to something else?
* Should you go look some more?
* Can you draw some conclusions?

Use your mind’s eye (or a whiteboard or pen & paper or software) to imagine the possibilities:

* Are there analogies that make sense?
* Are there better ways to represent the patterns I saw?
* Is there a basic framework upon which I can hang what I’ve seen?
* Can I manipulate the patterns to create something new?

Show your insights to others (and help them draw their own conclusions):

* This is what I saw
* This is what I think it means
* Can you see the same things?
* Do you see something different?
* I recommend we do this; what do you think?

Try to get your audience to repeat the process: look, see, imagine…?

Now, as you work on your "show", use Roam’s 5 Squid Questions to force you to clarify your thinking:

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Andy Crouch had a fascinating article in the last Catalyst ezine entitled The Horizons of the Possible: Why Changing Culture Requires Courage.

Culture, according to Andy, is a concrete entity.

Culture is not just beliefs, values, ideas, or images. It’s actual, concrete stuff-material, corporeal, physical. It is the very tangible product of human activity. . . culture is “what we make of the world.” . . . culture is indeed an expression of our beliefs and values, [but] the way we express those values is to make particular things.

Andy argues that culture thus defines the “horizons of the possible and the impossible in very concrete, tangible ways.” Fortunately, culture is not static; the horizons are movable, moldable. But whenever we attempt to change culture, we assault the impossible; we challenge the very horizons of the possible and the impossible. Everything outside of the horizons is, for the moment and for most people, impossible to imagine, let alone accomplish. Yet those horizons may move. Or they may not. And movement often depends upon “culture-creating, culture-changing” leaders—movement leaders who dare to push against the outer edges, who dare to discover how resistant those horizons are to change.

As we’ve discussed in previous posts, the biblical understanding of movements is much more aligned with a sociological framework than with an organizational one. Movements are more about “culture change” than organizational measure like the numbers of churches or small groups or ministries. At the heart of a “gospel” movement, according to Tim Keller and others, is an ideology of the gospel which pursues the twin goals of changing people and renewing culture.

So when William Wilberforce confronted the “slave-trade culture” at the heart of the British economy, the cultural horizons seemed resistant to change. Renewing the culture must have seemed impossible for Wilberforce and other abolitionists to imagine, let alone accomplish. Nothing is harder than creating new culture out of the “actual, concrete, physical” injustices that have resulted from what we have made of the world. Yet, Wilberforce and his Clapham community of saints pushed at the horizons of the impossible and “brought the world around a corner.”

Andy’s article suggests two ingredients for culture change–both illustrated beautifully in Wilberforce’s courageous pursuit of justice in the company of his friends. They are two ingredients needed for missional team leaders as well; without them, we can have no movements.

Courage

Courage is the willingness to risk failure. Without it, no one can change culture; no one can create something that will move the horizons of possibility and impossibility.

Without courage, we won’t be far out of the comfortable valley of currently realized possibilities before we turn around and head right back home. It is ever so much safer to simply live within the constraints of what is already possible. . . It works the other way, too: it is much safer to live within the constraints of what is already impossible. If “things” are impossible, after all, we’re off the hook. Only courage will equip us to ask the question.

Community

The reality is, however, that we only find courage together, in community. Andy reminds us that “culture is simply never created in isolation. No one gets to move the horizons alone.”

Every cultural change worth making spreads through a network of people who know and trust one another. Indeed, the horizons are so powerful that only a relatively small, tight-knit group can sustain the belief that the horizons could one day move. That is why every . . . movement . . . begins with a small group of believers who are willing to set out on a journey together to the edge of the current horizons-to create something together and then offer it to the wider world.

Lots of misplaced horizons and broken cultures confront us. Everywhere we look, the least, the last and the lost long for leaders embolden by their “friends” to risk failure over and over again to move the horizons of the impossible, “to dare to make something new in the midst of the world.”

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“Church Planting Movements”, according to New Generations International, are characterized by these essential elements. I adapted them for our audience on the college campus. To build movements everywhere, we must at specific locations:
1. Mobilize persistent prayer on a large scale.
2. Eliminate the inherent barriers caused by cultural mismatches inherent in our dominant or sending culture (i.e. cross-cultural ministry is necessary).
3. Establish “simple” groups based on the fundamental biblical requirements (i.e. DNA–Divine Truth, Nurturing Relationships, Apostolic Mission/Service).
4. Gain increasing access to restricted or resistant areas through compassionate service.  Always enter as a servant, never as a master.
5. Find and disciple the “Persons of Peace” (Mt.10, Luke 10) as the key to establishing an “insiders” movement. Focus only on the few who can be leaders now, so many will hear later.
6. Begin to effectively lay a biblical foundation for understanding God, salvation, and the Christian life using the cultures’ dominant learning styles
7. “Disciple people into conversion” through progressive family-based evangelism and personal discovery from God’s Word.
8. Provide heart-language Scripture resources in all sorts of formats.
9. Train new believers to discover God’s truth through personal study of His Word and to obey immediately.  Don’t teach the Bible.  Teach every new Christ-follower to discover God’s truth and obey what they learn.
10. Emphasize “obedience-based discipleship” as a lifestyle for every believer
11. Have only indigenous leaders to launch and lead new movements.  A novice insider will produce more fruit than the highly trained.
12. Train new leaders to regularly plant new churches/movements as a normal part of being a church/movement. Spend a long time preparing to multiply rapidly.

