Our doctor’s office building is home to a number of different facilities for various medical services, for the most part, it is a one-stop-shop for basic medical needs. In our two years with them, we’ve really only spent time in four areas of the center (listed in order of amount of time spent, greatest to least): the doctor’s offices (including the waiting area), the pharmacy, the play area , and radiology (for various, pregnancy-related ultrasounds).

The Beauty Doctor

Situated between the doctor’s offices and the pharmacy is offices for one of the specialists. Since most of our visits involve both seeing a doctor and visiting the pharmacy, we walk through their waiting area all the time. Want to know what it is?

The Center for Aesthetics.

That’s what it’s called. And if you haven’t had your coffee yet and don’t get what it is, let me explain it better: it’s the plastic surgery offices.

I have mixed feelings about plastic surgery. I don’t think it’s inherently bad or solely exists to profit off people’s vanities. Plastic surgeons who do reconstructive work often are a tremendous blessing to their patients: restoring corporeal functionality, reducing the risk of long term health complications, saving people from enduring shame by correcting birth defects. I know of a specific ministry in China that shares the love of Christ through performing reconstructive surgery for children in remote villages with cleft-palates. Plastic surgery is neither inherently good or inherently evil. It is, as they say, what it is.

But the vanity side exists, and that’s what the Center of Aesthetics is about. Everything about their waiting room exudes vanity, from their selection of magazines, their attractive women working the desk, the various signs and brochures with sleek and bold fonts that yell loudly at your insecurities with words like: FACE, BREAST, BODY, SKIN. (Man, I can’t wait to see who finds this blog through search now.)

The Unintentional (or maybe it is intentional) Result

What occurred to me as I was dragging my two year old daughter through the waiting area so I could pick up one of our many prescriptions was that a series of simple business decisions by the health plan’s management has numerous repercussions that most people normally wouldn’t think about and unfortunately, even if they did, probably wouldn’t care about. The Center for Aesthetics is a business that needs a place to operate. The owners of the medical facility probably offer a number benefits for being there. They had space between the Family Practice and the pharmacy. It’s win-win.

But think about this, because of the age of our children, we as partents spend a lot of time explaining the context of the things that we do. When we go to the doctor, we tell our daughter why we’re going, what the doctor does, what will happen while we’re there, what will happen as a result of what the doctor does. This is how we teach our children about the world.

I realized the other day that, from this perspective we are teaching our daughter these things:
What does a doctor do? Makes people better.
Why do people need to get better? They are sick, something is not right with their body.
You go to the doctor because something is not right with you.

So what is my daughter learning about the world when we go to the health center and she sees that there is a doctor for your health AND s a doctor for your beauty? If one doctor, the one we go to, makes you healthy, doesn’t it stand to reason that the other doctor’s job is to make you beautiful?

The Lies the World Teaches My Children

Am I over thinking this? Probably.

I know that despite my best efforts, I can not stop the barrage of negative impressions that our culture will make upon my kids. But I’m still going to try. I’m their dad. It is glorious responsibility I’ve been given. I love them, so I’m going to do something about it.

So what to do? I believe there are four things we need to do, not just for our kids, but in general as a people called to love the world’s inhabitants without loving the world.

Four Things We Must Do As Parents

1. See the world through different eyes

We all interpret the world against the background of our own values, experiences, and beliefs. As you get older, the things of this world become more and more “natural” and we cease to “see” most of what is before our eyes.

But children see the world through different eyes. They don’t have context to understand most of what they experience yet, let alone the ability to anticipate how they are being affected by it. I’ve written before how kingdom strategists need to look at things from different angles in order to anticipate that which is might not be obvious.

As parents, we must see the world as our kids see it and use our own experiences and especially our knowledge of the kingdom of God to help them to appropriately identify how what they experience will draw them further away from God.

2. Filter

I know that I can not keep my kids from being exposed to all of the negative things of this world. As much as I desire to protect their innocence, I know that there is just too much hurt and pain and sin in this world to be able to do so. I also know that I will damage them more if they grow up sheltered because they will not be prepared to handle the reality of the world whenever they eventually encounter it.

So instead we must filter the negative aspects as much as we can. That mean knowing how your kids may be exposed to it, minimizing their exposure, and being prepared to address negativity with the Gospel.

Since we have insufficient resources to give everything our kids are exposed to the Gospel treatment, filtering is like spiritual triage: quickly prioritizing how critical something is in terms of it’s impact on our kid’s spiritual well-being in order to know how to appropriately treat it.

I’ll give you an example. My kids go to an in-home daycare run by a Christian woman. While there our kids sing Christian songs, pray, and talk about God (along with all the normal kid-things: yelling, playing, going potty, eating, napping, etc.). They also do things that I’m not 100 percent confident in, like watching TV or playing with Barbies.

Instead of pulling them out of daycare, I make a point to filter these things in order to limit the negative impact of their exposure. As a result, we don’t watch TV with the kids at nights or on the weekends. I make a point of talking to my daughter about Barbie telling her that Barbie is just a toy and that God did not create people to look like that. To me, these filters help to identify and address the subtle lies of this world that seek to distort how my kids see themselves.

