This past week I spent two nights back in my old stomping ground Townsville. There is nothing that compares to the breath stealing, sweat provoking humidity of the far north. So being on a quest for better health I decided that I would run/walk up the goat track on Castle Hill from my hotel. On the second morning I was sweating just coming down the lift but an hour later I was literally dripping. After showering I realised that I now had a problem. My plane was leaving in 2 hours and I had dripping, smelly gym clothes. So I did what any sensible, not wanting to waste good clothes guy would do, I placed them in a bag and packed them in my luggage.

Not even thinking about it again by the time I actually was home to unpack it was 7pm that night and as I opened the bag there was an almighty release of enough gas to run a small city. I really hope that there were no sniffer dogs at the airport assigned to my bag cause their sense of smell would be ruined by this event.

Anyway all this to say that all of us have some amount of luggage that we bring with us through life and as we approach Christmas this year often times it seems that this season has the ability to stir our "bag of smelly clothes". Maybe its a broken marriage and this season makes it a hard time for you. Maybe it was the loss of a loved one and this is the first year without them. It could be that you are now an empty Nestor and this Christmas just wont be the same. Whatever don't forget to unpack your luggage and air out your life, keep it fresh and energised this Christmas season.

Its budget time

November is always one interesting month in church life. Everyone is starting to think Christmas, holidays, school finishing, buying presents and for our management team here at Elevation we are thinking 2009 church budgets. Wow pastoring is so exciting!!

I actually do find doing budgets quick life giving. Now this is from a guy who didn't really excel at math. I think the part I love is looking at how each of our departments dreaming is going because that's what a budget is, its a dream document. The hard part is having the ability not to pop the dream bubble but where needed just let a little air out of it (because if you don't you will go broke). Budgets don't seem real spiritual but neither does being a poor steward by not allocating resources toward Kingdom progress. You will know where your heart or vision is because your budget will reflect it.

Fresh eyes

Let me ask you a question. If someone brand new was to come and take over your church or business and you were out, what would they do differently? What changes would they automatically make to your current organization?
Now here's the question! Why don't we make those changes?
If we know what someone with fresh eyes would change to better organization why don't we go ahead and make those same changes?
Last weekend we had two couples who are pastors in other churches visit us to see how we do things here. At our Monday staff meeting I asked them to give a couple of things that were positive and negative. Now none of us like hearing the negatives but until we face the facts we can never change so here they were.

1. Nowhere for a new person to go to after or before the service to meet people.

Because our church facility is in transition we don't have a coffee shop, guest lounge etc so we function with marques outside (thank God for Gold Coast weather). So everyone piles out of one service outside and mingles with coffee etc. Our mistake was thinking that somewhere in that mass a new person is receiving the information and connection that they need to join our church.

So what are we doing about this?

As from this Sunday we have a forth marque called our Guest Lounge with great coffee and food where a new person can meet with other families and leaders here at Elevation.

2. To dark to read bibles

Simple we have adjusted lighting in the auditorium enough so that people can actually follow along in their bibles because isn't that what we want from our church members?

3. Hard to see stairs

To fix this we went to Bunnings and bought a bunch of battery operated cinema lights that are used to illuminate the stairs.

Okay the point of all of this? Simple! Fresh eyes see things that tired eyes don't. We don't change things because we stop thinking about if someone with fresh eyes came in what would they do differently. And when someone with fresh eyes does come in we don't as them the right questions.

Teams

Today makes you realize that summer is own its way. That also means unlimited amounts of cricket on the T.V which is a personal dream of mine. Anyway the Aussie cricket team is going through a tough time and people are questioning its teamwork. I read this article the other day about ways to kill a team by Andy Stanley I hope you like it.

1. Meet only when there is a crisis.
2. Allow the strong personalities to dominate the discussion.
3. Allow team decisions to be undermined by private meetings after the team meeting. Don’t you dare agree on something with your team, and then reverse it later. Your best team members will leave. Only the dysfunctional ones will stay.
4. Have your mind made up before you get input from the team. This is hard, cause I never feel neutral about anything.
5. Remain inflexible in the face of new information.
6. Cut off debate.
7. Don’t hold team members accountable for their assignments.
8. Ignore the intangibles.
9. Expect more of the team than you expect of yourself.
10. Take individual credit for the accomplishments of the team.

The problem with this stuff–you don’t see it in the mirror. It’s very hard to see when you do this yourself.