The Village Voice

Every once in a while, a delivery truck will whizz by my house on it’s way somewhere. Over the course of a month I’ll see FedEx trucks, UPS trucks, Purolator trucks, and one other truck which always leaves me a little baffled.

It’s a non-distinct grey van, and it’s adorned with a full-wrap advertisement for The Children’s Miracle Network, or the Make-a-Wish Foundation, or the Children’s Wish Foundation…one of those organizations.

Now, as I’m telling yo this, note two things: 1) I don’t even know the name of the delivery company (I think it’s Canpar, but I can’t be sure); 2) I don’t know the name of the charity either.

By all accounts, this very noble attempt at promoting a very worthy cause is actually shooting the entire effort in the foot.

By all accounts, this very noble attempt at promoting a very worthy cause is actually shooting the entire effort in the foot.

Why?

Because in promoting the cause, the cause itself became the identity of the company. I see this all the time in churches as well.

They give a lot to missionaries…so they become a missions church
They’re connected to a soup kitchen…so they become a socially-minded group
They have teens in their church…so they build a rec centre for them
Etc., etc.

The list goes on and on.

While these are all great steps, and possibly very effective moves to make, what they symbolize is a group that is willing to divest itself of its main identity in the search for another cause to follow.

Instead of a group promoting a cause and having it become part of who they are…they allow the cause to take over. In every instance this is a very bad idea, and one that is doomed to fail.

Instead of a group promoting a cause and having it become part of who they are…they allow the cause to take over. In every instance this is a very bad idea, and one that is doomed to fail

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When organizations don’t have enough clarity about who they are and what role they fulfill, they’re sitting ducks for an eventual regression and evaporation.

In churches you see this take shape in the form of entire congregations locked into outdated summer children’s ministries, Sunday morning habits, mid-week scheduling traits, even bussing programs, which are leftovers from decades past.

These all typically started as niche ideas that worked like a charm, but eventually they jumped the boundary of adding to the church’s vision and became the vision itself.

Because of who I am and the calling which I have in life (to start a church from scratch), I must admit that I always empathize and side with those with who have entrepenurial spirits.

When I see a new restaurant…I desperately want it to succeed
When I hear of a new home-based business…I always hope it doesn’t take too much out of the person running it
And, when I hear of a new store opening…I am always fascinated by how it merges into the culture here in Milton and how it shapes the consumer landscape

As you can tell, I’m kind of a nerd.

Anyway, over the past two days I’ve seen right across the entrepenurial spectrum here in Milton, as I’ve visited two places which really taught me a lesson in leadership and evolution.

One spot I visited was a local eating establishment (which shall remain nameless) which has had a rough go of it for sure. There have been false starts, ups and downs, ownership changes, etc. Now, the right team is in place, the right owner is on-board, and internally, things are good.

However, when I was there a few days ago I was struck by the fact that the core business ideal which drives the retaurant (i.e. the specific menu) was being discarded in favor of more of a floating menu where you could get what you wanted at different times.

No longer was this a ‘________ place’ (i.e. burger place, mexican place, dessert place…), it was now a ‘______ place’ early in the morning, a ‘_______ place’ during the day, and then a ‘________ place’ for the late night crowd.

In short, the restaurant determined that it’s core audience was not catching on here in Milton, so they decided to become a restaurant which catered to everyone at different times.

While I admire their spunk and effort, I’ve got to tell you one word popped to mind while I was sitting there: desperation.

While I admire their spunk and effort, I’ve got to tell you one word popped to mind while I was sitting there: desperation.

All of their efforts are noble enough, but they really smacked of a lack of a driving vision, and they were now grasping at straws trying to make anything work.

Now, compare this to another spot I visited this week. This is a retail outlet which has a strong local following here in town, but was definitely getting swallowed up by all of the recent growth. Larger retailers in the same field have moved in, and they have carved up the market share big-time.

This place was always staffed by ultra-friendly people, but in a word, the place was, well, dingy.

This place was always staffed by ultra-friendly people, but in a word, the place was, well, dingy. No effort was ever made to keep it up because the core crowd simply wanted the service, they didn’t care about the bells and whistles.

