Last week I ran across this article, an interview with Tim Keller, in Christianity Today. This week in my blog I decided to look at the questions he was asked, pull a quote from his answers, and share some thoughts.

Q: What are the changes that you see for your ministry?

A: The question is, How do you make sure that not only the particular theological and ministry DNA of the church is such that other people can get ahold of it?

Of all the things Keller said in the interview, this is the one I have the most issue with. While I'm confident that it's not his goal to package Redeemer and ship it out to all kinds of other urban churches (although him referring to sharing the DNA makes me worry a bit), that's what always happens when you do this. Rick Warren told people not to do what he did, but the result was guys in Minnesota wearing Hawaiian shirts. St. Toms in Sheffield, England makes the same argument when you go over there, and yet there are now churches all over the place using the Lifeshapes, holding cluster meetings, and doing all that stuff.

The problem with all this is that no other urban church is in NYC and has the exact same history and cultural conditions of Redeemer. The same goes for Saddleback and St. Toms. Those are unique situations ... just like the church that's buying up everyone else's resources. Certainly there's something to learn from the process and philosophy of ministry, but trying to replicate the DNA just isn't it.

That's why I'm loving the whole Church Unique book.

Admitting that something isn't working sucks, however, over these past number of days, as I've pondered my talents and how to use them as ministry strengths, I've come to understand what's behind some of my project failures (there have been a number of them over the years).

As I think about how this impacts what I'm doing now and what I should be doing in the future, I find myself standing on a road with a ditch on either side. One of the ditches involves me not playing to my strengths, but rather, trying to force myself to function in areas of weakness. The basic lesson there is to engage in projects that suit how I've been gifted and team with people who have complimentary gifts so, together, we have an increased chance of success.

However, on the other side, there's the ditch of not taking on more grandiose projects for fear of failure. Sure I should play to my strengths, but I should also push myself in those areas, just as the projects should push the strengths of others.

Special thanks to Seth Godin and his blog, "Is It Worthy?" to get me thinking about this second ditch:

The object isn’t to be perfect. The goal isn’t to hold back until you’ve created something beyond reproach. I believe the opposite is true. Our birthright is to fail and to fail often, but to fail in search of something bigger than we can imagine. To do anything else is to waste it all.

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The third of my top talent sounds a bit more like what you'd expect in a list of talents ... I'm strategic. The basic gist of this is that, where other see complexity, I can see patterns. As a result, I'm able to play out a variety possible scenarios and determine what route is best for a group to take. Similarly, I'm able to look ahead, see potential obstacles, and avert them.

However, while the idea of strategic sounds more like what you'd expect on a talent list, I can't help but see it in light of the first two, connectedness and ideation. After all, connectedness means I see the big picture, ideation helps me understand how the elements of the picture connect, and strategic helps me figure out where to go next.

The other thing that strikes me is that all of these talents (and the two I've yet to explore) are all very cerebral and abstract, which explains why, with the exception of the elemental life and other projects that require a study, think, tell approach, if left to my own devices, I rarely get anything done. On the positive side, this is good for ministry when it comes to preaching and teaching, as well as things like writing.

In addition, I could excel in a setting where I cast vision, assuming I have a team of people behind me who are gifted in ways that they can take my abstract thoughts and make them reality. Feeding from this, how do you see your talents working in concert with others?

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Ideation is another one of those talents that sounds a bit odd, but, especially when considered in light of how it weaves together with connectedness, it makes more sense. According to the folks at Strengths Finder, among other things, "an idea is a connection" and my mind is "intrigued when seemingly disparate phenomena can be linked by an obscure connection."

So, if, as my connectedness talent suggests, I see everything in systems, then it's the ideation that help me connect all of the pieces of the system together and understand, in a rather simple way, the very complex process that's in place. It's what allows me to look at things from a variety of different perspectives. The folks at Strengths Finder say that this is why people label me as "creative or original or conceptual or even smart."

Outside of the areas I already identified with connectedness, I'm not really sure how else ideation proves helpful. They just seem so intertwined to me. Perhaps it's not just knowing that we're connected but seeing it, and thus having an ability to explain to others? I know this has been a regular occurrence in preaching and teaching, where somehow I can just link things together for people in ways that others haven't.

Anyone out there an ideation person without being a connectedness person? How do they separate in your life?

It sounds a bit odd to describe my top talent as a talent, but according to the strengths finder, my dominant talent is connectedness. So, what does that mean? Basically it means that I'm a systems theory kind of guy who doesn't see the individual parts, but rather how all of the parts work together.

There are a few places where this has come in handy for ministry. One is systematic theology, which, in turn, really help in the writing of the elemental life which is, essentially, a basic, life application, systematic.

It's also been quite helpful in hermeneutics because, when I read a passage of Scripture, I can't help but think of it in light of the entire Biblical story. Of course, the primary place I use the interpretation of Scripture is preaching and the 27-Hour Service on the fshbwl.

For me, the biggest challenges with having this talent comes when talking with people who don't have any sense of the butterfly effect. People who see commonalities amongst various cultures, things like religion, marriage, and laws, not as a sign of some distant common story, but as nothing more than coincidentally matching cultural constructs. The same could be said for people who have no sense of responsibility towards others and or feel a overarching human imperative to love our neighbors.

Since this is so foundational in the way I see and understand the world, it's the place I naturally start from when talking about faith. At the same time, when people don't see things this way, it can be a blast to help connect the dots. In many ways, this is what I've been doing in ongoing conversations with people in downtown Denver.

So, does anyone else out there see things this way? What other ministry benefits do you see? What other challenges come to mind?