The Millennium Matrix: Reclaiming the Past, Reframing the Future of the Church was published in 2004.

Chapter 7 opens:

“…the onrushing digital culture, with its notions of connectivity and immediacy, is already raising questions about our current notions of community. The period of “if you build it, they will come,” a hallmark of the broadcast mentality (and mega-churches), is coming to an end. Many churches confused providing a giant one-stop spiritual convenience mart with providing real community.”

The tension between size and community is built into the broadcast platform – where size wins (most of the time). Broadcast has been a wonderful tool of attraction.

Digital culture is changing our paradigms. The shift means that attraction model churches will only be able to reach 40% of the population. Digital technology is changing the appeal from main even to connection.

The Future Traveler model joins leaders to a cohort made up of ten churches. They meet together exploring both their current challenges and the promising new strategies and churches who have been able to expand outside predictable demographics.

Here is a link to learn more about becoming involved – Registering for a Future Travelers Cohort.

Alan Hirsch explains the opportunity.

One pastor asked a good and obvious question.

“I can see why this is important for businesses but as the Church, we’re all about the why. So, how does this apply to me?”

When a church grows it needs more room. Without more room it can’t reach more people (so we sometimes think). We’re called to expand the Kingdom of God – so how difficult can the “why” be?

Simon Sinek compares Dr. Martin Luther King’s presentation of civil rights compared to many of his contemporaries. Most were far more established in the movement. Dr. King frames the “why” not in language about the reasons for the cause or the plan. Mr. Sinek describes that it was NOT the “I have a plan” speech but instead, the “I have a dream speech.”

What is the dream? What is the end of the journey look like? What do we become because of the journey? How is our effort an expression of grace, mercy or unconditional love? How will our neighbors receive our vision? Will it be an expression of good news or just another church creating traffic problems and congestion for the weekend?

This goes against our training and wiring. We see needs, conduct feasibility, solicit commitments and go and do.

Instinctively we know that we should start with why move to how and then to what. This order, however, gets reversed when our plates are full, we’re stretched and the urgency of each day competes our time to truly listen and hear the heart of God. It is too easy to assume we know what that is or that once we think we know then, “I can take it from here.”

Toyota has a discipline to rein in that natural tendency to plan and do. It is called the “5 Whys.” When there is a problem or an initiative the group will ask why and discuss that reason. They will ask for the why behind the first answer and so on. By doing so they unearth an understanding of root causes or drivers but also the essential inspiration behind taking action.

Again, we know these principles, yet, they can get lost in the details of running an organization and certainly become diluted through the different layers of our churches.

Once you have viewed this video I would like to hear if brings any new light to how you approach new initiatives or a building project.

However with all the opportunities for connection, few of us are truly leveraging them to their fullest potential.  Here is what you might be missing on your social networks.

Look for hidden connections. The power of the social networks is the ability to reveal connections that are hidden in the real world.  Lee LeFever has a simple and fun video illustrating this concept at commoncraft.com.

Content creation counts. Content is the fuel of social networks.  Pictures, status updates, posts, shared links all create the flow for your feed.  You can increase the quality of the content you post by reading, exploring new experiences, and by becoming a better amateur photographer.

Allow the virtual to facilitate the face-to-face. Chances are this is happening anyway. Online communication allows people to stay connected between the times they see each other face-to-face.  But who in your network have you not met face-to-face yet?  Are there people in your network you should connect with beyond the random post?

Create value for people in your network. Social networks make it brilliantly easy to make introductions, invite people to events, share a relevant link…  Make it a practice to scan your network and consider ways you can bring individuals value.  Sometimes this is as simple as wishing someone a happy birthday or sharing encouragement.

Don’t spread yourself too thin. While aggregators like Hootsuite, Hellotxt, and TweetDeck are effective tools for maximizing the time you spend on social networking, it might be more effective to go deep with a core network than to play shallowly on multiple networks.  Decide what’s important to you and focus.

What lessons have you learned that you could share with others so they can develop their skills?

If the communication skill needed in an oral world was storytelling; in a print world, the ability to craft prose; in a broadcast world, the ability to develop a screenplay; then what skills are needed in a digital world?  You might be surprised to find out that to successfully communicate in the digital world you need a convergence of what has gone before.