Well, those gravy train days of being the only sheriff in town have ended, and now that the competition has set such a high bar for cleanliness, service and ease of shopping, these guys were quite honestly getting murdered.

So, I ended up swinging by there yesterday, and what do I see?

Well, for one, they’ve halved the size of their store in order to trim their expenses. When I asked the manager about the move he told me that they wanted to save money, and in fact, they still have the exact same number of products on the shelf for half of the overhead cost.

Think a change was in order?

As I looked around some more, I noticed that the inventory had completely turned over as well. Evidently the retailer had decided that the status quo needed to change a bit, and they adapted accordingly.

So, what’s the difference between desperation and survival?

When I went to pay for my stuff, I realized that they still had the great service; they still had the best prices; and now, they had the upkeep needed to compete with the big boys.

I left, got in the car, and felt my heart warmed by a word much different than ‘desperation’: survival.

I empathize with survivors on every level, and these guys were adpating in order to make things happen.

So, what’s the difference between desperation and survival?

Is it having success and doing things right?
Is it making the right changes at the right time?
Is it doing your homework and staying ahead of the game?

No. I think what differentiates between Business A and Business B is one thing: a defined dream.

I think what differentiates between Business A and Business B is one thing: a defined dream.

Business A is running around trying to do everything it can to stay afloat…but it has no purpose or vision driving it.

Meanwhile, Business B is working off of a set model and plan…and it is now making changes to keep that foundation secure in a changing market.

I think there’s a lot to learn there for the church in this situation.

How many things do we chase as magic cures regardless of our core vision? How many ideas pop up in our minds, and how do we know which ones to pursue? And finally, how secure are we in who we are and who God has called us to be when things take a momentary dip?

Desperation and survival are two very different things…and I think that God honors one much more than the other.

Desperation and survival are two very different things…and I think that God honors one much more than the other.

It’s our job to figure out which one’s driving us.

We’re now up to the neighbourhood of 300 surveys completed on www.miltonsexsurvey.ca.

That’s cool, and we’re very happy with the response. I’m really looking forward to tallying the results and seeing how some of the views shake down amongst people in Milton.

On another level though, this whole venture is interesting for us becasue this is one of our first web-based marketing approaches. Sure, we did deliver 15,000 flyers door-to-door, but we’re noticing that the much simpler web-based marketing we did had almost as much effect.

Very interesting.

As we face 2009 and formulate our plans and budgets, we’re really looking at making a seismic shift away from the front-door blasts we’ve done in our first two years.

I’m excited we’ve got the people on-board to help us knock that out, and I think it’s going to really help us with a permanent presence in the community.

So far, we’ve had over 150 people complete our anonymous survey at www.miltonsexsurvey.ca as we’re trying to get peoples’ thoughts and views on some of the topics we’ll be covering in our upcoming series.

Please swing by and check it out, and tell a friend.

Now that we have your attention…

A few weeks ago we unveiled our next teaching series at the church, and we are getting some fairly major buzz going about this one.

Starting Sunday, November 16 we’ll be launching into ‘5 weeks of Sex’ in the form of our Sex and the Suburbs series.

The poster for the series which is going in the theatre lobby this week

I can honesty say that this is one of the last series that I want to do, and one of the last topics I want to devote about 1/10 of our church year to.

However, as you look around at Milton: 70,000 people…average age of 35…most married within the past 2-5 years...one of the most debilitating issues facing our town is that of our sexuality.

As some of you may have noticed, I’ve been away from the blog for awhile. To fill everyone in on what’s been happening (or, the 411, if you will…I love talking ‘young’), here are some thoughts from my recent blog hiatus…

1. You should never take an unannounced blog hiatus. It makes people think you’ve disappeared. Whoops.

2. Re-visioning a church’s outreach and web presence is a laborious task…but one that kind of gets me excited. We’re currently transitioning from a front-door/flyer-based approach to a computer screen/web-based approach, and it’s been cool navigating some new areas as we seek to be groundbreaking in all that we do.

3. The east coast of Canada is a very intriguing place for me. I was born there; I came to know God there; I went to school there; and after visiting there over Thanksgiving, I realized that I don’t feel a connection there. I feel very much like an Ontarian.

