Take Away Thoughts

This is a Myna bird in Maui having a snack on the onion rings left by a previous lunch-er.  He was in heaven until the waitress saw him and said, "Oh!  Party over!" and took the basket away.
I was in a meeting today about metrics.  I'm still trying to process what was presented, but here are a few "take away" messages I wrote down.  Some of these are destined to be expanded into their own blog posts, but for now, let your mind wander over these thoughts:

• Christianity is about change.  (I liked that one.  It was an ah-ha moment.)


• As a church, we have disconnected ourselves from our environment.  It is time to reconnect.


• A vital congregation requires a very clear identity and a very clear purpose.


• We are not here to save the institution.  We are here to use the institution.


• Do churches know more about who they used to be than who they are?


• A system gets (i.e. achieves) what it measures.  In other words, we get what we pay attention to.  (I'm still moving this one through my mind.  Do you agree with it?)


• Without measurement, purpose devolves into preference.  If we have no purpose, we measure whether people are happy by counting complaints.


• The purpose of problem solving it to return a system to what it once was.  We don't have a problem -- we have a new mission field and new opportunities.  We need to stop being problem solvers.  Churches don't need to be fixed; they need to be changed.

More to come.