3. Expose the lies

The third thing we need to do as parents is to expose the lies of Satan and the world. Left unaddressed, my daughter could grow up with believing the subtle lie that she is not beautiful but a doctor can make her so. That lies is a seed that have been planted in her heart. It could take root and grow into a weed that chokes out the life-giving truth that is Jesus Christ. I see that this could happen, she does not. She doesn’t know any better… she’s two.

I must make a point to open her eyes to these things. There is a reason why Satan hides his lies in inconspicuous places, he does not want us to see them. He wants them obscured in darkness, that way they are free to do their life-stealing work. It is my job as a dad to shine a light upon the lies.

4. Reveal the truth

That light is the Gospel. That light is the truth of who God is, who we are as His creation and because of sin we aren’t working the way we should be, and what He is doing to set it right through the life, death, and resurrection of His Son Jesus Christ.

The truth of the Gospel is that no human doctor can make my daughter beautiful. She already is beautiful. Her beauty is the precious gift of the Creator of the entire universe who loves her so intimately and so perfectly that it makes my love for her seem completely meaningless. And I’m okay with that.

The truth of the Gospel is that whatever may be wrong with her is not the result of physical shortcomings that can be corrected by the things of this world. Her shortcomings are the result of sin and disease and they will have no power over her if she believes that Jesus Christ died for her.

The truth of the Gospel is that her body will run down and ultimately fail her. But she will be given a new body, one so healthy, so beautiful that nothing in this world could ever compare.

The truth of the Gospel is that this world, all the good and the bad in it (even her father who treasures her in ways that even he doesn’t comprehend), has no claim over her. She does not belong to this world… and for that I’m glad.

For in the truth of the Gospel we are set free, we are made beautiful, we are redeemed and restored to God. And Satan is fighting very very hard, overtly and covertly, to keep that from happening.

We need to open our eyes and see the things around us that are eroding our efforts to advance the kingdom of God. How about you? What subtle lies exist around you that aren’t immediately obvious?

Despite the integrity and good intentions of most people who use tools like Twitter, the low cost of usage and anonymity offered inevitably result in these systems being abused by people of questionable ethical standards. These people have no qualms about abandoning etiquette, stretching the truth, and attempting to manipulate the people the people that social media these tools allow them to access. All for personal gain. And because this behavior has a negative impact on those whose intentions are more noble, the “good guys” have started speaking out.

The dissent started out in the form of people publicly questioning the qualifications of self-proclaimed and self-important “Social Media Experts/Gurus/Ninjas/Gods“.

Some of the comments have been quite funny. One of my favorite examples is:

“‘Social Media Expert’? What does that mean? You’re really good at making Facebook profiles?”

You can find other examples by searching Google for “Social Media Expert”. I also recommend you check out Social Media Han Solo, which brilliantly integrates a Star Wars theme into its social media expert bashing. It’s funny.

How far has the pendulum swung?

Recently, the volume of critiques of social media efforts seem to be increasing. This new wave of criticism seems to be focusing on how people neglect the “social” aspects for social media.

Jeremiah Owyang recently drove this point home on his blog saying that companies should have a ‘Customer Strategy’ not a ‘Twitter or Facebook Strategy’.

Similarly, Amber Naslundm, director of Community for Radian6, in her post “Social Media Is Not the Disease” points out that it isn’t social media that’s the problem, it’s the people using it.

When you’re looking at whether or not “social media” is a blessing or a curse, remember this. It’s just the amplifier. The mechanism for the word, idea, attitude or behavior to spread faster and farther, and with less discretion. I’ve been thinking a lot about this for months, but my friend Linsday Allen’s post about a check skipper at a Tweetup hit on it once again. While the situation was unfortunate, social media itself isn’t the “fail” here, the people are.

The Fundamental Flaw

As much as I agree with these and other analysis of the shortfalls of social media, they themselves also fall short… (do you see what I did there?)

Social media tools enable people to connect with people in ways that previously were not feasible. As the the use of these tools increase, systems or networks start to develop based on how and why the members of that system participate. As these systems evolve, they become more focused, clarifying the value of participation and establishing their own conventions for participation.

This phenomenon is not unique to social media. The same pattern can be seen in the development of societies, in the evolution of business and trade, even in the evolution of religion. The world has a tendency to organize itself into systems to allow the members of those systems to achieve greater things than they could as individuals. This is not a bad thing.

The problem occurs when you and I, as individuals, are changed by our involvement in the system. We see this when we begin to focus (in our thinking and behavior) more on the system than on the components of that system. When the “means” of the system start to become “ends”. The flaw is that our awareness of the system overwhelms our awareness of what they system does for us.

That’s what’s going on with social media right now. People care more about the tools and how they work than they do about what they tools can accomplish.

Systems thinking

According to Wikipedia,

“Systems thinking is a framework that is based on the belief that the component parts of a system can best be understood in the context of relationships with each other and with other systems, rather than in isolation.”