4. I think I have some of the best friends in the world…and, the people in our church constantly pick me up in amazing ways. I love that.

5. My kids are cuter than most. That’s not a dig on anyone else’s kids…just one of those cruel, entirely biased truths. I can’t think of something I’d rather do than spend time with them and just be their Dad.

6. Politics are a very funny business, both in Canada and the States. We have an election in our country and nobody seems to care (see: very low voter turnout), and they have an incredibly hard-fought election in the States where the candidates are pilloring each other in public, and then chumming up in other circles. Check out these videos where the candidates are roasting each other at a recent event:

7. We’re gearing up for a lot of stuff this Fall and it’s like being caught in a whirlwind. More on that soon.

I was driving around town today and I was struck by a pretty nasty set of emotions. I was getting emotional passing all of these business which I knew had failed.

Angel’s Diner closed down last week
Triple Tease coffee shop is now a salon and spa place
Alicia’s Backyard children’s playplace is long gone as well

I hate seeing this.

I hate seeing peoples’ dreams poured into something which, in some cases, doesn’t even last a year.

Man, that must be heartbreaking.

I must say that having ventured down a fairly rocky road myself with the whole church launching experience (started a church in Mississauga, folded it a year later, took six months off to re-group, relaunched it, then moved it to Milton a year later) I can empathize strongly.

I think that’s why I hate seeing things fail.

It hits a little too close to home.

August is over, and so is our first crack at ‘tithing’ one month of our church year to our community.

We had the idea awhile back to take 4 weeks out of 52 and devote them to our community. To be honest, we’ve felt like we’ve been lacking in our role in the community, and because we feel like God has called us to be ‘groundbreaking’ in all that we do, getting involved in new and inventive ways is what we were aiming for.

So, we conceived and knocked out a door-to-door microwave popcorn delivery…delivered tens of thousands of other flyers…built a website for our free lawn aerating project…devoted 3 Sundays to teaching about how we can all be on this mission together…handed out over 800 newspapers and cups of coffee for free at the GO Station…and then we moved our Labour Day service off-site in the form of a free car wash.

Well, everything is done now, and I’ve got to tell you that I’m thrilled with how it all went.

It was a lot of work, but in the end I think we took some strides in the right direction when it comes to the role we’re eventually going to fulfill in our community.

When I look back at this past weekend, the results are pretty cool:

-we aerated 60 lawns
-we washed 160 cars
-we devoted over 400 man hours to the cause
-we gave away over $10,000 worth of services
-we saw tons of smiling faces
-hopefully we changed a few perceptions about what church, and God, are all about

I think I can say with a fair deal of confidence that not only was this an August well spent in the community…it was also probably the first of what’s going to be an annual tradition as well.

If so, then you probably know about the service project which we’re focusing on over Labour Day weekend.

From Friday-Sunday we’re sending out teams of volunteers armed with aerators and big smiles to aerate as many lawns as possible here in town.

Why?

Well, we’ve decided to give the month of August to our community, and along with giving away 10,000 bags of microwave popcorn, handing out 750 free coffees and papers at the GO Station, and offering a free car wash at Spot-Free Sunday the 31st from 11:00-4:00, we’re also doing lawn aeration.

If you’re part of our church family and you want to be involved with helping out, drop us a line…and if you’d just like your lawn aerated, then please visit www.villagelawns.ca and register.

As I write this, there are 15 volunteers from a partnering church of ours spreading out across Milton delivering bags of microwave popcorn to 10,000 homes .

Attached to each bag is a two-sided flyer which gives some details about the ‘God @ The Movies’ series which we’re using to kick off Season 3 at The Village.

It’s awesome having these volunteers around to help, and tonight our church family is going to be joining them to hopefully knock out a few thousand more together.

I love seeing projects like this come together, and I especially love seeing how all of the planning, etc. is brought to life by real people who lend their feet (and their faith) to make the projects a reality.

I’ve got to tell you…I’m starting to get those butterflies again, and I’m thinking something pretty cool is going to come out of all of this in the Fall.