As I read this great post Receiving Honor vs. Requiring by Ben Arment I was reminded of a story an usher once told me. Between services another usher went up to a pastor to encourage him in his own way and said “pastor, you must have drank Red Bull this morning! Your sermon was awesome”. The pastor then intimated the usher up against the wall chastising him harshly for using the wrong protocol to address a “Man of God! “. I believe in the pastors mind he was correcting (what he felt to be) a mistake yet in reality he was creating separation.

One ministry staff member told me he was passing a pastor in the hall and casually said “hey pastor”. This staff member was then severely chastised for a lengthy period of time just like the usher.

Funny, these are the stories told of this man to people on the outside!

True honor can only be earned. Disciplining someone for not addressing you the way YOU want them to address you causes a loss of respect and separation – not honor or attraction!

Supporting breast cancer research is a great cause yet putting their message on a porta-potty? I don’t think I need to go into the obvious here – yet, in ministry it happens far too often!
Thanks to my friend A-Dizzle for the awesome pic.  It is not every day that you find a young attractive female volunteering to pose next to a portable toilet. She is the best!

I just received a feedback survey from the moving company I used. The form included great simple questions covering all aspects of our relationship. While reading the form I had a thought – why not include a feedback survey along with a postage paid envelope to all your first, second and third time visitors?

Please let me share with you a little truth. The feedback you receive in person at your Guest Center is false. The feedback you receive in the lobby as you are shaking hands is false. This is NOT my opinion as this truth is well documented. It also makes sense. People will NOT be honest to your face yet will be honest over the phone and via the mail or internet. Of course, because feeding our ego is far more important than effective growth many church leaders take the feedback a person gives and shares it in staff meetings as a testimony. Funny, the person who was visiting does not seem to be around these days so that “testimony” may not have been the real truth. Yet this continues and continues!

Let’s chase a squirrel here! Because my primary background is TV I laugh out loud when a TV minister comes back with a testimony saying that he/she met some person who recognized them and declared “I watch you all the time”. I am sure occasionally that statement is true yet a very high percentage of the time it is a lie! It is not that the person is bad. It is how people react to television celebrities (yes a TV minister to the public is perceived as a celebrity). If the TV show is on regularly than just by the law of averages the “talent” or pastor was seen by everyone at least once. Now when they run into David Letterman, or Jay Leno, or Joyce Meyer, or Rod Parsley – even if they have not watched their show in years they will say that they are regular viewers. For your low-end TV ministry who is in a smaller market (and does not develop a strategy or give resources to help the show grow) one only has to look at the ratings to see this “in the flesh” feedback is not correct. If everyone says they watch you all the time why are you only getting 5-10 calls? Hmmmm? And your ratings say that less than 200 people watched (many of those are members of your church) so how can everyone be watching?

So why not ask your viewers to send in an email or go to the internet to fill out a form to get some real honest feedback? So why not send a nicely crafted feedback form along with a visitor letter?

The ONLY reason you won’t do it is because you are scared of the truth. Finding out what the community honestly thinks of your organization may cause you to breakdown the unhealthy paradigms you have created. Again, is being in control more important than allowing God to work through honest feedback so your organization can make a difference in people’s lives? A real difference?

Read the post before this and click on both the links. The Lost Soul one is still rocking my world!

Right now I am still unpacking boxes so I don’t have a lot of time to post. Being back in LA there is so much to do and so many people I want to connect with that I am TRYING to hurry. That said, I also now am getting back into some of my old habits like daily blog reading. The two following posts jumped out at me

An Apple Guy Remakes Microsoft

All of Tim’s thoughts are awesome yet this is spot on:

Rather than tell your staff or leaders that they must attend a service or have to be in a small group, how about make it so compelling that they won’t stay away?

Hmmmm, very interesting! I didn’t think of it until now, but if you are forcing your staff to go to services maybe there is something wrong with your services. God does not force us into church. I’ll stop there! Take the time and read Tim’s post. It really is very good as usual.

Lost Souls

Wow! I don’t know what to say about Vince Antonucci’s post. He references the closing of an Oregon State Hospital where “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” was filmed. They found the cremated remains of 3,600 mental patients in copper cans. Like I said, these posts jumped out at me.

As I unpack my life and try to fit a square peg into a round hole at least I am being entertained by Jimmy Kimmel Live’s musical guest for tonight as they sound check outside only a few yards away. If you want quiet don’t move to Hollywood!

