vision

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.

My cerebral talents continue with the fourth on the list, futuristic. I'm one of those people that's always looking towards tomorrow and coming up with ideas for what could or should be.

Once again, I can see how this links into my other talents, and how each one up to this point weaves together in a way that allows me to look at what is, understand it, look at where things are heading, and help others see how we can get there. In a sense, I think blending this gift with others is truly a blessing in that, without the others, I'd envision a future that ignores the past and is ignorant of the present. This is part of why I'm not a fan of typical approaches to strategic planning, but think that the Church Unique approach offers a very healthy alternative.

But once again, the problem is, if I don't have people working with me in order to get us there, then it will never happen. I can see it all day long, but I struggle to step into the everyday and bring things to fruition, a reality characterized by my answer to the question, "If you had a mulligan for the past three years, what would it be?" My answer was quick and clear, "Before doing anything with Genesis, I'd have spent however long it took to develop a solid core team of missional Christians who were going to move into the city with me."

The other struggle with this is characterized by a question my life coach asked me the Friday before the fshbwl launched, "What's next?" It's far to easy for me to get something going, see the launch as the end of the journey, and then move onto something else. I'm horrible at maintenance. I think that's why the opening blog on the fshbwl site was as much for me as it was for everybody else.

I'm curious, does anybody else who's taken the strengths finder see all of their top talents weaving together the way mine do, or is that just a product of my connectedness?

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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