Systems thinking as a methodology became popular in science after discovery that the any act of measuring something changes that thing, thus making it impossible to know the true nature of that which you are studying. Thus, systems thinking focuses on the interrelationships of objects and seeks to define “systems” of objects by how they affect each other.

Systems thinking is a very useful strategy methodology as it provides a framework for anticipating the effects that strategic actions will create throughout an organization’s ecosystem. It is also very useful in problems solving as it can shine light on causes that otherwise might not have been obvious.

Systems thinking falls short when the relationships of objects within the system are overemphasized to the detriment of the objects themselves. The main way that this primarily happens is that the different aspects of a system are over-generalized and thought of as conceptual categories.

An example of systems thinking in my life.

I’ll give you an example. I do strategy work for a company in China that designs innovative and lean manufacturing processes primarily for glass products (ranging from decorative Tiffany-style lampshades to insulated drive-shaft sleeves for power tools). I relate the owner of this company in a number of ways but the primary two are as a service provider (vendor) and as an adviser.

As a service provider, I mentally describe this company and the owner with a number of general concepts that also inform how to engage with them: customer, overseas business, manufacturers, business owner… All of these descriptors apply with various degrees of accuracy.

As an adviser I tend to think of this relationship based on general descriptions of the owner himself: man, 60 year old, American, expat, Christian, leader, boss, mentor, friend.

But none of these, no matter how many labels I apply, will ever fully capture who Bill really is. There’s nothing wrong with objectifying Bill as I do, I would not be able to serve him if I did not.

But, in the busyness of the day-to-day or when trying to create consistent levels of excellent service to my customers, it is easy to forget that Bill is first and foremost a person. And when I lose touch with the “personal” Bill for the sake of my well-designed and well-defined system, I will always (without fail) marginalize him in some way.

You cannot operate a system that applies 100 percent of the time. There will always be outliers, exceptions to the rules. Someone somewhere will not “fit” the boundaries that we have defined. It’s inevitable.

“People strategies” miss the mark.

It’s encouraging to see a re-emphasis in our society on valuing the human- or people- aspect of how we act. Whether it’s the rise of “social” entrepreneurship or the emphasis on community among today’s churches. If Jesus teaches that “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.” (Matthew 22:37-40 ESV emaphsis mine), it stands to reason that valuing others is extremely important to God (second only to loving God).

But, integrating “people” generally into our “systems” will always fall short. No matter which characteristics we use to define “people” there will always be a person that exists outside of our system.

Note that the object of Jesus’s command is not general, it’s personal. Jesus isn’t saying “love neighbors”, he is explicitly clarifying that I am to love my neighbor. The specificity of this command points to what is often lost, that the target of our love is a person. They are a person in the same way that I am a person. And that is the extent to which I am to love them, encompassing every single thing about them. I am to love them as an individual.

What is your “person” strategy?

I feel the need to say again (for the record) that I am pro-system thinking. I am also pro-”people” strategies and pro-”social” social media. I’m encouraged when humanity is valued in any context.

That being said, it is infinitely more valuable for you and me to truly love and serve one single person than anything else.

Above all else, our strategies must be “person” strategies. That means that as we devise create approaches for reaching the least and the lost we MUST NOT value the individual less than the corporate. As we build systems that increase our ministry reach, scale, and efficiency, our mechanisms MUST BE able to be adapted to the specific needs and opportunity of ONE PERSON. Our strategic vision and focus MUST NOT overlook the individual.

Given the choice of impacting the person we are with versus focusing our attention on impacting hundreds or thousands through our ministry or business, we must choose the individual.

It may feel counter-intuitive but Scripture drives this message home again and again:

• Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares. (Hebrews 13:2 ESV)
• Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance. (Luke 15:7 ESV)
• What do you think? If a man has a hundred sheep, and one of them has gone astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine on the mountains and go in search of the one that went astray? (Matthew 18:12 ESV)

What do you think? In your efforts to love and serve people, are you neglecting the person? How can we ensure that we don’t lose focus on individuals?

I believe that  kingdom excellence is not contingent on achieving perfection; however, perfection does play a significant role in excellence. You can be excellence without being perfect.

What I’ve come to realize is that the kingdom perspective of perfection is that although perfection can never be attained by our human effort, it must be our goal nonetheless.

By striving for a God’s standard of perfection that is never within our reach we must acknowledge our utter reliance on God. Furthermore, we are able to see the expanse that separates our best effort from God’s perfection and it is then that we begin to recognize the enormity of what Jesus Christ has done for us by achieving perfection in our place. We see that God is both just and merciful. We are set free from ourselves because we do not hold on as tightly to our own success or failure.

It is only when we are freed from the illusion that we can achieve perfection we receive the power to try.

Kingdom excellence means hungering for perfection. Kingdom excellence means constantly striving for perfection in a way that reflects the truth that it is Jesus, not me, who has attained it. Kingdom excellence is trying my best and when I get knocked down, kingdom excellence is the power to get up and try again.