Phil sent out a newsletter today and one of the posts jumped out at me. Real Leaders Don’t Expect A Free Pass. I don’t know how I missed it! I dare you to read his post and the comments. As I was creating the hyperlink one comment jumped out at me:

Leaders who have to rely on position and power for compliance from their followers are one bad decision away from becoming toxic leaders …..

Thanks Bart. The term toxic leader is not only a good band name it stuck in my database!

Does anyone see a pattern here? I could list pages upon pages of similar posts on multiple blogs, yet I really have to get my life out of a box so I can go back to enjoying LA. The church is changing. Yes, the change is slow but because of the internet authoritarian or toxic leaders can no longer manipulate people to be silent.

Wake up church! We are not effective and we are not growing. We are hemorrhaging good people like crazy. We are lying to ourselves and we refuse to be self-aware. We are turning people off to a real relationship with Christ because we are so set on pushing a personal agenda. Is it better to do it your way or is it better to have an opened spirit and grow into what God wants for your life and your ministry? The more we white-knuckle the control the less God can work through us. His way or your way?

The explanation “we are building the church God’s way” is a rationalization to protect oneself from having to change. Real change and healthy honest communication would only expose the truth so we build toxic empires to hide our insecurities. Until those masks are destroyed and the church in reality becomes transparent and vulnerable we will not be able to do what we are called to do.

Since God allows us our own freewill including independent thoughts why do (some) pastors try and control us?

Questioning is not rebellion! Questioning is a healthy sign of real spiritual growth. Following blindly is not a sign of spiritual growth. Here is an excerpt from a book written by M Scott Peck “The Different Drum” as he describes in his view the second stage of spiritual growth.

Formal, Institutional, Fundamental. Beginning the work of submitting themselves to principle-the law, but they do not yet understand the spirit of the law, consequently they are legalistic, parochial, and dogmatic. They are threatened by anyone who thinks differently from them, as they have the “truth,” and so regard it as their responsibility to convert or save the other 90 or 99 percent of humanity who are not “true believers.” They are religious for clear cut answers, with the security of a big daddy God and organization, to escape their fear of living in the mystery of life, the mystery of uncertainty in the ever moving and expanding unknown. Instead they choose the formulations, the stagnation of prescribed methods and doctrines that spell out life and attempt to escape fear. Yet these theological reasonings simply cover over fear, hide fear and do not transcend it in spite of with acceptance in expanding movement. All those outside of Stage II are perceived to be as Stage I, as they do not understand Stage III and Stage IV. Those who do fall, reverting from Stage II to Stage I are called “backsliders.”
 
There is a Jerry Falwell, Jimmy Swaggart, Benny Hinn, Pat Robertson, mentality (one-sided thinking – ignorance that produces hostility) in every religion, the one-sidedness, in every ideology. Christianity cannot be condemned as responsible for the fundamentalists who claim to represent such. One just has to look at Mother Teresa or Martin Luther King, Jr. to see the opposite of such thinking. You can find the Falwell in Hinduism, Judaism, Buddhism, Jainism, Mohammedism and of course Christianity. That is the narrow one-sided exclusiveness that limits insight to one set of rules and one objective truth, under the literal logic or rationialism, that fails to apprehend the unseen intuitive essence of existence and ignorantly labels outsiders as misled sinners, while surrounding themselves with interior neurotic and finite walls of security and certainty. All is safe in this illusion, but all is not just, nor fair, and does not transcend prejudice that surpasses tribal identity, an identity that must be scrapped in order to bring higher consciousness of planetary cultural peace and love based on principle with intuitive insight.

I don’t believe church leaders are even aware of their own actions. This need for control has been passed down. Many use scripture to manipulate people to follow in blind obedience. But it is not of God. If the leader is truly ordained of God and is following God then he/she will have the courage and the wisdom to let people be themselves! If their leadership is of God then they should be secure enough to allow a difference of thought including questioning of everything. Not in a disrespectful way. But in an open and loving embrace of healthy communication

Rule out of love and not fear or manipulation.

Another thought is we create this. We want people to control us. Especially a pastor because then we can say we are following God through him. It takes all the responsibility of the challenges in life off from us and puts it on the leader. I know I fell into this trap. I was blind and I helped create my own reality. I was allowing a pastor to control every aspect of my life. Private, professional and personal! I literally sought approval for everything and looking back that is scary. Jim Jones scary!