Source: steveaddison.net

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I’m wondering whether movement building requires integrated thinking. In his book, “The Opposable Mind: How Successful Leaders Win Through Integrative Thinking”, Roger Martin argues that successful leaders try not to make “either-or” decisions. They practice integrative thinking, which is defined as:

The ability to face constructively the tension of opposing ideas and, instead of choosing one at the expense of the other, generate a creative resolution of the tension in the form of a new ideas that contains elements of the opposing ideas but is superior to each.

Integrative thinking looks for factors not immediately obvious, considers nonlinear relationships among the apparently opposable ideas, and tries to see the whole problem as a whole. Thru integrative thinking, the leader resolves the tensions among opposable ideas and generates innovative outcomes.

On the other hand, conventional thinking defaults to examining the pros and cons of the presumed alternatives, then eliminating all but one. It breaks the “opposable ideas” into pieces and works on them separately—only focusing on obviously relevant features. It leads to settling for the best available options.

I brainstormed some of the apparently “opposable ideas” in building spiritual movements to which we ought to apply more integrative thinking and not default to “either-or” choices.  Try holding both ideas from each pair in the mind for awhile. Don’t default quickly to alternatives, but imagine or generate new ideas that contain elements of both.

Evangelism — Social Action

Evangelism — Discipleship

Cause — Community

Individual — Team

Truth — Grace

Leaders —- Marginalized (poor, widow, orphan)

Justice —- Justification

Free Will — Sovereignty

Ministry — Movements

Local — Global

Simple — Complex

Intuitive — Structured

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For starters, Jesus chose ordinary people.There was no attempt to reach the rich and famous in order to build a ‘trickle-down’ gospel. He went for people who were surprised at his choice. An honest desire to know God and his grace is a better qualification for ministry than wealth or political strength. The scriptures advise us that the Lord has chosen the simple of this world to confound the wise. God can only work with willing hearts.

Second, he lived a consistent life before them. His message and character were in line with each other. Take the disciples desire to call down fire on their enemies. Jesus’ response was consistent with a message of love and forgiveness.

Third, Jesus modeled ministry before he asked it. The disciples of Jesus could simply imitate his actions. The best teacher will break a process into small parts and demonstrate each to his or her students. There is comfort in knowing what to do in a crisis because you watched and practiced beforehand.

Jesus allowed for failures. He built a climate of love and acceptance that rewarded mistakes with calm explanations and deeper insights. Fear of failure keeps most people from living anywhere near their potential. The wise coach will encourage many small risks. The successes catalogue as progress while the mistakes open the door for more teaching. There is no room for castigation and ridicule.

Jesus’ coaching and discipling model was often driven by the disciples’ questions. He would engage the Pharisees in debate and then retreat with the disciples. In those times of retreat he answered questions arising from the conflict with the Pharisees. He allowed hungry minds to explore areas of concern. The disciples initiated discussion under the umbrella of the situations he created.

Life and ministry offer opportunity at every turn. Everyday struggles present a format for learning just as waves present opportunity for surfing. Too often we confine learning of God and his kingdom to a classroom experience. We need a change of paradigm when training for life and ministry. Teaching is best done where learning is best accomplished. Classroom instruction is helpful and most often necessary. But, it can never be primary.

Primary or foundational education must always be relational. You learned to speak the same way someone learns surfing or how to pilot an aircraft. You listened and imitated someone who was kind to you and willing to correct you in love. After speaking for awhile, you entered a classroom to refine your skills. The same is true of Christian living and of Christian leadership. You learn it best in the context of a friendly relationship where you are free to learn by imitation and exhortation.

For Jesus, discipling is usually informal but structured. You work in the context of a friendship or you build one, but you work from a plan. In building your plan look to Jesus as your model.

An informal, but structured discipleship focuses on the Head, the Heart and the Hands.

Head—what did you learn?

Heart—what did God say to you?

Hands—what will you do?

– Ralph Moore (check Church Planters Forum for resources) 

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Steve Addison (praying for you, bro) captured some of Ralph Moore’s thots on Movements and Movement Building. I’m increasingly reminded that “transformed disciples who multiply” lay at the heart of any culture-changing movement. I’ve adapted some of Ralph’s points to “fit” our mission (building movements everywhere, so everyone knows someone who truly follows Jesus).

Don’t start with a movement, but rather start with one life at a time. A movement will come out of this.

Large movements or small movements or multiple movements? This is the wrong question. Excellence in discipleship is what matters.

When it gets so easy to reproduce that people don’t know the campus director or staff – then it’s a movement.

You have to share the message of multiplication for a long time. Never stop talking about multiplication.

When you build movements, be relentless.

We attract a crowd of students and then try to make disciples. Jesus did it the other way around.

Church must be your discipleship model and discipleship must be your church model.

When growing leaders, standards are sometimes your enemy. We can lift the bar too high for younger leaders. We take lots of small measured risks with people. We don’t take big risks.

To build movements, you need a culture of believing in mavericks and creating a relational and demanding environment in which they can grow.

The local movement should be the seminary where you develop leaders.

In building movements, you must take chances with people or you never produce great leaders.