I am grateful for C.S. Lewis for his understanding of this and his unique ability to explain it to me:

We may, indeed, be sure that perfect chastity — like perfect charity — will not be attained by any merely human efforts. You must ask for God’s help. Even when you have done so, it may seem to you for a long time that no help, or less help than you need, is being given. Never mind. After each failure, ask forgiveness, pick yourself up, and try again. Very often What God first helps us towards is not the virtue itself but just this power of always trying again. For however important chastity (or courage, or truthfulness, or any other virtue) may be, this process trains us in habits of the soul which are more important still. It cures our illusions about ourselves and teaches us to depend on God. We learn, on the one hand, that we cannot trust ourselves even in our best moments, and on the other, that we need not despair even in our worst, for our failures are forgiven. The only fatal thing is to sit down content with anything less than perfection.

– C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

1. The opportunity for extensive culture-making in the U.S.
2. The rise of Islam.
3. The new non-western Global Christianity.
4. The growing cultural remoteness of the gospel.
5. The end of prosperity?

I recommend you head over to the Redeemer City to City website and read what Keller has to say about these issues. It helps to focus on these shifts in the evangelistic landscape of the West. Doing so will help us to anticipate new opportunities and threats to our efforts to achieving our goals as Kingdom strategists.

One thing I am encouraged by as I read these is that in many ways the Western Church has already begun to address these issues. In particular, the Business as Mission movement exists primarily either in response to these changes or as a means of addressing them.

For example, Keller addresses “The opportunity for extensive culture-making in the U.S.” by referring to an interview with sociologist Peter Berger. In the interview Berger notes that the make-up of U.S. evangelicals is shifting from mainly blue-collar and is more represented by people who have a college education.

Berger anticipates that these evangelicals, as they engage in professional careers (like the arts or medicine), will do one of three things:

His question is–will Christians going into the arts, business, government, the media, and film a) assimilate to the existing baseline cultural narratives so they become in their views and values the same as other secular professionals and elites, or b) will they seal off and privatize their faith from their work so that, effectively, they do not do their work in any distinctive way, or c) will they do enough new Christian ‘culture-making’ in their fields to change things?

My Business as Mission research has shown that the leaders of the Business as Mission movement have resoundingly chosen the third option and are intentionally seeking to change the culture of global business through their entrepreneurial efforts. Not only that, but Business as Mission represents a worldview where the first two responses (assimilation and isolation) aren’t even options.

I am encouraged that the men and women who engage in Business as Mission have been so transformed by the Gospel and so inspired by the call of Jesus in their life that they are aggressively seeking to be on mission in the cross-cultural context of global and local business, facilitated by the authenticity that their knowledge, training, and experience creates.

The Church needs creative strategies (like Business as Mission) as it seeks to be agents and servants of the kingdom of God.

Read Keller’s full post here.

“Most people spend their lives trying to make their heart’s fondest dreams come true… We never imagine that getting our heart’s deepest desires might be the worst thing that can ever happen to us.” –Timothy Keller

Counterfeit Gods by Timothy Keller

I have a fondness for Tim Keller primarily because he was the first preacher that I ever heard preach the Gospel. Granted, that is an exaggeration. What I really mean is Tim Keller was preaching when Jesus Christ opened my eyes, ears, and heart to the truth of the Gospel. My wife (girlfriend at the time) had started attending Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Manhattan because she was familiar with his preaching. I had grown up going to church but had fallen away through college and my early 20′s. It was a period when God persistently and forcefully reclaimed his rightful place as Lord of me, unraveling years and years of my own effort to replace him (primarily done out of spite after my mother passed away). So I consider myself quite fortunate that I got to hear Keller preach every Sunday during the crescendo of God’s redemptive work in my life. Anyway, I digress.

Keller has tremendous insight into the truths of the Kingdom of God and Jesus’s redemptive work in the world. And he has a remarkable ability to speak those truths in a away that clears away a lot of the clutter (be it our own baggage or the religiosity of many parts of the church) creating a clear path from your eyes (for his books) or your ears (for his preaching) into your brain and deep into your heart.

Counterfeit Gods is no different. In it Keller tackles the subject of idolatry – the tendency of the human heart to “take good things… and turn them into ultimate things.”

Why idolatry is a problem.

According to Keller (well, according to Jesus, the Word of God, and revealed to us through the Scriptures), humans were made to worship. We are designed to reflect and be filled with God’s glory. (Simply stated) that is the point of creation.

Because of sin, we chose to exult ourselves to the supreme position that is God’s and thus are separated from God’s glory and love. However, our nature has not changed, we still need to worship. It is how we are.

Separated from God, our heart establishes idols, focusing its worship on something, be it a career or relationships or money or approval. We all worship something. And our blind pursuit of these “false gods” draws us farther and farther from God’s presence, opening us up to more and more sin.

Only God’s love can truly satisfy our heart’s desires, can truly fill us. Everything else ultimately leaves us empty (and in the process, further remove us from God’s love). This is idolatry.