Life is hard and making the choices in life that we all have to make in order to navigate from challenge to challenge is difficult. Many of us look for an escape by allowing another person to dominate us. To make the difficult choices for us. It could be your spouse, your roommate, a teacher, your boss and very often your pastor. Next time you complain about someone being a control freak realize the only way they control us is if we let them. Plus, maybe you played a conscious or unconscious role in creating that reality. The power of change is in everyone’s reach and the easiest way to start is by asking real questions. The ones you think but cannot say openly in a meeting. Those questions!

I guess I am going to have to start believing in the Tooth Fairy because I literally witnessed something today that was remarkable. In a prayer meeting a staff member openly voiced a few questions about the handling of an issue and the issue itself. My heart stopped because I am so used to working in a ministry environment of oppression and repression it scared me. To my shock and delight leadership encouraged the conversation. It was so refreshing to witness healthy and honest communication in ministry. It was gorgeous! I know I have said this recently but if you are a leader you cannot stop your people from thinking and they are thinking thoughts you probably don’t want to hear – but you need to hear them! Stop building a wall to insulate yourself and start being more like God. He allows us to be individuals with our own unique thoughts. You should too!

(please read this post about shunning. I feel so strongly about it I am bringing it up again. Shunning is wrong. It is a horrible employment practice and form of manipulation. Shunning is not of God!)

I had another post I wanted to write but then I saw Penelope Trunk’s post “Figure out how much you should be paid (and three cheers for transparent salaries)” and I had to share it. Pastors please read her post! Please!

I can only comment from my own experience. In all the secular jobs I have had salaries were on a pay grade meaning all grade 7’s were paid the same except for length of employment increases. I believe my current ministry job also uses a pay grade structure to standardize salaries which is awesome and keeps everything transparent.

When I accepted my first ministry job outside of Los Angeles I had to sign a contract saying I would not discuss my salary. At the time I thought this was normal. My last position also wanted salaries to be covert. The reason given was if people know what other people are paid it would cause trouble between them. The real truth is leadership wanted to pay people differently and in many cases far lower than what their position is worth.

I do understand the need for saving money and payroll is a huge expense but there is no justification for salary abuse. Usually it is women who seem to be the biggest victim. Please don’t hate me for being honest because it is the truth.

When I found out how low of a salary one of my female employees was being paid I was in shock. I immediately went to correct the situation because she was a great employee and the situation was wrong. A male new hire that basically manipulated his way into a position that was not nearly as vital was hired at a salary far above what this girl made after years of faithful service. Leadership was upset with me for even trying to right this wrong because they didn’t understand management. My priority was to help the organization first. Then the employee! A happy employee is a productive employee and even a minor correction in her salary would make this situation better. If by chance this girl found out what the new hire made she might have left and I would not blame her one bit. As a worker her worth was far above the new hire so as a manager, although I was never given any authority to manage the department just responsibility (for one example this was the only job I have ever experienced where managers had absolutely no say in employees schedules. Employees literally told management when they were going to take time off and the person making the decision had utterly no knowledge of department workload. Extremely backwards and dysfunctional) I risked my own job to help the organization by asking leadership to increase her salary. It was the right thing to do. Eventually after I left the girl was given part of my responsibility and a few promises of a salary increase. After waiting two months the promises were never kept and she eventually left. I am proud of her for having the courage to make the change. If she had not left nothing would have changed because she was a quiet type and she was a woman. This hurt the organization as a whole because all of the staff knows what really went down and since she was the best the department is left with mainly marginal employees.

Please know this particular organization is headed by good people who just don’t know management and they are doing what they think to be right. Interesting enough the majority of church leadership has never had any real management or business experience. In addition, this is not any particular church – it is many! The story I wrote in the previous paragraph was not meant to condemn but to illustrate a real life example of how common it is for ministries to have covert employment policies and the adverse effects it has on the organization and employees. We speak on Sunday about integrity then we should have integrity in everything! You’ll hear me say this over and over. If you have to be covert about something and it is not a surprise birthday party then chances are it is NOT of God! If you want a healthy organization have EVERYTHING on the surface.