If you try to maintain control and protect your own reputation, your ministry would certainly stay small and not lead to multiplication.

Every maturing Christian should have a few followers and a pattern for training them.

Disciplemaking is not just for recognized leaders. You must produce something with whatever God gives you. This includes your knowledge of God and your ability to minister to others.

As a maturing Christian, you are to duplicate yourself in two or three other people. God expects you to use your relationships as a format for giving away your skills and knowledge of him.

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Thoughts on Revival – from Dynamics of Spiritual Life, by Richard Lovelace

“Jonathan Edwards was especially concerned to make clear that fallen human nature is fertile ground for a fleshly religiosity which is impressively ‘spiritual’ but ultimately rooted in self-love. High emotional experiences, effusive religious talk, and even praising God and experiencing love for God and man can be self-centered and self-motivated. In contrast to this, experiences of renewal which are genuinely from the Holy Spirit are God-centered in character, based on worship, an appreciation of God’s worth and grandeur divorced from self-interest. Such experiences create humility in the convert rather than pride and issue in the creation of a new spirit of meekness, gentleness, forgiveness and mercy. They leave the believer hungering and thirsting after righteousness instead of satiated with self-congratulation. Most important, their end result is the performance of works of mercy and justice.”

“In the extensive section on good works which closes Religious Affections, Edwards establishes the principle that a full-fledged revival will involve a balance between personal concern for individuals and social concern. A revival is therefore not something exclusively ‘spiritual’ and ‘religious.” Edwards insists that the proliferation of religiosity in the form of meetings, prayer, singing and religious talk will not promote or sustain revival without works of love and mercy, which will ‘bring the God of love down from heaven to earth … to set up his tabernacle with men on the earth, and dwell with them.’”

Contributed by Chris Musgrove, CCC staff at Auburn University

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I recently began reading "Creating the Better Hour: Lessons from William Wilberforce" (Stroud & Hall Publishers) and am finding it "required reading" for movement builders. Wilberforce exhibited a wonderful balance between "passionate commitment to Jesus Christ and to the peculiar doctrines of Christianity" and "compassionate commitment to correcting the major injustices of his generation." As I’ve been reading thru this edited work, I’m finding application after application to our task of building movements everywhere. I’ll probably dedicate numerous posts to my reflections, but I wanted to put up a quick recommendation.

The book opens with a tribute to Wilberforce, written by his friend and contemporary, the poet William Cowper (1731-1800).

Thy country, Wilberforce, with just disdain,

Hears thee, by cruel men and impious, call’d

Fanatic, for thy zeal to loose th’ enthrall’d

From exile, public sale, and slav’ry’s chain.

Friend of the poor, the wrong’d, the fetter-gall’d,

Fear not lest labour such as thine be vain!

Thou hast achiev’d a part; hast gain’d the ear

Of Britain’s senate to thy glorious cause;

Hope smiles, joy springs, and tho’ cold caution pause

And weave delay, the better hour is near,

That shall remunerate thy toils severe

By peace for Afric, fenc’d with British laws.

Enjoy what thou hast won, esteem and love

From all the just on earth, and all the blest above!

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Dan McCarthy posted the following summary of best advice on leadership taken from 136 leaders. He distilled his research into the following 7 principles of leadership success.

1. Leadership is about making things happen

If you want to make something happen with your life – on your campus, in your profession or in your community, just do it. Perceived obstacles crumble against persistent desire.

2. Listen and understand the issue, then lead

Time and time again we have all been told, "God gave us two ears and one mouth for a reason"…or as Stephen Covey said…"Seek to understand, rather than be understood."

3. Answer the three questions everyone within your organization or on your team wants answers to:

• Where are we going?
• How are we going to get there?
• What is my role?

4. Master the skills that will allow you to work anywhere:

• The ability to develop an idea
• Effectively plan for its implementation
• Execute second-to-none
• Achieve superior results time after time.

5. Be curious

Curiosity is a prerequisite to continuous improvement and even excellence.

6. Listen to both sides of the argument

Listen to all different kinds of people and ideas.

7. Prepare, prepare, prepare

If you fail to prepare, you are preparing to fail. If one has truly prepared and something goes wrong the strength of the rest of what you’ve prepared for usually makes this something easier to handle without crisis and panic.

Leadership of Movements, Movement Building | 0 Comments

Sam Metcalf at UnderTheIceberg posted the following list on How To Kill a Movement:

1. Require education for the leadership

2. Demand conformity of methodology

3. Refuse to provide administrative help and let it suffocate under it’s own weight

4. Get spooked by supernatural phenomena outside your paradigm

5. Make no room for younger, less experienced leadership

6. Be obsessed by theological purity

7. Put the safety of the people involved as a higher priority than sacrifice

8. Centralize the funding

9. Punish out-of-the box thinking

10. Manage it by goals and strategic plans

11. Reward faithfulness rather than entrepreneurial ability

12. Get tied to property and buildings

13. Let your critics define you

14. Be threatened by giftedness that’s not like you

15. Create an endowment

16. Treat creativity as heresy

17. Refuse to exercise discipline for the right things

18. Make sure you are related to existing institutions for credibility

19. Promote on the basis of seniority and longevity

20. Insist that decisions be based on policy instead of values

21. Make nurture and conservation of gains a focus

22. Don’t be intentional about leadership selection

23. Be risk adverse under the guise of stewarding your people

24. Justify your reluctance to raise money

25. Have a big need for approval and affirmation

Above all else, control it, if God forbid, he actually shows up!