What to expect from the book

In the first five chapters, Keller describes some of the most prevalent idols in today’s culture: Love, Money, Success, and Power. In each chapter, he provides current examples and shows how different people in the Bible struggled greatly with these idols. He ends each chapter pointing out that these Bible stories are stories of redemption from idol worship, that God’s grace and mercy is the only thing that can break the power these idols have over us. The exclamation point of each chapter is that God’s grace and mercy have been manifested in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, alluding to the hope that he represents for the reader’s struggle with their own idols.

Starting at chapter six, Keller turns his attention to applying our new awareness of the dangers of idolatry. He then proceeds to address how to identify your personal idols and how faith in Jesus will transform your heart, freeing you from the bonds of slavery.

Implications for a Kingdom Strategist

Idolatry is a force that affects every person. Personally, we must be on guard because we are susceptible to this tendency in our own lives. Even though we, as Kingdom Strategists, are striving to serve God, our hearts are still idolatrous. Counterfeit Gods is helpful to draw our attention to the areas of our lives that are most susceptible to idolatry and to help us to constantly focus on the cross of Jesus Christ, which sets u free.

In our work as Kingdom Strategists it is beneficial to think about the challenges we’re working to overcome in terms of idolatry. Thinking about the idols in peoples’ lives can help shine light on their motivation. All of which make us better at anticipating challenges and outcomes from our efforts. It also helps to orient our solutions to the underlying problems of the heart which will increase the effectiveness of the solutions we develop.

I highly recommend Counterfeit Gods (or any of Keller’s other works). If you’re interested you can purchase the book here.

…Just so you know, all the links are affliiate links. So if you click them and purchase the book, I’ll get paid… like $0.04.

The following is another excerpt from the BAM Survey 2007 Report. The BAM Survey 2007 Report is an in-depth assessment of the state of the Business as Mission movement based on survey responses from 497 people in 38 countries. You can purchase an electronic copy of the BAM Survey 2007 Report for $14.99 here.

Business as Mission Companies Create Eternal Value Through Strategic Management

Whereas evangelism, profit, and (to a lesser extent) mission to the developing world were the historic points of contention for the Business as Mission movement, BAM leaders have built a foundation on these elements and are now working to clarify the principles under which Business as Mission companies operate. This focus on clarification has become necessary as Business as Mission is one of many strategies in existence that mixes general business activities with evangelism and ministry efforts aimed at unreached people groups. Though similar in nature to strategies like tent-making, micro-enterprise, micro-development, and workplace ministry, there are important distinctions between each in terms of intentions, methods, means, and outcomes. Irresponsible mixing of terms and tenets has leads to confusion and distraction and ultimately hinders the Business as Mission movement from gaining further momentum.

Currently the Business as Mission movement does not have a systematic, integrated approach for defining, organizing, and analyzing methodologies, and metrics that drive kingdom impact. Through our research, we are able to draw on the collective experience of Business as Mission leaders and lay the foundation for the development of an applicable framework for transforming strategy into action.

Clarification of Objectives

Not all Business as Mission undertakings will or should have the same objectives; nor should BAM practitioners rule out the possibility that their operations will be used for some type of transformation that they did not plan for. This is important because integrating specific BAM objectives (whatever they should be) along with the business’s financial, creative, and productive goals requires clarity in order to maintain productivity towards accomplishing all goals.

Our research shows that, according to respondents “Very Familiar” with Business as Mission, the most agreed upon objective of BAM is to Build the local economy and bless the nation^[1] (Table D). The second most agreed upon objective is Providing access to many locations^[2]. Survey data also indicates that making a profit, evangelizing and targeting the developing world are key objectives of the movement.

These objectives highlight the perceived advantages Business as Mission adds to the goals of traditional, donor-driven mission efforts – a self-funded vehicle that provides creative access to evangelize and minister to unreached people groups. However, they also highlight the need for further refinement of how strategic Business as Mission objectives are formulated and set. Behind each objective identified in the survey lies an assortment of motivations, interpretations, and expectations for fulfillment. These factors further magnify the complexity of Business as Mission and can make it difficult to know how day-to-day activities and operations contribute to the strategic BAM objectives.

In talking about Business as Mission goals we must resist the tendency to become myopic in our orientation. Ultimately, we are not in control of whether or not we accomplish these goals. Thus, Business as Mission goals and objectives must be understood as guidelines that describe the potential for kingdom impact that BAM companies have. Our discussion of factors that contribute toward these goals is aimed at furthering the Business as Mission movement’s understanding of what experience has shown to be effective.

The following is another excerpt from the BAM Survey 2007 Report. The BAM Survey 2007 Report is an in-depth assessment of the state of the Business as Mission movement based on survey responses from 497 people in 38 countries. You can purchase an electronic copy of the BAM Survey 2007 Report for $14.99 here.

Who are the Business as Mission leaders? (part 3)

Business as Ministry

It is clear from the survey results that the belief that missions/ministry work can be done in the business context is widely accepted (Exhibit 4). In fact, as many survey respondents believe that Business as Mission is beneficial to the kingdom as those who believe Missions work is beneficial to the kingdom (96 percent agree with each) (4.1 and 4.2). However, it is not as widely accepted that general business (operated ethically) is beneficial to the kingdom (only 60 percent agree and 21 percent disagree) (4.3). The fact that 83 percent of all respondents agree that Work in a business is a ministry (4.4) suggests that the Business as Mission movement distinguishes between the impact a business (organization) can have and the impact that individuals within a business have.

