Dave Travis Now

Three Worship Positions for Christmas

(This is a repost from last year. Since I wrote this the worship pastor has retired at my parent's church. And I don't think they did the same type program. A sign of the times. But this message resonated so widely last year I thought I would repost.)

 

Every Christmas for the past 30 years my parent’s church does this music/drama/show thing with multiple performances, a large cast and special effects. You know the type. The first act is general Christmas songs including some old pop standards. The second act is the time when they bring out some community groups that dance and some silly take offs on Christmas standards. The third act is the telling of the Christmas story in drama and music.

In that last section there is a standard order to the story. I have watched numerous cousins, old high school friends, and community leaders play their parts as inn keepers, shepherds, kings and the like. Every year some lucky baby, usually less than 60 days old, is selected to play baby Jesus. One of my high school buddies daughters was cast one year.

We live on the other side of Atlanta now and don’t get there every year, but we made it again this year. It is a nostalgic treat for me.

There is the familiar climax to the show though that always chokes me up and brings a tear to my eyes.

Like many of these types of shows the climax is when the stage is cleared to reveal the teenaged Mary and Joseph with the little baby playing Jesus at the center and elevated part of the stage. (If the baby plays the part right it is usually quietly sleeping in the midst of the loud music). A bright star hangs above and a circle spot is clearly on center stage.

The music is “O Come All Ye Faithful” in full voice, with the choir moving to the wings and out of the spot light.

Enter the little kids dressed as shepherds in authentic looking costumes where the spot light shifts to show the children and some adults who have grown beards for the occasion walking down the aisle toward the stage carrying shepherds staffs.

As the first adult hits the steps up the stage he pauses and looks back. And at that moment is when the first wave of emotion hits me. In the spotlight he turns and with a big motion of his arm, turns and signals to others - “Come On”.

This is the first position of worship. The invitation to others to join the celebration of The Lord. Like this drama it is often wordless and done with the action of our bodies where we signal others and point to the Lord.

As the song continues the herd of shepherds continues to approach the stage. Each little shepherd boy or girls bows before the manger and then moves off to one side.

Then comes the second position of worship. The spotlight returns to center stage where one of the adult shepherds asks Joseph silently to hold the baby.

Joseph hands the baby to the shepherd where he cradles it, kisses on the forehead, and then lifts the baby high over his head with joy for about 20 seconds.

In that moment there is the joy of “Lifting Jesus Up” in celebration. I always think we should cheer at this moment but no one ever joins me.

The baby is returned to Mary and laid back in the manger.

The music gets louder now and the spotlight moves over to one aisle where the first of the regally dressed kings has entered on a platform carried by two other men with a swarm of young people carrying the gifts of gold. The spotlight slowly follows them down the aisle observing the king dismount and with his retinue come up the risers to present the gold to Mary and Joseph. He then exits to one side.

A second King does likewise with his retinue where he presents another gift and moves to the other side.

Now we come to the high point of the scene where the most elaborate King, with a long golden train of a cape slowly comes down the aisle with trailing attendants. The King approaches the manger. As he does, the attendants spread the cape over part of the stage to shine brightly in the spotlight.

As that happens, he and the other actors “fall on their faces before the Lord.”

“O Come Let Us Adore Him, Christ the Lord” goes the last line of that song.

And of course that is the last act of worship that we will all experience one day when we see Him face to face. We will fall on our faces, prostrate before the Lord, just as all the actors are on the stage in that last scene.

I occasionally still get questions in churches about contemporary worship, formal worship, and traditional worship and often the question is: Should we always be standing when we sing? Or should we let people dance? Or How expressive should our worship time be?

I really have no opinion much to those questions, because I usually recall these three positions above.

Come On.

Lift Jesus Up.

Fall on our Face before the Lord.

For all of us at Leadership Network, let me wish you a Merry Christmas and pray that we all may worship the Lord this year by inviting others to “Come On”, to constantly “Lift Jesus Up” in all that we do, and to “fall on our face” in humility for what God has done for us.

