All posts in Innovate 2009

Kem once thought she understood what the world had to offer—and what the church did not. Now in full-time ministry, she intentionally sees the church through the filter of someone who needs “something more” but doesn’t think the church is the place to find it. With compassion for the down and out – and a passion for the “up and out” – Kem continually seeks ways to remove the barriers that keep people from connecting with Christ. When she’s not dismantling the walls between the church and the unchurched, Kem can be found with family, friends, food and gadgets. Her new book, Less Clutter. Less Noise., came out in March of 2009. By the way, she’s got a blog:kemmeyer.com.

• “I’m a recovering spin doctor who mistrusts advertising and is a fully devoted follower of Christ who feels out of place in the church.”
• I still believe the church is the hope of the world but I also believe it needs the most help.
• Against forced fed, insensitive, intimidating messages.
• I’m your “inside outsider.”

Puffy Coat Dude

• Kem shared the story of “puffy coat dude,” a guy she encountered at the airport and on a plane.
• This guy was puffed up with himself.
• We’ve all been around people like that.
• Too often we all fall into this trap… the underbelly of ministry.

The Underbelly of Ministry

• Under pressure to do “God’s work” and see results, we tend to shove our agenda on other people without regard for people.
• We create more clutter when we overestimate what we have to say and underestimate how it will effect others.
• It’s why people don’t respond to us or respond to our messages.
• We’re too puffed up.

1 – Check Your Ego

• Understanding a person’s values and passions, even if they are different than your own, is the first step in understanding them.
• It’s a prerequisite to your credibility.
• A question we forget to wrestle with is, “Do I care more about what I have to say more than the person I’m saying it to?”

The Million Dollar Question

• What is your biggest communication challenge in your church?
• Answer: People are unwilling to change, lack commitment and unwilling to listen.
• It’s not that our motives are wrong; but we are picking the wrong favorite.
• We’re picking and favoring what we are doing over who we are doing it for.
• Do you get frustrated when people don’t get it, or are you taking the time to understand what it would take for them to get it.
• We’re all in the business of persuasion.

Change

• Change we initiate is easier to manage than change that is forced upon us.
• Our job is not to release the right message but to release the right response.
• We’ve got to motivate people to change.
• The more choices you give, the more overwhelmed people get.
• The value we provide decreases in direct proportion to how hard we make it for people to do what they are trying to do.
• We need to be willing to work harder than the audience we are trying to reach.

2 – Get an Image Consultant

• When we check our ego we spend more energy thinking about how we are going to say is going to effect people than what we have to say.
• It’s easy for things to get lost in translation.
• Most of the time our picture isn’t telling the story we think it is.
• We’re always the last people to know how we come across to other people.
• All of talent, skills and intention don’t matter if you are handicapped in social skills.
• You have to take the time to get into people’s worlds.
• Spend time with people who have a different perspective.
• Sometimes change is good.
• Are you testing your theories against people who think differently than you?
• We all need people who can “save me from me.”
• Who do you trust in your day job to tell you that you come across as being defensive? Over complicated? Controlling? Out of touch? Desperate? Self-centered?
• If you don’t have people like that, you need to find them.
• Stop with the holy dialect.
• It takes a bigger brain to simplfy things and to make it easy for people to understand instead of complicating it.
• It’s not what we say, it’s what people hear.
• We can make dramatic improvements if we take the time to get an extra set of eyes.
• It starts with talking with people outside of your department.
• Before you program, print, produce, have that next conversation or hit send, get an extra set of eyes.

3 – Keep it Simple

• We have to face a changing culture.
• Today’s culture is overwhelmed, overcommitted and over extended.
• Are we, as a church, piling more on and adding to confusion?
• Are we part of the problem instead of the solution we claim to be.
• If we are just rambling then people will do what they have to do to survive the onslaught of information and only pay attention to what they are looking for.
• If want to maximize the response we have to minimize the options.
• Too much choice = paralysis.
• Pharisees overcomplicated things CONSTANTLY.
• Jesus gave them less clutter less noise all the time: LOVE GOD, LOVE OTHERS.
• We need to make it simple, too.
• We need to make it simple for every single audience we are trying to connect with.
• We need to do something practical that will prevent individual energy from compromising team synergy.
• Instead of complicating the solution, simplify the problem.

At the end of the day, if I do ______________  then I have done my job.

• What’s your answer to that question?
• If we can’t get it, internally, how can we expect people to get it externally?
• Sharpen your focus to the essential.
• Doing this will move your job from being a leading role to a supporting character.
• The real win is in how it benefits others.
• Put people first, task later.

Who is the person on the other end of the message?

• “A generation ago the question was, ‘what is truth?’ Today, the question is, ‘what’s the point?”" – Billy Graham
• Start with the end in mind.
• Think about the person on the other end of your email, letter, sermon, brochure, webpage, etc.
• Ask yourself, “what’s more important, getting the word out or getting through?”
• When we remember the real people with real problems, real pain and real life on the other end of our communication, it changes our MO.
• We’ll learn to check our ego, get an image consultant and to keep it simple.