The Necessary Things

Practical Capacity Building

Justin Dodson, an emerging leader on staff with CCC at Kent State, asked me yesterday 'SO WHAT?' Such a great question as capacity-oriented training can sound so nebulous. These are some practical steps that have helped me grow my capacity.

Meet

• Attend a conference outside of your organization but inside your strengths/giftings/passions. Many of my friends (Dan, Dave, Jen) passionate about church planting attended Gospel Coalition this Spring.
• The relationships at these conferences are just as important as the content. Most likely you will meet a peer or mentor from a different organization. These people have had an invaluable influence in my life. Twitter can help you stay connected with these people after the conference with minimal effort.

Read

• Start using or take your RSS reading or take it to the next level. If you have Gmail, Google Reader is an easy first step. Start by reading it once a week for 30 minutes. Whatever you do not get to, simply click 'mark all as read.' RSS reading is NOT like email; you can choose to ignore content.

Prune

• What do you suck at that seems to take up a lot of your time? Can you delegate it, spend less time on it, or eliminate the activity altogether? Buckingham's Go Put Your Strengths to Work outlines this process well.

More Water or a Bigger Cup?

Skill acquisition and role-based training facilitate development ONLY to the degree of the trainee's ability to internalize these skills and training.

A gallon of 'training water' is only good if the trainee's cup can hold a gallon. 

Pour more water on a trainee and he/she may somehow grow while drowning.

Teach a trainee how to enlarge his cup and he/she WILL be able to grow regardless of any role.

Capacity-based training answers this question (thanks Mark McCloskey for this insight!):

What people and/or experiences can I seek out to expand my capacity?

Here are some observations I have made while on staff with Campus Crusade for Christ:

• Mature and effective leaders frequently integrate people and experiences into their role/ministry that enhance their capacity, PARTICULARLY in their strenghts.
• Most new staff believe skill and role based training will make them more effective when in fact it only creates a greater gap between who they are and who they want/think they should be.
• Most staff plateau in their effectiveness after three to four years on staff BECAUSE they fail to seek out people and experiences that enhance their capacity.

My friend Daniel Berman shared this comment: Interesting thoughts. I felt like I have been reaching a plateau at work. Skills I have, but mentally I come home exhausted and worry that I have accomplished little.

thks mariJC for the image

Insight From a Church Planter

Just received this comment from Chris Knutzen, who has experience in CCC and church-planting. I wanted to share his comments as they provide great insight into this area:

Just wanted to chime in as one of those elders you talked about. I was part of the Mars Hill church plant. And I am currently working with my 2nd church plant in Russia. I want to share some thoughts on how it has been for me as CCC staff to be in these roles as founding elder/church planter and being full time staff.

In 1995, when we planted Mars Hill, I found it the ideal position to be in to help plant a church as I would be interacting with a host of potential church members on the campus of the UW. I was also able to help steer the direction of the church by being on the elder board and, through prayer and counseling, able to contribute to the spiritual growth. However, I constantly was stressed with the fact that there was so much more I wanted to do for the church but just didn't have time. I saw that Mark was max'd out so much of the time, but I could do very little to lighten his load. I remember asking him one time how I could be of greater help and, knowing my commitment to CCC, he told me, "Just bring more people to church, that's all". So I did. But there was always that tension in me.

Fast forward to Russia. When I left Seattle/Mars Hill in 1999 to do college ministry in Russia I knew there would opportunities to plant churches there. In fact I have been able to take part in 2 church plants, both from scratch with almost no official ties from the west. This has been a challenge but also a blessing as I've seen local people step up and lead. But again, the tension is still there, always wanting to do more for the local church. But every time I go to church and see the college students there I realize that, as long as I am here, my main contribution will be to bring people into the church. Of course I also sit in on elders meetings and counsel the younger leaders. But I take more of a back seat role in things. It is humbling, but it is where I know I need to be for now.

Who knows, maybe someday we might go full time into church planting. But for now and for the last 10 years, I dont regret being in that tension of taking part in something great (church planting) but also wanting to do more, realizing that God places others around me who step up.

Striving, Thinking, Impacting, or Relating?

Our Ocean City Summer Project staff team went through a Strengthsfinder training last week.

I enjoyed exploring the four domains under which all strengths fall.

I enjoyed thinking about how our organization functions with respect to these domains.

Based on my experience here's how I ranked the domains:

1. Striving
2. Impacting
3. Relating
4. Thinking

I'm very curious as to how you would rank our organizational strengths. I discovered that my personal strengths line up in this manner:

1. Thinking
2. Striving
3. Impacting
4. Relating

The fact that my number 1 is actually CCC's number 4 actually encouraged me! It provides a helpful grid to understand that not only are my strengths valued the least, but that it's not personal. As long as I choose to remain in the organization, I can expect frustration, resistance, and misunderstanding.

As I think about being a part of seeing redemptive organizational change, these challenges motivate more than discourage me. That's new for me, and definitely a work of the Lord!

How would you rank CCC or yourself in light of this grid?

Church Partnership Tweets

These tweets are from Paul Nunez, CCC staff member heading to San Jose State to lead the movement there. He is quoting Holly Sheldon, one of our National Directors (who is not on Facebook or Twitter--yikes!)

I'm hoping Paul can weigh in and clarify/expand on some of these quotes, as they are extremely pertinent to the recent discussions that happened here a week ago.

Reflections on Skill/Capacity Based Development

This summer I have experienced perhaps the best skill training available in Campus Crusade for Christ. The Ocean City summer project provides training that equips students and staff to spiritually multiply their lives.