Business as Mission is more than just doing business ethically

It’s particularly interesting that respondents in the Business, Non-Profit, and Education fields all agree to the same extent that Work in a business is a ministry (82 percent, 82 percent, and 85 percent respectively). However, fewer Business respondents agree that Any ethical business is beneficial to the kingdom (59 percent) compared to Non-Profit and Education respondents (64 percent and 63 percent respectively).

This may point to an increased awareness among Christian businesspeople of the importance of being intentional in using business as an opportunity to minister. Whether this is a result of experience or in response to increased scrutiny and criticism the business world receives as a result of the sacred/secular divide is unknown.

In Business as Mission, the company itself is a part in the ministry

One of the core distinctions between Business as Mission and other approaches to integrating business and mission/ministry (e.g. workplace ministry, tent-making, micro-development, etc) is that in BAM some or all aspects of the business (organization) contribute to the missional purpose. Business as Mission involves the manifestation of a missional purpose at both the individual level and the organizational level. What the missional purpose is and how it is manifested at both levels is influenced by many different factors.

Given that respondents universally accept the benefit of Business as Mission (4.1) but do not completely accept individual (4.4) and organizational (4.3) impact in business implies that some people do not understand how Business as Mission incorporates both. Only 53 percent of all respondents agree that Work in a business is a ministry and that Any ethical business is beneficial to the kingdom. Additionally, 22 percent of respondents who agree that Work in a business is a ministry did not agree Any ethical business is beneficial to the kingdom.

Thus, a majority of people understand the individual aspect of BAM transformation; but, a significant portion of the movement does not understand or agree with the organizational aspect. In order to address this disconnect, it is important how BAM leaders run their companies to create impact. In the next section we look at four aspects of Business as Mission strategic management: objectives, organization and coordination, metrics, and resource allocation.
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Did you enjoy this? Click here to purchase the full survey report. Enjoy instant access to the full survey report, including more in-depth analysis, charts, graphs and figures. Only $14.99. Purchase your copy today!

In order to be effective, good strategy must be simple.

Simple to understand.

Simple to communicate.

Simple to execute.

As strategists, our job is to achieve simplicity while not sacrificing the quality in our content or purpose. We are the ones who lead people to the simplicity that exists on the far side of complexity.

Today’s Management Tip of the Day from the Harvard Business Review presents three C’s to help you and your organization eliminate complexity and achieve simplicity:

1. Collaboration. Silos are the enemy of simplicity. Work across the organization to identify where the complexity is and together improve the way business is done.
2. Coordination. Smooth coordination is critical to finding simple solutions to the problems you’re trying to solve.
3. Communication. Once you’ve gotten rid of complexity, you can be sure it will try to find its way back in. Open and regular communication will allow you to identify it before it takes hold.

One thing they point out is that simple doesn’t necessarily mean easy. Our goal as kingdom strategists is to find creative and effective ways to share Christ and advance the kingdom. It is our duty to remove as much friction from the process as possible because we do not want to create any unnecessary obstacles for the people we are serving. We have an obligation make whatever we do as simple as possible, even it doing so makes our situation harder.

You can read the full article here.

Image: http://lawsofsimplicity.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/06/switch_lg.jpg

We have not had much traction in finding groups looking to set more standards that they would then have to adopt/invest effort to measure up to.  It is a particularly challenging time for mission organizations trying to do as much as they can, as well as they can with shrinking resources.

The current period of declined giving and constrained resources has taken a toll on the strategic outlook of ministry leaders. The current conditions seem to be overwhelming some organizations and as a result they are content just doing what it takes to get by. According to another leader in a missions organization:

Our organization is just trying to get something semi-useful up on the web.  We do not have the expertise, finance, or skills to do it in a highly professional fashion.

I by no means think that these or other missions leaders are giving up. I know that commitment and sacrifice that these men and women make in their lives. It is amazing the level of dedication that you will find in all levels of missions organizations and it is an honor to get to know and work with them.

I'm doing the best I can.

What do you think? Is excellence online somehow related to the amount of resources at your disposal? Or can an organization be excellent even in this period of budget cuts? And if so, how do we convince mission leaders who are just trying to get by that there is more? Please share your thoughts in the comments below.

And I invite you to join with us as we explore these issues in greater detail. Visit us at the State of Ministry Online website to learn more about the Online Kingdom Excellence project and to explore ways that you can be involved.

Jesus Christ is on Facebook

I personally am a huge proponent of Christians leveraging the power of the Internet to advance the Kingdom and to give glory to God. I recognize that the web is changing the way people live their lives, I see it in my own family. My nigh-two year old is already comfortable with video calls and would rather look at pictures of her mother and brother on the computer than look at them in person. It is apparent to me that Internet will be a integral aspect of the lives of future generations of Christians.