Leadership of Movements, Marks of a Movement, Movement Building | 2 Comments

Tim Keel’s Postures of Leadership (Part I, Part II)

6. A Posture of Trust: From Defensiveness to Creativity

All of the previous leadership postures assume a posture of trust on the part of leaders. Most leaders often default to defensiveness however, believing that so much of what we do depends on us and not on God. Moving away from defensiveness to trust in God, and as a result, to more trust in our people leads to greater creativity. We cannot see God at work in his creation when we are crouched defensively behind a carefully constructed wall where we feel compelled to defend ourselves and even to defend God. "When we trust that God is out ahead of us and seek out his life in and around and outside our walls, we engage with freedom and passion the creative possibilities that arise as God engages his creation for his purposes. . . . When we spend the majority of our energy defending the hallowed grounds of our staked-out territory, something vital is lost." Leaders follow Jesus into the "generative chaos of creation."

7. A Posture of Joy: From Work to Play

Leaders have a hard time learning to play. Yet Plato once said that you could learn more about people by watching them play for one hour than you could through a lifetime of conversation with them. True. Keel argues that leaders who begin to live in a trust-saturated relationship with God can move from "work" to relief and joy–to play. At the heart of this posture is the notion of Sabbath, where rest and rhythm and celebration acknowledges the true source in life: God. Leaders must consciously move from work to play, play to work, work to play and on. A rhythm that embraces playfulness demonstrates trust in God. It also helps leaders not take themselves so seriously.

8. A Posture of Dependence: From Resolution to Tension—And Back Again

Like chaos, tension can be embraced by the leader. Tension is created when two seemingly opposed realities are held in a dynamic relationship that demands engagement and interaction. Yet, since tension is discomforting, we attempt to opt quickly for resolutions that often maximize one half of a complex reality at the expense of the other half. In each of Keel’s leadership postures, leaders learn to embrace the twin realities in their dynamic tension (questions vs answers, head vs heart, work vs joy, etc) more readily than previously allowed. Leaders tend to be reactive and swing from one extreme to the other. Such reactions, Keel argues, are not generative nor sustainable. To avoid the reactive swings toward quick resolution of tension, leaders must learn to live in and lead out of tension. Again, a posture of dependence and trust on God’s creative and dynamic work must be present in the leader.

Read the Source:

"Intuitive Leadership: Embracing a Paradigm of Narrative, Metaphor, and Chaos (emersion: Emergent Village resources for communities of faith)" (Tim Keel)

Leadership of Movements | 2 Comments

Tim Keel’s Postures of Leadership (see Part I ):

4. A Posture of Stillness: From Preparation to Meditation

Tim suggest that leaders consider the difference between comprehending God and apprehending God. Apprehending God involves beholding the mysterious reality of God in a way that does not seek to place limitations on his nature that he doesn’t place on himself. In other words, leaders can often get caught up in the constant activity of study and preparation to "present" God to their people. Yet, God wants us to be present to him–to move from preparation to meditation. Preparation means doing research and finding material that supports and illustrates our research. But meditation is deep and intimate conversation with God on God’s terms–simply allowing oneself to be present in stillness before the God we serve. Can we as leaders stop ourselves from constantly preparing to do something so that we might have the possibility of engaging Someone? What if we postured ourselves in stillness rather than constant activity?

4. A Posture of Surrender: From Control to Chaos

Chaos theory posits that while we look at chaos and see only unpredictability, randomness, and erratic noise, there is actually patterns and a sort of order that exists. A posture of surrender acknowledges that chaos is not necessarily crisis. Normally, leaders respond to chaos by attempting to take control, but such decisiveness can be dangerous. In chaotic situations, we just don’t have enough information. Surrender, Tim Keel says, forces us to read the environment more deliberately, to become more adaptive and creative. If we adopt this posture, we’ll ask a different set of questions in the seeming chaos. Where are the patterns? In the midst of disruption, where are the opportunities? In crisis, we want control. In chaos, we want discernment and must be willing to surrender control so that we can better engage the changing environment.

5. A Posture of Cultivation: From Programmer to Environmentalist

Movements depend upon relationships. By moving from programmer to environmentalist, leaders avoid the default position of relieving people from the hard work of building relationships, from our Christian responsibility to be hospitable. When leaders don’t create, discover or facilitate programs, but rather cultivate an environment of hospitality, they animate the relational ecosystem. Leaders should be environmentalists, not administrators and programmers. We are about nurturing space for people to connect with each other and with God. We cultivate environments of growth. Thinking in those terms leads to significant implications in our leadership—implications, which a "program mentality" could never engender.

