How failure plays its part

Shizuka Arakawa – how did you become such an accomplished figure skater? “In training I fell 20,000 times which I took as evidence that I was getting better.”

How to make champions – they are made when they are on the outside edge of their comfort zone. They are prone to failure.

To lament is impatient insistent protest. It takes courage to pray in this way. Not to lament leads to our present situation – Resignation, passivity, blind acceptance, numbness.”  Things don’t always go as we want them to go. Lamentation is our “out”.

Because we don’t lament, so instead we just keep things going; we stay in maintenance mode.

How do we keep this whole thing going?

Chessboard – we have bishops which only move diagonally. Then we have pawns, ordinary churchgoers which can only move in one direction, very slowly. Then we have Queens which are the church wardens who can attach in eery direction.

Are you a church into feedback or busyness?

There is something going on in the midst of failure which is really good.

We have got into perfectionism.

Think of a time when you failed. How did it feel? What did you do about it?

Can you invite everywhere?

There are lots of examples of what church might look like.

Back to what? From Simon to Simon Peter

God calls us to much more than acts of worship.

Simon when he first came on the scene was a bone-head. Later on his shadow starts healing people. Something happened as he was formed in company with Christ. This is the depth of the power of Christianity.

Christianity today is more about knowing about God than knowing God. This is a  lowering of the standard of Christianity.

We have become a church of volunteers. We don’t select by purpose; we select by pulse.

The church genome project – how the body works.

1. know me

2. focus on me

3. care about me

4. inspire me

Who are you discipling?

We need to put the right people in the right situations.

To explore our vocations our calling. Put people in their gifting area.

Joseph had to go to Egypt to fulfill his destiny.

Sometimes you get sent to all sorts of different places to fulfill what God calls you to do.

Anglican people need to arise and become all they were meant to be.

For a few weeks live as if all this were really true, that actually what we really have is utter truth. That Emanuelle – our God is with us.

10 Keys

Belief System

If you accept a belief
You reap a thought
If you sow a thought
You reap an attitude
If you sow an attitude
You reap an action
If you sow an action
You reap a habit
If you so a habit
You reap a character
If you sow a character
You reap a destiny

Thinking has to change. The other things will come into place when we change our thinking.

1. God sent you His precious people – can we have this thought, that God sent them and that they are precious?

2. spend more time with newcomers than regulars – people often don’t feel as if they belong – if the church leader welcomes and spends time with the newcomers it is as if the church is welcoming.

3. manage the first impression. Newcomers should be: Greeted, Directed , Treated, Seated (why don’t we actually seat people?)

4. the power of Lagniappe – New Orleans word = “the baker’s dozen”. If you invite someone to your home you do your best to show incredible hospitality – why wold we not do that in the church? How are you going to demonstrate that the newcomer is precious.

5. practice the question – would you mind filling in this card? This cannot be done from the front of the church every week which is why you need to seat newcomers next to people who can capture the information of visitors.

6. contact people in the first week, if not the first 36 hours. Have a team of laypeople who go through and thank them for visiting.

7. go and visit them in their home. They visit us in our home; now go visit them in their home.

8. send three invitations to do something “fun” with the church

9. introduce them into a small group – if you don’t have a small group, they are often known as cliques

10. transform your welcome team into a keeping team – could you have a vision of every single person being added to your church who crosses the threshold of your building?