As Christians around the world are exploring new expressions of faith within the virtual context of the web, people are forming strong opinions on what it means to be a church online. Though there has been some discourse on these issues, most of people’s attention is focused on making online church a reality. As a result, foundations are being laid for future generations without truly understanding what it is that is being built.

People argue that subjecting online church to examination and measurement will stifle progress and even discourage people from coming to the faith by online churches. While those are both valid concerns, I believe our generation has an obligation to study online church, subjecting our theories and practices to critical analysis and testing, and debating the issues. Here’s why:

15 reasons why “online church” should be debated:

1. We have a limited capacity to discern God’s will

Scripture tells us that we can not achieve the fullness of knowledge of God and his will. So if our desire is to build God’s church, then we must acknowledge that no individual or no group of people will be able to fully understand what or why or how we are supposed to be the church online. If we recognize this to be true then the natural response is to humble ourselves and say, “If what I know and believe is incomplete and may not be right. Then I should supplement it with counsel from diverse backgrounds and beliefs.”

2. God has revealed a lot as to what church should be

Scripture is chocked full of guidance and examples that shape our ecclesiology. The broad range of church formats and traditions that exist offline demonstrate how complex the topic is and how varied different interpretations are. Moving church online adds additional complexity and will most likely compound any errors in our thinking.

3. The stakes are high

It’s easy, especially when dealing with the context of the Internet, to dehumanize the effort of building the church. We conclude that the point is to bring people in; the point is to get God’s message to as many people as possible. We see this dehumanizing in traditional churches who focus on attendance numbers or conversions or other metrics.

At the end of the day, everything that we do around church online is about you, the person sitting at your computer reading these words right now. It is about you and about how much God loves you and what he has done and is doing so that you might be restored to him. It isn’t about making you feel better or just giving you hope when you are facing tough times. It is about saving your soul from an eternity of separation from God, your maker, your Father, your source of life and love. We must never forget that it is you that we are here to serve.

Because if God loves you so much that he would send his own Son to be tortured and killed… and if God asks me to help him in bringing you home… you better believe that I am going to take my responsibility seriously and do everything I can to make sure I am not messing up. That means engaging in critical thinking about what it is that I’m doing.

4. Satan wants us to fail

Ultimately the point of any church, online or not, is to glorify God. Satan HATES that. He hates it when God is glorified and he is working very hard in this world to do whatever he can to steal God’s glory. As we strive to build a church online that gives greater glory to God, you can bet that Satan will be against it. If the forces of this world are set against our efforts, is it not wise for us to draw together, unified as the body of Christ, as we work to build the church?

5. Opportunity to show off Christ in how we engage the process

Engaging in debate with other Christians is a tremendous opportunity to show off the beauty of Jesus Christ to the rest of the world. A willingness to listen to others (especially others that we disagree with) is so contrary to what the world’s culture expects that the world will take notice when actively and civilly engage in this manner. More importantly, through this process we have an opportunity to model what Christ called us to when he said, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” (John 13:34-35) We can not walk away from engaging other Christians just because they disagree with us and what we’re doing. We must actively love them and the best way to do that is showing up.

6. The world IS watching

How Christians engage in this time is especially important because the rest of the world is watching. In the last four months, CNN.com has published three different articles reporting on how faith is expressed online. The most recent one from November 13th addresses this very debate. The world is watching what we do.

7. To encourage accountability

Not only is how we approach online church being observed by the secular world, but other Christians are watching too. We can preach and teach and challenge and train and disciple others all we want. But the best way for us to encourage Christians to be Christ-like is through the integrity of our own actions. Being willing to critically analyze what we’re doing as we build churches online demonstrates a willingness to be accountable to the greater church. Accountability to other Christians who are committed to building the church (whether or not they agree with the different points of online church) minimizes the risk of our motives becoming about anything other than Jesus Christ.

8. Traditional churches don’t get it “right”

While the context of the Internet does change a number of things and it definitely creates opportunities for the church that have never existed before. Much of the appeal of online church is the opportunity to start new, to do things differently than what traditional churches have done. We talk a lot about the “churched” and in many ways, the success of some modern churches comes from ministering to those who have been hurt by a church in the past. Righting the wrongs of the past, so to speak.

In the history of all churches, regardless of denomination, modern, post-modern, post-post modern… no one church has ever gotten it “right“. As we embark into uncharted territory, we do have a unique opportunity to learn from the mistakes of the past and, in doing so, create a solid foundation for the churches of the future. Not only that but it would be arrogant to assume that online churches will get it right. Refusing to engage in debate or to study what online church is, robs us of that opportunity. You know what they say: “Those who do not learn from history…”

9. The Peter Principle

The Peter principle states that people rise within organizations to the level of their own incompetence but no further. I bring this up because, despite the fact that the development of online churches is being driven by some amazing and talented leaders, men who I respect a lot, what they are able to build is limited by their own incompetence or inability or whatever limitations that may exist.

I don’t say this to be mean, I say this to be realistic. On their own, based on their own vision, the online churches they lead can only go so far. We must all seek to grow in our understanding of what we are called to be as the church. One of the best ways to ensure our vision does not become stagnant is to engage different perspectives in debate.