While I am here let me address two more issues in salaries. One is nepotism. It is in every organization yet in ministry it seems to be the norm. Phil Cooke wrote a great post on the subject “Why Nepotism Hurts Organizations” and I hope you all read it. Let me just echo Phil by saying your employees know what is up and they not only have lost respect for you, but also your relative or friend that is getting paid at a higher rate and not holding his/her own. Chances are your employees will never say anything but they are thinking about it, talking about it, and hating it – guaranteed!

The other is performance based bonus. Two years ago I received $17K in cash bonuses. It was literally blinding because I saw green and not reality. Not all “blessings” are of God and often a blessing can be given to manipulate. I am a little torn here because I do agree with a reward system yet I also see much wrong in it. Seth Godin wrote a post on how he was against bonuses which you can read here. At the time I was receiving huge performance bonuses so I didn’t agree or understand. Now I do! What happened to me and why I have changed my mind is my job was changed without communication meaning not only did I not have a say in it, I was not informed about it. I asked yet never received an answer. My performance did not change. In fact, I started to work harder and harder. But since my job changed, and there was absolutely no communication of what my new job was or what leadership wanted of me I stopped getting bonuses. If a bonus structure is established that is performance based, and you change an employee’s job so no matter how good they perform it is no longer relevant, than there is something seriously wrong with the system. It caused all kinds of different emotions in me and I was powerless to make any changes because open and honest communication was impossible to establish.

In ministry we are to be about people and about integrity. If your employment policies (including your salary structure) are kept secret than obviously you do not have a healthy organization. And no matter how hard you try to keep it a secret your employees (and volunteers) know everything and they talk about it often. If you don’t think they know, or that they are not talking about it,  you are not honest with yourself. The very best policy is being upfront, honest and transparent about everything including salaries.

“Never forget justice is what love looks like in public.” -Dr. Cornel West (thanks Brad)

I feel like I am camping even though I am only a few feet away from inner-city traffic. My truck does not arrive until Wednesday so my apartment is furnished with 2 folding chairs, a small table, an ironing board, a blow up bed that now leaks air and an igloo cooler. My NEW fridge arrives Sunday. I have a really nice fridge back in STL that I could have easily thrown on the truck but the manager told me there was a fridge (or so I thought. It is hard to understand most of the apartment managers here. Broken English may be a job requirement) She did have one she tried to sell me for $100 that was missing door handles. Welcome to LA. She told me to go to Sears and buy a cheap one. I found Sears but it was closed for a movie shoot. By the time I found a Bestbuy the closest delivery date was Sunday. Unlike other parts of the country I find in LA everything is negotiable. Since I am only going to stay at this apartment for a year I bought the cheapest and talked the guy down a good amount. Heck, I am still living on money I don’t have so any expense right now HURTS! Anyway, when I leave next year the fridge is staying, at least that is the plan.

When I moved here (here meaning LA and an apartment a few blocks away) in 87 it was my first time renting long distance and although when Alvina (the manager from hell who’s memory is haunting ) told me it was furnished with antiques I know she meant old stuff. Turns out the pool even had live electrical wires. Yes I am serious. This place is so much better yet it is still a dump. 5 years ago when I lived here it was much nicer and my apartment was on the sunny side of the building and not so close to traffic. This really is not where I wanted to land but I am in serious debt and by living here I save $350 a month compared to the next step up.

Coming home has been amazing and far better than could have ever been dreamed. The only issue I am having is this apartment yet I don’t know if it is because I have to get used to the city again, because I really did NOT want to move back to Hollywood, or because it is actually a dump. Probably all the above! When I moved here in 02 it was my first apartment since homelessness and living on the Dream Center campus for 7 years. It was the very best then. This time I am coming from a 3 bed 2 bath house with my own pool. Of course it is not going to be the same. I have to make some real sacrifices and saving money is one of them. Plus, it is not that bad. Noisy and dirty but there is everything you could ever want both good and bad within walking distance. 4 Starbucks, Mann’s Chinese movie theaters, Kodak Theater, In-N-Out, Hollywood and Highland shopping complex, Roosevelt Hotel that is now the in party place and so so so much more. I also knew the place and needed the walk in closet space to store my drums. If you are at all interested in seeing where I live while I was here in 02 and 03 two major movies where filmed. I am sure there are more but these are the productions I know of. In Hollywood Homicide with Harrison Ford the car chase scene with the mustang going around a parked water truck was shot directly across the street from where I am typing. I remember pulling out of the garage that day and seeing a mustang flipped on its side and it freaked me out. Then I noticed the production crew and figured it was a shoot. In Catch Me If You Can when Tom Hanks drives into an old 50’s motel if the camera turned around you would see me smoking a cig on my balcony in the old pad. That was a fun shoot to watch. They turned one side of the street retro for a day.