In the digital world story and storyteller are again connected, so you need the authenticity inherent in the oral tradition.  The skill of writing both prose and screenplays are essential for blogs vlogs.  However, the step that goes beyond–what will truly allow you to connect–is the ability to be human within the context of the technology.  To do that, almost all of us need to become better presenters.

The following are some solid resources for improving your skill:

Blog post from Nick Morgan for Forbes Magazine

Resonate by Nancy Duarte

The Naked Presenter by Garr Reynolds

There is a lot of focus today on employee engagement, but what about leader energy and engagement? Everywhere you look there are signs that leaders are not doing very well. Leader turnover is an all-time high; confidence is down, engagement scores are down, and leaders are being asked to answer the phone 24×7, track email nonstop, be on call for questions from employees and peers, firm performance is lower than expected for many organizations, and the list goes on. I continue to find that leader energy is lower than they want it to be, and their confidence in themselves and their support systems is low and declining.

A large organization in the mid-west survived its near death experience a little more than 18 months ago. New leadership brought stability and soon, growth! Substantial growth. This was the good news and bad news. The two top leaders showed clear signs of fatigue. The intensity of the turn around and larger and more complex demands had not allowed the leadership team to step back to gain perspective and recalibrate.

We used the CoreClarity assessments to see the alignment between the new demands and each leader’s natural strengths. We found that the leadership team was functioning at a 60% effectiveness level. The legacy positions and roles kept from the previous regime no longer matched with the demands of a much larger and more complex organization. The two top leaders possessed important strategic and executive strengths. The rest of the leadership core functioned well as subject matter experts(SMEs). The growth of the organization, however, required these SME leaders to function more strategically and manage others to get things done.

That gap in need was flowing uphill and landing in the offices of the two top leaders.

Instead of creating a vicious cycle of pushing those requirements back down to a team that does not possess the strength set to easily function in these areas, an internal person was found with both the talent set and proven track record to fill this gap.

Its a win for the organization. Its a win for the top leadership and it is a definite win and motivator for the leadership team who could continue to function in their areas of subject expertise.

This is a solution that looks elegant and enlightened without the back story. For those of us who are not gifted with sage like wisdom and insight – we can cheat using evidence based tools like CoreClarity.

If you or your team are feeling a bit burned out or if the current economic crisis has rearranged roles and responsibilities it may be time for an easy check up and recalibration.

If you’re interested in finding out more about getting an executive team check-up review send me an email at rex@rexmiller.net.

On the light side, Jim Rohn encourages us to get the knowledge. If we’re stuck, at an end, worn down or facing obstacles – there is a book or someone who can crack the code.

Contrast that with Gates presentation at the 2010 TED conference. One of the most powerful, richest men in the world made an effort to change and became a much more “effective, natural, engaging presenter.” Reynolds continues to elaborate, “When you’re trying to change the world, your presentations better be remarkable.”

All of us can learn to better share our ideas–even if communication isn’t part of our 5%.

Our company’s observation is that 85% of what you and I do someone else can do better. I’m very happy to pass that work to those who love to do it. We can train others to do 10% of what we do. But there is a remaining 5% that only you can do.

When you have that opportunity to flow in your 5% either by circumstance or because you developed these talents into strengths – you experience passion and enthusiasm. Others experience a high level of excellence in what you do.

We know that about 50% of our talent comes from nature and the other 50% from nurture. The secret is to discover early nature’s contribution so you can nurture those talents in the direction they want to go.

Watch this video of a very young boy whose 5% is very clear – AND – who experiences passion when he does his thing.

Paul Potts sold mobile phones at a retail outlet after college. Growing up he was bullied but found shelter in his singing. When he walked out on the stage of Britain’s Got Talent in March of 2007 the world discovered his 5%.

We’re all a bit like Paul Potts. We pursue life with hidden talents and wonder if the world will ever see the one thing that makes us unique and special. That discovery doesn’t have to happen by luck. We can seek it, find it and grow that 5%. Watch Paul’s audition. I’d be curious to hear what you felt AND what you think your 5% might be.