Read the Source:

"Intuitive Leadership: Embracing a Paradigm of Narrative, Metaphor, and Chaos (emersion: Emergent Village resources for communities of faith)" (Tim Keel)

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I recently finished Tim Keel’s "Intuitive Leadership: Embracing a Paradigm of Narrative, Metaphor, and Chaos" and loved his notion of leadership as a posture. Concerned how "models" (leadership models or ministry models) are contextual and not easily transferable, Tim argues that its helpful to think in terms of "postures." A posture is a way of positioning oneself; it refers to one’s bearing or attitude. A "forward leaning" leadership posture positions the leader, for example, toward action or toward openness and receptivity. Tim holds that leaders of churches (or movements) should adopt the following postures of engagements that allow them to see and respond to the possibilities that are available because of God’s activity out in front of them. Each of these postures lean away from the "posture of the expert or of the leader who knows all." Such postures keep the leader open to the possibilities in his or her context. As you read thru these, think of implications to your movement leadership, not of direct applications per se.

1. A Posture of Learning: From Answers to Questions

Leaders can often learn more from a well-formed question than from a glibly offered answer . . . I’m finding that questions require more work, more attentiveness to what is happening in the environment. It takes a lot more depth, presence, and creativity on the part of the leader to ask a well-formed, sensitive, and sincere question that engages the person on the other end of the relationship. We have to ask in order to learn . . . we have to ask in order to engage. . . What if leaders refused the posture of expert and took on the posture of humble and engaged learner? What if leaders learned the art of the question?

2. A Posture of Vulnerability: From the Head to the Heart

Leaders discover ways to engage both the head and the heart. The people we lead need to be engaged in more than cognitive ways; we as leaders need to discover as well ways of leading that allow our own hearts to be engaged. Passion flows from a heart fully engaged. And to engage the heart, the leader must be present and help his people be present. Being present is hard because it means engaging pain–it involves brokenness and vulnerability. But as we engage pain and the brokenness of our hearts, we live deeply and connect deeply. This posture of vulnerability in leaders gives them access to the hearts of their people. Leaders must become conversant in the language of the heart.

3. A Posture of Availability: From Spoken Words to Living Words

Leaders are like OT prophets who were often forced by God to live lives that proclaimed God’s message beyond mere words. A prophet’s words were the final expression of a process that began with God’s working internally. Hosea must marry a unfaithful wife before he can plead God’s words to a faithless Israel to "return to me and call me "My husband." Jeremiah must buy property in a doomed Jerusalem to pronounce a future hope. The content of the message is integrally linked to the person communicating it. Leaders shouldn’t be surprised that God allows them to suffer first, to experience pain and discomfort, to hear God’s voice out of the whirlwind. Leaders must resist the temptation to evade or anesthetize pain. Instead, they must embrace it. Do we allow life’s challenges to be our trusted teacher or a hated foe? Leaders must embrace the former.

Leadership of Movements | 2 Comments

Do all leaders sense that God has given them an assignment? Are all movement leaders like Jeremiah who realize at some point in their life that they had been “formed, chosen, set apart, appointed”? That’s what God told Jeremiah, “Before I formed you in your mother’s womb I chose you; before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you to be a prophet to the nations” (Jeremiah 1:5). It appears that most leaders in the Scriptures had some sort of conversation or vision or wrestling with God in which they “realized”, in Wilberforce’s word, their line of usefulness.

Jesus certainly sensed it. At his first public appearance, he takes the scroll of Isaiah and reads “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor; he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of prison to those who are bound, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

Fred Smith argues that all leaders must choose their direction in life rather than being overly engrossed in the achievement of personal goals. Mike Murdock suggests that “we are here on assignment. Everything God created is a solution to a problem”–including you. The key to our leadership calling and perhaps impact is discovering our assignment. It’s our purpose–our specific object, the line of our usefulness–in life. That assignment, Murdock argues, always involves “solving a specific problem.”

As I think thru movement leaders in the past, I can’t think of an exception. All seemed captured by their “line of usefulness” — their assignment from God.

What is your assignment?

What problem had God created you to solve?

Source: “Breakfast With Fred” (Fred, Sr. Smith)

Leadership of Movements, Movements in History | 1 Comment

Occasionally Bonhoeffer waxes poetic. I love this quote, which I read from his A Testament of Freedom. Movement building is hard, long work. I get easily get discouraged. This quote captures the hope that Jesus has come, is now at work, and will complete his in-breaking one day.

Look up, you whose eyes are fixed on this earth, you who are captivated by the events and changes on the surface of this earth. Look up, you who turned away from heaven to this ground because you had become disillusioned. Look up, you whose eyes are laden with tears, you who mourn the loss all that the earth has snatched away. Look up, you who cannot lift your eyes because you are so laden with guilt.

“Look up, your redemption is drawing near.”

Something different than you see daily, something more important, something infinitely greater and more powerful is taking place. Become aware of it, be on your guard, wait a short while longer, wait and something new will overtake you! God will come, Jesus will take possession of you and you will be a redeemed people!

Lift up your heads, you army of the afflicted, the humbled, the discouraged, you defeated army with bowed heads. The battle is not lost, the victory is yours—take courage, be strong! There is no room here for shaking your heads and doubting, because Christ is coming. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

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Samuel Wilberforce received the following advice from his “then famous” father, William Wilberforce. The father, concerned for his son, felt Samuel lacked the gravitas he needed in his run for Parliament.

My dearest boy, remember my counsel. If you come into Parliament . . . choose out for yourself some specific object, some line of usefulness. Make yourself thoroughly acquainted with your subject, and you will not only be listened to with attention, but you will, please God, do great good.

