Tuesday, April 13, 2010

108. Consulting



I used to think that consulting was the same thing as coaching. There is actually a big difference between the two. I am finding that I thrive in the consulting role more than I do in the coaching role, although I end up doing more coaching than consulting these days.

After finding myself in a consulting role several times this year with various organizations, I began to reflect on the process of consulting I would go through. The following is what I came up with.

Dwell
Dig
Discover
Digest
Distill
Define
Diagnose
Direct
Dialogue
Develop
Distance
Dance
Download

The next few posts I will sort of put some meat on these concepts as they relate to my experience with consulting. [Pic taken from here.]

Tuesday, April 06, 2010

107. Entrepreneurial Intelligence

99 Percent is a great resource for apostolic folks because it is all about the start up.

Ever thought about the fact that entrepreneurial people possess their own sort of intelligence? This short talk highlights 8 aspects of what some people are calling SEQ, or, Social Entrepreneurship Intelligence.



I love the concept of being "asset Based".Basically what she is saying is that entrepreneurial people have a lot of faith and do not mind pressing forward even though there appears to be no solution or resource ahead. They are creative in accumulating and generating resources for sure. But there is another side to this kind of intelligence. There is a kind of intuition that thrives in the unknown, ambiguous, uncertain realm of the frontier. Operating on the fringe is not for everyone. Entrepreneurs thrive on the periphery, on the outer limits of the frontier. It takes a certain kind of intelligence to trek the wide open spaces of unexplored territories. Entrepreneurial Intelligence.....quite a concept.

Sunday, April 04, 2010

106. Keep Inspiring Me

Ran across this really cool site. It is a good break from the tons of information on the web. Very creative and, as the site says, inspiring.

Saturday, April 03, 2010

105. Ideas for missional Comunities to Cultivate Relationships in their Neighborhoods

This list of ideas has been copiled by some 20 people who have been added to a Google Wave I started.  The purpose of the wave is to brainstorm on creative ideas to build relationships in your neighborhood. I am listing them here for your enjoyment. There have been a lot of really cool contributions to this list by some very thoughtful folks.

  • Host a National Night Out
  • Facilitate a neighborhood yard sale
  • Pass out 9 volt batteries for people to replace in their smoke detector
  • Host a back yard theater and show a movie
  • Prayer Walk your neighborhood at least twice a month
  • Drop off a nice bottle of wine to your neighbor with a note "Love to get to know you guys sometime. Call and well enjoy this bottle together." (ripped from Hugh Halter in Tangible Kingdom)
  • Pass out fliers offering free gardening or landscaping help
  • Organize a play station/X Box/Wii tournament for the kids in the neighborhood. (If someone has the Beatles Rock Band kit you can even get the adults to play on that!)
  • Assemble "doggie bags" with items that homeless people need like food and hygiene products and pass out to those in your community as the need arises or you encounter them.
  • Shoot a video of your neighbors responding to the questions "What things do you like about this neighborhood?" and "What things would you like to change in the neighborhood?"
  • During the Christmas season, facilitate a Christmas carolling event, inviting your neighbors to participate with hot chocolate and cider at the end.
  • Host a front yard/backyard concert with a bring your own meat for the grill.
  • Bake some chocolate chip cookies and take them next door....still warm and chewy.
  • Take your office to the nearest coffee shop you can find.
  • Form a Neighborhood Watch group and volunteer to be the block captain.
  • Ask your neighbors if they would like you to stop by once a month to pick up items they may want to give to the local food shelf. Used shoes can also be collected and sent to this organization that has many local drop-off sites nationally: http://www.soles4souls.org/
  • Create a "spiritual map" "spiritual map" of your city - and invite other missions-minded people in a process of 1- Discover, 2- Inspiration and 3- Incarnation.
  • Host a party on your front yard during Halloween and serve "Hallo-weeners" (hot dogs) to all who stop by.
  • Host a ground hog day party on your front yard. Fix different kinds of soup for folks to try out. 
 If you would like to contribute to the list of ideas, leave a comment and I will add it to the final list. I plan to get the word out about this list after the summer is over. Hopefully it will be helpful to some folks who are wanting to engage their local neighborhood in a meaningful way.