 

Dave Travis

CEO

Leadership Network

@davetravis

 

Made to Splat

I was in a twitter dialog with social media guru @MBStockdale (go ahead, take a moment and follow her) about the book titles out there. She was suggesting a new book about Duct Tape Church or Gooey Church and I went the other way.

We need someone to write a book called Made to Splat: Church Plants that had Glorious Failures.

It must be remembered that most of the books (and histories) are written by those that were “successful.” Sure there are aches and pains mentioned in those books. Geoff Surratt’s Ten Stupid Things Pastors Do was certainly a contribution in this direction as well.

As someone who has worked with Innovative Churches and Organizations for the past 16 years, let me tell you, I seen plenty of high dives into a dry pool. I’ve pulled some myself with some of our programs.

By the way, our 30 Second Leadership programs last week are all about failure.

What constitutes a Glorious Failure?

A Glorious Failure honors God even when it isn’t seen by others as “successful.” Perhaps you are reaching a hard to reach group or area. Perhaps it never becomes a part of self sustaining or self governing and whatever the other self thing is, but it tries to honor God anyway.

A Glorious Failure is when you work hard, give it all you got and try some new things that no one else is doing……..and it falls flat. Now if you learn, adapt and refine what you have learned for the next time you time, great. That was a glorious failure. If you keep on doing those things even when they repeatedly fail, well, that is insanity.

Glorious Failures help us unearth and surface terrible ideas that can be discarded.

Glorious Failures help us try new leadership skills and ideas that may not work with one team but later can be adapted with another.

Glorious Failures sift us as leaders and help shape our hearts for the future…IF we let them.

So – What are your Glorious Failures? What are you learning from them?

(cross posted over at Leadership Network – www.leadnet.org)

Worship, Witness and Getting with it until the LORD returns

While others were planning on getting caught up this weekend, I spent the weekend catching up on the news after a long week in Dallas.

A few stories to share:

First from Chicago where Pastor Charles Jenkins of Fellowship Missionary Baptist led the prayer of dedication at the inaugural of the new mayor of Chicago. You know how most folk make this a boring occasion? Charles does not. See it here:

 

Charles Jenkins bringin down the house!

Charles and Fellowship are in our Rapid Growth Group and Generosity Lab.

And down in Louisville I saw that Sojourn Church had released this video about a new CD.

A special new worship CD

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pv4BBvVZROk&feature=player_embedded

I love how they tie the music back to a new hymnody that was centuries ago. (Hat tip: Resurgence blog)

Daniel Montgomery, lead pastor, is an alumni of our Next Gen program and the church has also been in a few labs.

A story that caught my eye and has the flavor of our Missional Renaissance program comes from Memphis. This news story describes the program of Christians being trained to teach in the hardest schools of Memphis. It is somewhat a “Teach for America” just for Memphis.

http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2011/may/21/shared-mission/

Not sure how long that link will last but love the idea.

And to answer the question from last week. #staffinfection online conference had about 6000 participants. From all over the world.

We trended on twitter in the US….Bogota…..and Mumbai. Go figure. It was fun.

Biggest question from some? How do I get asked to speak at one of these things? Answer: we tend to work with our alumni of our programs.

And finally, I leave today to spend about 18 hours with Cedarcreek Church’s staff up near Toledo. They are alumni of several of our Leadership Communities.

I love this story from the local news station up there about their new campus in South Toledo:

“A Big Boost for the neighborhood”

http://abclocal.go.com/wtvg/video?id=8136492

I love how the neighboring businesses are welcoming and excited to have Cedarcreek in their shopping complex.

Elsewhere I have seen businesses complain (usually to try and keep a church out) but Cedarcreek has really proven to be a good neighbor and you would think the businesses in some strip centers that are suffering would welcome the influx of people.

Watch the story and comment and feel free to comment on any of the above. I would love to hear your stories and impressions

And find out more about our primo programs for church leaders here on this page: http://leadnet.org/programs/

Some Shout Outs to Friends

I was down at Exponential the other week and ran onto lots of friends. They were telling me about some of their current programs and training for leaders. Additionally they shared some books and other resources they wanted me to share or that I had found good reading.

I can’t mention all of them but here are a few.