Samuel, from what I’ve read, didn’t take his father’s advice and failed to impact his generation. Willam Wilberforce’s strength as a movement builder rested in this focus upon a God-given pursuit of “lines of usefulness.” As he put it in his diary, God almighty has set before me two great objects: the suppression of the Slave Trade and the reformation of manners.

I couldn’t help but think of Wilberforce’s advice as I read Kay Warren’s new book, Dangerous Surrender. Kay has found her “line of usefulness” and is changing the world. Take the time to read her book–it’s well written, honest, and powerful in its challenge to Christ-followers. I hope it sells more than Rick’s Purpose Driven Life. She writes:

What does God want us to do about evil? Is there really anything one person can do? I can tell you what he doesn’t want us to do—to ignore it, deny it, pretend it doesn’t exist, close our hearts and minds to it, or hope it goes away by itself. He doesn’t want us to appease it, placate it, compromise with it, coexist with it, justify it, excuse it, or call it another name. In God’s value system, these responses are as wicked as endorsing, cooperating with, or embracing evil.

“Dangerous Surrender: What Happens When You Say Yes to God” (Kay Warren)

Kay is a movement builder. This book is her story. What’s particularly interesting to me is this leadership trait that seems common to all movement builders–a life-changing vision for bringing in the Kingdom in some particular “line of usefulness.”

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I see it over and over. Movements that bring change depend on partnerships. Working together is a Trinitarian expression. God lives in community, in relationship, in a heavenly dance–modeling the cooperation he intends for us as families, as churches, as organizations. Satan’s strategy is always to divide.Unfortunately, over the last 200-300 years, the intense individualism of Western societies has made the journey toward wholeness, relationship, and cooperation much harder. Personally I’ve been driven so often by building my particular organization rather than building the kingdom. I’m beginning to repent.

Phil Butler, in his book Well Connected, argues that “individualism has inflected our lives, our theology, our churches, our educational paradigms, and the fruits of the missionary movement.”

In his book, Phil identifies some of the key issues and principles of effective partnerships. If we as Campus Crusade want to “build movements everywhere,” we must build effective partnerships–at all levels of our organization. The following principles will help us build such partnerships.

1. Effective partnerships are built on trust, openness and mutual concern. Partnerships are more than coordination, planning, strategies and tactics. The heart of Gospel is restored relationships.
2. Effective partnerships need a facilitator or coordinator — someone who, by consensus, has been given the role of bringing the partnership to life and keeping the fires burning. This “honest broker,” usually loaned or seconded from an agency committed to the task, must be a person of vision who will keep on despite all discouragement. Prophet, servant, and resource person — this individual has to be trained and nurtured. Serving everyone in a partnership is a lonely task.
3. Effective partnerships have a partnership “champion: inside every partner ministry — a person who sees how their individual agency can benefit from such practical cooperation: an individual who will sell the vision to their colleagues and keep the partnership focused to realize those benefits.
4. Successful partnerships develop in order to accomplishes a specific vision or task. Partnerships for partnership’s sake is a sure recipe for failure. This means lasting partnerships focus primarily on what (objective) rather than how (structure). Form always follows function — not the other way around. Concensus is usually better than constitution!
5. Effective partnerships have limited, achieveable objectives in the beginning, and become more expansive as the gorup experiences success. Though limited, these objectives must have clear Kingdom significance that captures the imagination and provides motivation for the group as well as relevance to each partner ministry’s vision and objective.
6. Effective partnerships start by identifying needs among the people being reached or served.They do not start by trying to write a common theological statement. From these needs, Kingdom priorities, barriers to spiritual breakthroughs, and the resources available or needed, realistic priorities for action must be distilled and agreed.
7. Partnerships are a process, not an event. The start-up, exploration and formation stages of a partnership often take a long time. Call a formation or even exploratory meeting too early and you will likely kill the possibility of a partnership. Ultimately, personal trust is required. Taking time to establish it privately in one-on-one meetings, the facilitator will find that later, in the group, it will pay rich dividends.
8. Effective partnerships are even more challenging to maintain than to start. Making sure the vision stays alive, the focus-clear, communication good, and outcomes fulfilling takes great concentration and long-term commitment.
9. Effective partnerships are made up of partner ministries with clear identities and vision. They must have their own clear mission statements and live by them. Otherwise, they will never understand how they “fit in,” and contribute to the overall picture, or benefit from the joint effort.
10. Effective partnerships acknowledges, even celebrate, the differences in their partner agencies’ histories, vision and services. But partnerships must ultimately concentrate on what they have in common, like vision and values, and ministry objectives rather than on their differences.
11. Effective partnerships serve at least four constituencies: the people they are trying to reach; the partner agencies with their own staffs and vision; the partner agencies funding and praying constituencies; and eventually, the partnership itself with it’s growing expectations. There are many more players around the table than we often acknowledge or remember. Forget them, and eventually the partnership will fail.
12. Effective partnerships have a high sense of participation and ownership. Facilitators need to give special attention to the widest possible participation in objective setting, planning and the process of meetings, and on-going communications — increasing the likelihood of wider ownership and commitment to the common vision.
13. Effective partnerships keep focused on their ultimate goals or vision and are not distracted by day-to-day operational demands. It is often easy to focus on the “means” rather than the “end”. Only constant diligency will keep this long-term view clear.
14. Effective partnerships see prayer and communion as uniquely powerful elements to bind partners together in Christ. Effective partnerships are refreshed and empowered by frequently praying in small groups where individuals can express concerns for each other’s personal needs, and by the group taking communion together.
15. Effective partnerships do not come free. Just participating in the planning and coordination takes times and money. Deeper commitment may take still greater investments. But, the “return on Kingdom investment” through the partnerships should more than offset the contributions a partner agency may make.
16. Effective partnerships expect problems and plan ahead for them. Make sure a process is built into the partnership for daling with changes, exceptions, disappointments, unfulfilled commitments, and simply the unexpected. A wise man know one thing — the only predictable thing is the unexpected.
SUMMARY
“build on trust”"a facilitator”"a partnership ‘champion’”"accomplish a specific vision”"have achievable objectives”"identify needs of those being served”"it’s a process, not an event”"it’s more challenging to maintain”"it’s made up of partner ministries”"celebrate differences”"serve four consituencies”"need high sense of participation and ownership”"be focused on their ultimate goals”"maintain prayer and communion”