Here are a few trends I have observed in ministry over the last few years:

• Skill-based training is great for immature/entry level leaders (student leaders/new staff) but a hindrance for seasoned leaders
• Staff rarely intentionally pursue capacity-based training until much later in life (late 40's-50's). I'm not that age but in talking to older leaders it's seems to be true.
• One survives on skill but thrives on capacity.
• Ministry 'plateaus' are often linked to a failure to develop capacity. It's usually less about the role and more about the leader.

Capacity-based training takes more thought, intentionality, and reflection than skill. Often times it leads those to pursue people and experiences OUTSIDE of their particular organization.

Do you have any links, books, quotes to share that speak to capacity-based training?

The CORE of Campus Crusade for Christ

"I think that title is appropriate for what I think CCC needs to get back too.  The key to the future is not old techniques but old characteristics of a movement that was on the frontier of ministry.  When both staff members who were on the front lines with Bill Bright in the beginning reflect on the past, they said there were 3 distinguising characteristics.

1.Intiative

2.Innovative

3. Spirit Filled"

Dan Birch interned at Chico State last year and now attends Campus Crusade's New Staff training in Fort Collins, Colorado. He shared this with me yesterday and I wanted to pass it on to you.

If you're on staff, how do you see these characteristics playing out? What do you think our culture is strongest/weakest?

In my experience we excel at initiative, battle to stay spirit-filled, and suck at innovation.

What say you?

The Role of Skills and Training

"I say I disagree because I think CCC has dominated at skills and training - a particular approach to discipleship driven by the movement's mission and vision."--Brian Virture

I would say that CCC has dominated at skills and training BECAUSE we are a apostolic leadership enterprise--at our heart we are called to give leaders what they need to accomplish the mission.

In the modern era, that was skill-based training. In the postmodern era, I believe it's going to be capacity-driven training.

An expectation that I have rarely seen realized is that I will be 'discipled' or that I will be able to 'disciple others' This may happen on occasion, but has not been part of the CCC culture.

When I think of my 'discipleship' as leadership training, and discipling others as 'training leaders,' all of a sudden everything falls into place. I no longer expect pastoral-type experiences from my leaders and seek those from pastorally-gifted people (some in CCC, most outside), and no longer try to function pastorally with those I lead, and encourage them to pursue other people in the body for shepherding.

It's not a cop-out for me at all or justifying my experience; it's more of a coming to grips with the reality of one part of our organization.

I agree that pragmatism proves to be a continual internal hindrance to CCC ministering out of the Spirit. I'm sure Brian Virtue could flush this out much better than me, but I can see how pragmatism negatively impacts our effectiveness. Brian said this:

"A lot of the discipleship and spiritual leadership I've seen in CCC has been pragmatism and programs "in the power of the Spirit."

Brian is a great friend and has been the most influential spiritual leader in my life; he 'discipled' me during my freshmen year at UCLA, and then worked hard to get me on a summer project that he was staffing where I ended up meeting my wife! Read his blog or follow him on Twitter!

Disciples or Leaders?

 "We all know what our weekly campus schedules looks and how we prioritize our time. Why the disparity?

If higher % of CCC staff were truly "making disciples" in the ways and styles Jesus and Paul modeled --- and were teaching them to obey the commands & disciplines Jesus and Paul taught their disciples --- we'd be having a totally different conversation here today"--Daniel Curran

Are we in the business of disciples or leaders? Before you quickly answer 'disciples' let me share some observations:

• Historically we have yet to ever master the art of making disciples. If we took our best and brightest from the beginning of CCC until now, would they have received more spiritual leadership or discipleship when we 'sent' them into the world? I would answer spiritual leadership.
• Historically we have trained our staff in spiritual leadership much more than discipleship. If we looked at the cumulative 'content' we have produced/taught to our staff, again it would lean HEAVILY towards spiritual leadership over discipleship.
  
• Historically we have DOMINATED at producing Christ-centered LEADERS. Who is left standing at the end of their college career in CCC? From my experience it has been the type A, socially capable, spiritually teachable, leadership-minded student.
  

"...teaching them to do ALL THINGS whatsoever I have commanded you"--Matthew 28:20

How can we realistically accomplish this when...

• students do not buy in to CCC's mission, vision, and values until the end of their sophomore year or junior year on average?
• staff must spend time planning, mobilizing believers, and personally engaging lost students? these are all 'resource drains' on 'making disciples.'
• staff are less equipped/capable to impart the pastoral elements of disciple making? the pastors in Chico that our staff team connects with are EXPONENTIALLY better than us at this.

Let's be best at what we are best at: apostolic spiritual leadership, and delegate/empower all the rest as much as we can. What do you think?

Is There An Organizational Difference?

Putting aside the denominational and theological questions, do you think there is anything different between high school (pre-college) and church planting geared towards recent college grads?

This question haunts me as I think about what it would look like to retain and develop students who graduate from our movements. When I think of 'Christ-centered laborers,' the second most strategic category of people to reach are recent college grads.

As great as other church planting networks and church plants are they do not have our VISION or VALUES. Just because they share our MISSION does not mean that we should partner with them.

Does anyone else see the organizational parallel? Or am I just talking crazy here? Not that this is THE reason why we HAVE to do it. I do not believe that at all. I'm stunned that we would invest SIGNIFICANT resources in reaching high-school students and NOTHING on reaching recent college grads who do not join staff or intern.

Thanks again to those who have been actively commenting and adding TREMENDOUS value to this conversation!