• A lot of you will know the names Hugh Halter and Matt Smay from our Leadership Network book “A Tangible Kingdom” (affiliate link to buy here). They also do some great training around the country and have some really neat workbooks as companions to their materials. Check it out here: http://missio.us/
• I ran onto Mike Breen (and his wife Sally and daughter Libby) and Steve Cockram amongst the crowd. They do some great work in Missional Communities. While at their booth they showed me their new “Launching Missional Communities” field guide and introduced me to Alex Absalom, a compatriot that helped write that materials. Their ministry 3dm has a special event coming next month that is FREE in sunny South Carolina. You can find more details here: http://www.weare3dm.com/
• Speaking of all things missional, I got a copy of the Missional Manifesto (you can too if you go to http://www.missionalmanifesto.net ) I know the authors and they are good friends. I don’t sign on to manifestos and statements but I think it is a fine document worthy of consideration. And I do appreciate some serious thought put into short definitions of key buzz words, which I think this tries to do.
• Speaking of resources I see Lifeway has created an updated Church Planting Assessment tool here - http://churchplanter.lifeway.com/. As someone trained in the dark ages of these tools I value the updates and refinements brought on by research.
• I read two books from the UK which I think you can get the Amazon UK. Diamond Geezers is from my friend Anthony Delaney. Anthony is a pastor in Manchester, England and the book is primarily for men to build a well built life legacy. I also was able to read Breakout: One Church’s Amazing Story of Growth Through Mission Shaped Communities by Mark Stibbe and Andrew Williams. Their book describes their journey and its fits and starts of remaking an older church into a new model. For those in older churches, I think it is well worth your time.
• Finally, I did get to sit into a brief meeting with the Future Travelers team of Alan Hirsch, Ed Bahler and Bill Cochenour. I think their statistics are way off but I love all three men. I think their program is appropriate for some churches wanting to move towards a missional program model.

I know I saw many others of you down in Orlando and forgive my frail memory if I promised you a mention. Feel free to accost me in the comments and mention your own deal there!

WE still believe in Conferences!

I get asked all the time – Why Doesn’t Leadership Network do conferences anymore?

Well – I point them first to our online events that allow us to reach far more people than ever before. In fact there is one next month – Staff Infection. (Go check out the cool intro vid)

And while we will do around 50 leader gatherings this year, almost one a week, these are almost always CLOSED, INVITE ONLY communities and labs where we help teams go from ideas to implementation to impact using our processes so they aren’t really conferences.

BUT WE STILL LOVE TO GO TO CONFERENCES!!

In fact our team has been out across the fruited plains this spring to multiple gatherings of church leaders.

We still believe conferences are a great way to connect with other leaders to be inspired, find new resources and make new friends.

We’ve had folks at Catalyst West, All Access, Uprising, and several others. And in the next few weeks we will have team members at

Exponential – in Orlando next week

Advance2011 – In Raleigh the next week

Catalyst Dallas – In Dallas (duh) the week after that.

And probably a few more my staff is sneaking off to that I don’t know about.

So – go find one to attend near you. Let us know what you find. Give us a shout via email or twitter and let’s try to connect.

Just use the #leadnet hashtag and we will find you.

The Tension is Good

I am discovering anew how much of Leadership is the act of managing tension.

If you lead people that are leaders and not just underlings, you will always have strong views, methods, creativity and personalities that naturally create multiple tensions. In one team members pursuit of excellence you run against another’s “get er done” nature. In one’s desire to handle things efficiently, you run against another’s desire to smooth feathers.

Compound that by the internal tension a leader carries when observing and trying to keep the team together and moving in the same direction. Multiply that by the tension each team member feels when they know their way is the right way.

Managing tension is a key distinctive between big Leaders or small leaders. The productive tension is not conflict, but moving the direction of the team while balancing the needs of the individuals on the team. It ain’t easy. It wasn’t supposed to be.

If you want to just fire everyone all the time to get rid of your tension, then you have underlings, not leaders.

And so many do. They end up with small organizations and small churches. When you talk to a large church lead pastor (as I do almost every day), they will talk to you about managing the tensions.

Everyone has to live with the tension, and it is good.