Movement Building | 1 Comment

Yet another post from Forces for Good.

The authors argued that high impact nonprofits nurture networks. A network strategy allows these nonprofits to reach more people and to have far more social impact than they could through their own organization. Through expanded networks, nonprofits have improved access to resources, and they have greater depth in more communities.

Sadly, most nonprofits have an “organizational orientation” which keeps them focused more on building their own enterprise at the expense of others. According to the authors, “these nonprofits seek to scale their impact by growing their own institutions—producing more, adding more programs, and building out the organization to meed demand. Although this approach can lead to an incremental increase in impact, it does not provide the fastest or most directed route to greater social change.”

(I admit that I’ve hesitated to buy into the power of partnerships. But I’m slowly being convinced.)

The authors included the following chart to help define the difference between an organization orientation and a network orientation.

………………...Organization Orientation vs Network Orientation

Mindset

Competition vs Collaboration

Strategy

Grow the Organization vs Grow the network or field

Behaviors

Compete for Scarcity vs Grow funding pie for all

Protect Knowledge vs Share Knowledge

Develop own Advantages vs Develop the other’s skills

Hoard Talent vs Cultivate and disperse leadership

Act alone vs Act collectively

Seize credit and power vs Share credit and power

Structure

Centralized Decentralized

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In Forces for Good: The Six Practices of High-Impact Nonprofits, Crutchfield and Grant argue that high-impact nonprofits excel at engaging outsiders, always drawing new individuals into their community of “believers” and “change makers.” They build a community of ever-growing evangelists who become connected, inspired, and transformed in the process of working for a cause. To move outsiders to committed insiders, high-impact nonprofits advocate Four Rules of Engagement–all of which build on each other.

1. Communicate Your Mission, Vision, and Values

The power of a clear and compelling expression of an organization’s mission, vision and values can’t be underestimated. Mission, visions and values leak, so leaders must always tell the story, connect the work with something worth sacrificing for, and inspire others to join a community that’s making a difference. At the heart of each story is a “value-shared” reality that leaders tap into to create the emotional hooks to engage outsiders.

Habitat for Humanity, one of these high-impact nonprofits is a great example. They are not about merely building houses for the poor, but about “eliminating housing and homelessness from the face of the earth.” Their mission, vision, values statements state that “all of our words and actions are for the ultimate purpose of putting shelter on the hearts and minds of people in such a powerful way that poverty housing and homelessness become socially, politically, and religiously unacceptable in our nations and the world.” (Just a thot: Isaiah describes the Kingdom as a place where everyone will sit outside his house under the shade of his own vine. Jesus, himself, refers to building a place for us.”)

2. Create Meaningful Experiences

You can’t just express your values, however. You must give outsiders a chance to experience those values in action. Businesses call it “experiential marketing.” Jesus did it when he engaged others in “preaching, teaching and healing.” For outsiders to become insiders, they need to contribute to the cause beyond writing a check or casting a vote. They must be engaged in experiential and emotional events that allow them to actually take part in creating social change. They want to get their hands dirty.

3. Cultivate Evangelists

As outsiders have a positive experience and begin to buy into the mission, vision, values of the nonprofit, they develop a passion for the cause. They have a story of conversion to tell, they are ready to be ambassadors. High impact nonprofits cultivate these emerging evangelists and help them spread the word among their social networks. In almost every nonprofit studied, there was at least one “super-evangelist” whose influence helped create organizational momentum. High-impact nonprofits cultivate these “super-evangelists” and platform them.

4. Build a Beloved Community

Once leaders have inspired people with their values, engaged them in emotional experiences and turned them into evangelists, they work hard to build the relational connection among these emerging insiders. Leaders create a beloved community where these new members connect with one another. They use, for example, conferences to bring them together. They take advantage of various communication tools, technologies, and alumni-like programs to keep the momentum hot. As the web of relationships develop, individuals begin to bring in their own wider social networks.

Crutchfield and Grant explain why nonprofits make the effort to engage others–since it’s normally easier to just use current insiders. Habitat for Humanity, for example, realizes that ultimately this approach of “turning outsiders into insiders” ultimately creates a powerful lever for social change. One partner stated:

Habitat has not chosen the easiest way to build houses. The easiest way is letting the construction companies do it, with paid skilled labor and lots of it. Habitat does not work this way because the ultimate goal is not the house, but to transform the people who participate in the building of that house, the families who live in that house, and the society that they are part of.