104. Group Multiplication

Our group here just had its first multiplication. It is quite a milestone as we have been a this thing for about 3 1/2 years. Needless to say, it has been quite a learning experience. I wanted to share the options we entertained as a group for how we were going to approach multiplying the group. They conveniently fell into a list of L's.

Launch. This option revolves around someone in the group feeling called to launch out away from the group and start another group from scratch, say two to three people. I would like to say that this is ideal, but that is my apostolic side coming out.No one in our group felt this calling, so we moved on to another option.

Like. This is when you mutliply based on existing chemistry between people in the group. This is a viable option, but it is a bit inward focused. We all did not like this idea as it lent itself to clicks and had the smell of bening self-centered. Not toally, but it smells that way.

Little Ones. This did play a factor in our multiplication process. Kids are a part of the community, and we try to include them in our discussions and factor them in to our decisions. Because we have a large number of kids in the group, we did not want one group to have all the kids and the other group to have none. Part of the reason for our multiplication was logistical issues like space. So to put all the kids in one group would create the same dilemma all over again.We wanted to make sure the kid factor was evenly distributed and did not duplicate some of our logistical issues.

List. This is where you pass around a sheet of pare with three lists on them. Group #1, Group #2, and "I'll Go Where I'm Needed." this is similar to the "like" option, but it does have a twist that allows people the somewhat anonymous option of saying, it doesn't matter.  I know some folks who use this option and sometimes it works well. But it does seem to leave out a discussion about mission.

Leanings. This has to do with giftings and passions. We also listed off everyone's giftings from APEST typology to see what each multiplication options looked like and how the gifts would be distributed in each scenario.

Location. The other option was to multiply based on geography. We ended up doing it this way, but the kid factor was  apart of this discussion. We multiplied the groups into a North Ikon and a South Ikon. We use these descriptors for communication purposes, as in our email lists etc. But there is no branding going on here. It is more in house language for distinction. Sort of the private face of the communities as opposed to the public face. there was some mission strategy involved here as we see ourselves being sent into our neighborhoods and 3rd places. When our groups begin to saturate the city, we will be strategically located to for community engagement. The location piece also vibed with our Leanings and Little one's. It turned out to be a great deal. But it did not come without much discussion and dissecting. Needless to say, some have more tolerance for dissecting than others ;-)

That being said, we are not opposed to the other models of multiplication. One thing we made sure to do was to draw this process out and approach it from as many angles as possible. It took us about a month to go through it all. We wanted to hit it from all sides because eventually each group need to revisit this process. It was sort of a foundational moment for us when it comes to multiplying a group. 

I must say that I ma quite giddy about all of this and that I can't wait to see how the two groups take on a life of their own and begin to flourish in their giftings and callings. Our goal is a movement of multiplying disciples, leaders and churches. We are learning how to do this hands on, and it is quite an adventure. We are going to be drilling down deeper into multiplying on a disciple level, and not just a group level as well. This summer we plan to blitz some neighborhoods with prayer walking, and community engagement.  Who knows what God is preparing for us!

103. Integrative Leadership

I am obviously drawn to writing about leadership that falls within the realm of the apostolic, prophetic and evangelistic (APE). I have an even stronger draw towards the apostolic as that is my gifting. But I do not want to be guilty of the same thing that I criticize the predominantly Shepherd Teacher (ST) forms of leadership the predominate the consciousness of the church. This would be a travesty too. The solution to the current exiling of the APE's is not to create a vacuum in the institution. Removing ST folks and replacing them with APE's would be just as much a travesty as a leadership system dominated by the ST's. While the APE's are the most generative forms of leadership, we need integrative forms of leadership as well. This is where the ST folks come in. Whenever you have generative forms of leadership working in tandem with integrative forms of leadership, then you ultimately have an adaptive system of leadership. Generative leadership can get things going, but it is significantly challenged with keeping them going. Integrative leadership can keep things going, but it can not generate anything new, or at least not with the intensity and efficiency as the generative types of leadership. We need both operating in the mix if we are to become adaptive. This is quite a challenge, but is feasible, if not down right critical. For too long the church as been lopsided and maladaptive. We need a family reunion under the enthroned Jesus who has given us this beautiful spectrum of gifts.