(HT: Last October’s Atlanta Catalyst theme. By the way, if you are going to #CatDallas, let me know via comment or DM on twitter. We are having a party.)

Black History Month–February 28–#BHM2011–George Washington Carver

This is the final installment of my series. I have tried to cover a wide gamut of Black Americans to share some of their inspiration with you.

Today’s twitter quote:

Ninety-nine percent of the failures come from people who have the habit of making excuses. GW Carver

George Washington Carver was nationally known as a scientist several generations ago. Born right as slavery ended, his career was most notable at what is now Tuskegee University. He helped restore the profitability of southern agriculture through his research on various crops that helped farmers of all races in the south.

Today’s bonus quote:

Since new developments are the products of a creative mind, we must therefore stimulate and encourage that type of mind in every way possible.

Black History Month–February 27–#BHM2011–Maya Angelou

This is installment 27 in the Black History Month series. This series contains inspirational quotes from Black Americans that are good for all people. While some friends will want me to use “African American History Month”, I will use the traditional name to identify it with American born and raised leaders.

The blog post is to give a little background, while my twitter @davetravis – will get regular updates of the posts.

The first week’s theme was historical figures, last week, Civil Right’s Leaders. Last week was entertainers and politics week. We wrap up the month this week with Educators.

For many generations the leaders of the Black community were its pastors and school teachers and officials.

Today’s twitter quote:

How important it is for us to recognize and celebrate our heroes and she-roes! Maya Angelou

While she is more known for her writing and speaking, for the last 20 years she has taught at Wake Forest University and lectured at other colleges as well. Her quote above reminds us that is not just the males that need to be celebrated, but also the females.

She is known for her versatility, starting her career as a singer, then writer, director, producer and even cook book author!

She is scheduled to receive a Presidential Medal of Freedom award this year.

Here is my bonus quote for blog readers:

There is nothing so pitiful as a young cynic because he has gone from knowing nothing to believing nothing.

Black History Month–February 26–#BHM2011–General Colin Powell

This is installment 26 in the Black History Month series. This series contains inspirational quotes from Black Americans that are good for all people. While some friends will want me to use “African American History Month”, I will use the traditional name to identify it with American born and raised leaders.

The blog post is to give a little background, while my twitter @davetravis – will get regular updates of the posts.

The first week’s theme was historical figures, last week, Civil Right’s Leaders. Last week was entertainers and politics week. We wrap up the month this week with Educators.

For many generations the leaders of the Black community were its pastors and school teachers and officials.

Today’s twitter quote:

Don't bother people for help without first trying to solve the problem yourself. Colin Powell

I can never remember if we should call him Secretary Powell or General Powell. Many thought he could have become the first African American President. Who knows? He certainly made a career of firsts. He was the first African American on the Joint Chiefs, rising to become the chairman, the National Security Advisor and Secretary of State.

Calling him an educator is a stretch, but he was at one point in the 1990s the most trusted man in America in my opinion. His calm demeanor and will gave him great authority.

A bonus quote for today’s blog readers:

Perpetual optimism is a force multiplier.

Black History Month–February 25–#BHM2011–Dr. Ben Carson

This is installment 25 in the Black History Month series. This series contains inspirational quotes from Black Americans that are good for all people. While some friends will want me to use “African American History Month”, I will use the traditional name to identify it with American born and raised leaders.

The blog post is to give a little background, while my twitter @davetravis – will get regular updates of the posts.

The first week’s theme was historical figures, last week, Civil Right’s Leaders. Last week was entertainers and politics week. We wrap up the month this week with Educators.

For many generations the leaders of the Black community were its pastors and school teachers and officials.

Today’s twitter quote:

"God has given us more than fourteen billion cells and connections in our brain. Why would God give us such a complex organ system unless he expects us to use it?" Ben Carson

Dr. Carson is the head of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins University where he teaches residents to be surgeons. He won the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2008. A surgical pioneer on children, he has also authored several best-selling books. A television movie about his life was released in 2009.

A committed Christian and parent, he stands as a quiet example of overcoming adversity through the encouragement of a fine single parent that drove him to later success.