Application:

Do you have a clear, compelling story about why a movement at your location will change the world? Why not?

Have you thought of ways in which to “engage outsiders” in experiential and emotional experiences which actually get their hands dirty in creating real social change?

Are you giving people opportunities to cast their newly acquired vision for the cause? Helping them tell their story of conversion to their social networks? Are you watching for “super-evangelists” who might give you even greater influence?

Are you working hard at building relational connections among these emerging insiders? Do you recognize that each person who joins a beloved community will naturally bring in others from their other social networks?

Books, Leadership of Movements, Movement Building, Movements in History | 0 Comments

Forces for Good: The Six Practices of High-Impact Nonprofits by Leslie R. Crutchfield and Heather McLeod Grant. Jossey-Bass (2007)

I just finished reading this book and want to do several posts on it. I think it has important applications to movement building and how we can increase the impact of our movements. Even though the 12 high-impact nonprofits studied by the authors weren’t “spiritual movements” per se, they reflect truths about the social sector (the volunteer, mission-based, nongovernmental sector) in which God is building his Kingdom on earth.

In their intro, Crutchfield and Grant write:

“We don’t have time for incremental change—we need dramatic change if we are to solve the complex global problems that plague us today. The stakes are high on all sides, and we must rise to the challenge. Doing anything less would squander this momentous opportunity to advance the greater good. Fortunately, these great nonprofits—and the lessons we can learn from them—can show us a new way” (7).

On the basis of their research, they argue that great nonprofits follow six practices to achieve more impact. In a nutshell, social sector organizations seeking greater impact must learn how to do the following:

1. Advocate and serve. High impact organizations don’t just focus on doing one thing well. Whether they start out as advocates for the cause or as providing services or programs, they eventually become good at doing both. I’ve already posted below about how high impact movements display a Virtuous Cycle between “evangelism” and “service.” The more they advocate or evangelize for policy change among other institutions and the more they serve, the greater the levels of impact they achieve.

In both practices, these high impact nonprofits are externally focused. The authors write:

“The secret to success lies in how great organizations mobilize every sector of society—government, business, nonprofits and the public—to be a force for good. In other words, greatness has more to do with how nonprofits work outside the boundaries of their organizations than how they manage their own internal operations…Great organizations work with and through others to create more impact than they ever could achieve alone” (19).

2. Make markets work. Tapping into the power of self-interest and the laws of economics is far more effective than appealing to pure altruism. We need to harness market forces and see business as a powerful partner not as an enemy to be disdained or ignored. Great nonprofits find ways to work with markets and help business “do well by doing good.” Many of these nonprofits developed earned-income ventures as a way to leverage market forces to achieve social change on a grander scale.

In this practice, the authors point out that these nonprofits looked for ways to partner with business interests to access more resources for their cause, in the form of donations, volunteers, or cause-marketing. They weren’t afraid to enter into cross-sector alliances that might create wins for both partners.

3. Inspire evangelists. Great nonprofits see volunteers as much more than a source of free labor or membership dues. They create meaningful ways to engage individuals in emotional experiences that help them connect to the group’s mission and core values. They see volunteers, donors, and advisers not only for what they can contribute to the organization in terms of time, money, and guidance but also for what they can do as evangelists for their cause. They create meaningful experiences for individual supporters and convert them into evangelists for the cause. (This chapter was rich and has more direct application to building spiritual movements. I’ll post more on this later.)

4. Nurture nonprofit networks. High-impact organizations help the competition succeed, building networks of nonprofit allies and devoting remarkable time and energy to advancing their larger field. They freely share wealth, expertise, talent, and power with their peers, not because they are saints, but because it’s in their self-interest to do so. We too must build and nurture nonprofit networks, treating other groups not as competitors for scarce resources but as allies instead. (Very challenging chapter….I’ll post more later.)

Crutchfield and Grant discern a break between the first four practices and the last two. They explain:

“The first four practices are more external; they represent how these groups dramatically expand their impact outside the borders of their own organizations. Each of these practices influences an external stakeholder group with which the nonprofit works so as to do more with less. In observing this external focus, we also realize that working outside the organization entails special practices inside that help these nonprofits relate more effectively to their environment. This led us to discern two additional internal practices that enable high-impact nonprofits to operate successfully in the outside world and bridge boundaries”.

5. Master the art of adaptation. All these high impact nonprofits are exceptionally adaptive, modifying their tactics as needed to increase their success. They have responded to changing circumstances with one innovation after another. Along the way, they have mastered the ability to listen, learn, and modify their approach based on external cues—allowing them to sustain their impact and stay relevant. They adapt to the changing environment and are as innovative and nimble as they are strategic.

6. Share leadership. The leaders of great social sector organizations are exceptionally strategic and gifted entrepreneurs, but they also know they must share power in order to be as stronger force for good. They distribute leadership throughout their organization and their nonprofit network—empowering others to lead. They share leadership, empowering others to be forces for good . The CEOs of these organizations cultivate a strong second-in-command, build enduring executive teams with long tenure, and develop highly engaged boards in order to have more impact.

Again, a fascinating study and well worth all of us reading.

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