Work as been amazing. Just amazing. I have a boss that actually “gets it”. In addition, it is like a professional ad agency. The quality of the work that is being produced is some of the best I have ever seen. The art director took some time to show me his creative process the other day and I was blown away. The benefits are the best I have EVER had. On top of the vacation and sick leave we get two weeks paid leave to go on missions trips. That is awesome. It is a little weird, though, working in ministry and having a M thru F leave for the day at 4pm schedule. Just pinch me! Weekends off! Pinch me! I will type more about the job when I am a little rested. It has been a long week.

So much has happened to me this week spiritually that I wish I was articulate with written communication to give it justice. For example, my first day back I walked to the Dream Center after work and walked by the discipleship building where I first lived coming off the streets. I was wearing business casual and the awareness of what God has done for me was powerful. Running around trying to buy a cooler and a few things to spend the night here without spending a bunch of money was almost exactly what Lisa and I did in 87. The only difference is I went to Target instead of Pick n Save and I didn’t have to depend on taxis. Everything I needed to buy and living in an empty apartment is identical and ironic to the point of weird.

I was standing in the isle at AT and Pastor Tommy came up to give me a hug. At that moment Jesus could come home it was so perfect yet the night quickly got better. Pastor Gus, a little old Pilipino man who was part of the original 48 members of the Dream Center (at the time Bethel Temple) adopted me. He would sit behind me in church and bug me until I would be nice. He even got me to usher. At the time I was nasty. I was a tv exec living in a homeless program and I didn’t see a way out. I was not friendly at all. I hated the place and I hated myself for ending up there. Pastor Gus for some reason took a liking to me and persistence breaks down resistance. I mean you need to picture this short older gentle man from the Philippines with me, a dyed hair punk idiot trying to be hard as a defense mechanism. Why he liked me I’ll never know but Gus and his family played a huge part in my recovery. Gus passed away before I left years ago. When I was walking by the discipleship home I was thinking about him and I actually wondered if his wife was still alive. Last night at church she grabbed me and I had to fight to hold the tears back. She looked so good. It was so great to see her it made all the insane junk I went through in 07 and 08 worth it. I know that I know that I know out of all the moves I have made in life this one is right in line with God’s will for my life.

Forgive my rambling. Dave and Gina took me to Burbank after church last night and I got to bed a little later than usual. It is so great to be back around family. On top of that the blow up bed I am using deflates at least twice each night making for a restless night. It has been an emotional and exhausting June/July. Heck, it is been a nonstop challenge since 4/17/07.

Last year at this time I was in the middle of a crisis. I decided to take a break and visit LA. I walked down Hollywood Blvd and ran into homeless people I knew from when I lived on the street. I wrote a great post about it here. It spiritually realigned me and I said I would come walk down the Blvd every 6 months to get myself straight. Now that I live here, I get corrected every day. I can’t be down or depressed about anything (for long) because no matter where I look I see what God did in my life. I am amazed. Most people that would have to get up twice each night to blow up a bed would get an altitude yet I am laughing. Not only have a found a perfect peace I have found joy in the mists of madness. I continue to surrender mostly because I don’t have anything left in me to put up a fight and in doing so I am being blessed beyond imagination.

Speaking of madness it is Friday night in Hollywood and the town is about to explode. Traffic has picked up and so has the noise. You can literally feel the change in energy. Time to go for a walk and watch all the freaks. Free entertainment at its best!

I took these photos outside of a rest area in New Mexico. Every church should have this immediate response approval system installed right smack dab in the lobby. Maybe, just maybe church would change for the better!

Forward thinking churches that truly desire to help people and want growth survey not only members but visitors. Don’t ask your staff what people think! Don’t ask your friends, neighbors, or your mother! If you want the real truth listen to people who do not have a relationship bias with you or the origination! Let’s be honest! Church is to be about OTHER people so it is IMPORTANT to know what OTHER people HONESTLY think. Of course you may not like what you find out which is exactly why you refuse to honestly listen in the first place. You may have to actually change!

What are you scared of? Are you called to minster to yourself or others? If you answer others than start listening!