Doing so creates additional benefits to the process as well:

10. To eliminate confirmation bias

Online church is a relatively new concept and there isn’t a lot of history or experience to draw from. Much of the vision for what an online church should be is based on individuals’ own beliefs. Human beings are subject to a quirky cognitive phenomenon known as “confirmation bias” which is “a tendency to search for or interpret new information in a way that confirms one’s preconceptions and to irrationally avoid information and interpretations which contradict prior beliefs.” (Wikipedia)

Basically we see things how we want to see them, whether we are right or not. In order to ensure that I’m not recklessly pursuing an idea just because it is mine, I need to seek the contribution of others.

11. To avoid group-think

Seeking the contribution of others is not enough. Research has identified a tendency of groups to make decisions and reach consensus on issues without critically testing the merit of that consensus. They do so in order to avoid conflict. Group-think, as it is called, results in individuals conforming to the will of the group and thus negating the benefits that the diversity of a group can create. Engaging in a greater debate on online church will bring together alternative viewpoints that allow us to test the validity of what we believe.

12. To be adaptable

The rate of growth and change of the Internet is astounding. Here are some statistics on the growth of Internet usage. And if you haven’t yet, you should watch the “Did You Know? videos.

Keeping up with all the changes in technology, content, resources and trends is taxing. It’s impossible for a single person to stay ahead of all of the change. Plus as the scale of the Internet grows, the amount of (for lack of a better word) crap that is out there grows as well, making it easy to get distracted.

In the environment of the ever changing, ever-shifting Internet, our ability to stay on task and to focus on what is truly important is diminished. By committing to critically evaluating what exactly it is that we’re trying to do through church online, we create focus for our efforts and guard ourselves against our purpose becoming overwhelmed.

13. To sustain innovation

Innovation requires continual investment in and commitment to learning. Focusing our efforts is one component for sustaining the innovation that is one of the hallmarks of online church. Additionally, we need to periodically stop and try to understand what it is that the Holy Spirit has done and is doing through our efforts at building the church online. Doing so builds a foundation of knowledge and learning that will support future efforts.

14. To facilitate learning

If we want our efforts to build church online to have a lasting impact then we must also make it easy for other churches, those who aren’t pioneering online church, to understand what we’ve done and to integrate it into their own vision for their church. If you are a proponent of online church and you believe that this is the future of Christianity, then wouldn’t you want for other churches to get your vision, to become as passionate about this as you are.

If we desire for other churches to leverage the Internet to benefit their mission and we are motivated by love for them, then we need to make it as easy as possible for them to understand what it is that we are doing. It is our responsibility to lovingly and patiently come alongside other churches and help them to move past whatever objections to online church are holding them back.

15. Ultimately none of this will matter

But at the end of it all, the most important reason to engage in debate and study of online church is because ultimately none of this will matter.

Christ will return and complete his work of redemption in this world. At that time all of the sin, challenges, context and culture of this world that defines how we are doing church online will be wiped away. All of our work to create meaningful worship online, to facilitate evangelism and mission through the web, all of it will be gone. It won’t matter how robust our infrastructure was or how cool our website was. It won’t matter how well we understood SEO or social media marketing. Our ability to create compelling and visually stunning videos that reduce thousands of people to tears  simply. won’t. matter. anymore.

I have a friend who started a company in China that makes many products, one of which are these beautiful replica Tiffany lampshades. They’re amazing.

The beauty lies not just in the end product, but in the whole story. The vision for bring Christ to the people of China, the opportunities to create a business and employ hundreds of people. Not only the way that the employees are developed to be excellent craftsmen, but also how they are lead to see themselves the way that God sees them, as beautiful and worthy. All of this is the Truth in the glass that they make.

But in the end, my friend would argue that everything that he has built is not important, despite the tremendous Kingdom impact he has had. He explains it this way:

I believe that when I die, I’ll go to heaven and I’ll sit down at a table with Peter and with Jesus and they’ll conduct what can best be described as a job interview. The point of all of which will be to determine what I should do in heaven.

I imagine Jesus starting off by saying, “Bill, it is so great to see you! I am so happy that you are here. I’ve really enjoyed what you’ve done while on earth. Why don’t you tell us a little bit about what you can do?”

So I think to myself and say, “Well, I can make these really amazing lampshades.”

And I look at Jesus, who never stops smiling, and he says, “That’s great! But… there’s just one thing… there isn’t any darkness here… So, what else can you do?“

In the end what we do as we strive to build churches online, to use the power of the Internet to reach the unreached, to love the unloved, to care for the widows and the orphans, to spread the beautiful name of Jesus Christ to all the nations, simply won’t matter.

I believe that Jesus cares less about the what and more about the why and the how. So let’s commit ourselves, in love, to work together to figure this out. Let’s engage in civil but critical discussion. Let’s let go of our own pride and our own beliefs and assumptions that we hold tightly in our clenched fists. Let’s come together, with open hands, and approach the throne of God and say “Thy Kingdom come. Thy will be done.”