Jonathan Herron

Introducing Dan Thorp

Dan and his family came out to interview a few weeks back during our nationwide Lead Worshiper search. They were here during his wife Anjee's birthday and Mother's Day.  Which makes them troopers in my eyes.

Dan wasn't the right fit for our worship position... and yet everyone - everyone - was captured by Dan's energy, passion, and unique ministry strengths.

Now allow me to backtrack a bit. 
As lead pastor, my role is to champion the vision, teach God's Word, protect the sheep, and be a leader to leaders.  However, through unexpected funerals, people requiring counseling, and other time demands, I have been spending all my time working in the church rather than on the church. 

The biggest value I add to our organization is the hour I teach from up-front every Sunday morning.  Ed Young says that lead pastors should focus 70% of their work week solely on Sunday prep.  With my schedule demands, I've been focusing maybe 5%.

On March 3rd of this year during Unleash, God laid it on my heart that I had too much on my plate.  I realized the urgent need for a right-hand man that I could fully trust without reservation in helping to lead the church I love. 

Dan is that man.  As our new Executive Pastor, Dan will be a "Jonathan" to my "David."  By picking up the details at the micro-level of ministry for me, Dan will help take Colwood to the next level with his leadership in our church operations, administration, and discipleship (plus, God's now given us a back-up worship guy!).  This will free me up immensely to lead the church at a macro, Google Earth level.

I am absolutely thrilled to have the Thorp family coming from Illinois to join our Colwood family in Michigan this June.  Dan is fully called and qualified to lead and I personally can't thank Dan enough for taking on this thankless, behind-the-scenes role.  Here's some more on Dan...

JON: Dan, if you had to pick one hero of the Bible other than Jesus, who would it be?

DAN:  David.  His passion for God is so visible in the Scriptures.  Through his many failures and disappointments, his pursuit of God was relentless.

JON: Where do you see yourself in 10 years?

DAN:  Caro, MI!  I see myself helping lead a revolution in the local church and watching it explode with new believers in Christ.  As a family man, I also long to be part of a church where my family will feel loved and they can grow in Christ daily.

JON: What is the biggest thing that attracts you to Colwood?

DAN:  I so desire for my family to serve in a place where God is alive and evident.  A place where you just know God is going to show up.  Growth numerically and spiritually, people finding Christ, and tons of baptisms... It sounds as though God is evident at Colwood and I desire to be there helping further what He's already doing!

JON: For those interested in what exactly an Executive Pastor does, here's a few helpful links:

- 6 Guidelines for Executive Pastors (Resurgence)

- Creating a Great Staff Culture (Jason Wilson)

- Weird Teams are the Best Teams (Mark Driscoll)

Dan joins Colwood beginning Sunday, June 13th.  You can actually be among the very first to meet Dan at our upcoming Partnership Learning Experience, that Sunday morning at 8:30am.  Registration info can be found here.  In the meantime, catch Dan's worship demo reel on YouTube.

Blog Quote of the Week

Unbelievably powerful post from Mark Driscoll - Under Authority Before In Authority:

Here's the big idea. Some of you bounce from church to church, ministry to ministry, because you just don't want to be under authority. You don't want anybody to know you, or what you're doing. You don't want to become a member. You don't want to join anything. You don't want to be held accountable to anything. You just want to live in this come and see, come and see, come and see. It's an immaturity, and today I invite you to go and die, to settle in somewhere, to commit to something, to make it ours and yours, and to come under authority, and then grow and be trained, and maybe one day God would have you to be in authority.

Really, you walk in off the street and start bossing people around? It doesn't work like this anywhere else in the world. You can't do this in the Marines. You can't do this in a college. Can't just walk up to your professor, "I disagree with the degree. We need to do it this way, now." 

Sunday Reflex 05.30.10

• After a week away, I came back today with the power and punch of two messages rolled into one!
• I personally met six new guests who tried out Colwood last Sunday and came back for more today.  One couple in their late 50's are already RSVPing for our next Partnership Learning Experience!
• We wrapped our Punctuation series with a look at 2 Chronicles 14-15 in a message called, "Growing Pains!!!"
• Healthy things grow.  Growing pains are uncomfortable, but necessary.
• King Asa had over a half million men of valor ready to battle with him.  We all need partners to link arms with and do life together. 
• There are no "Lone Ranger Christians."  Its a theological oxymoron.
  
• God leads us to uncomfortable places so that His grace might eclipse our weakness.  Looking at an army of one million Ethiopians had to be uncomfortable for King Asa!
• Jesus is amplified when He achieves for us what we cannot.
• Uncomfortable Grace is when God takes you where you haven't intended to go, to produce in you what you could not achieve on your own.
• True righteousness only begins when you come to the end of yourself.
• I thanked all our people for the grace and flexibility they've extended to our leadership as we've made strategic changes over the past few months in order to achieve our church's vision.  Every story of life change = the growing pains are worth it!
• Pharisees throw rocks at what they do not understand: the power of the Gospel displayed.
• Tall trees attract wind.  We will regularly receive criticism from "Found" people who misunderstand our hearts for reaching "Lost" people.  The Gospel-centered response is to pray for and bless those who wish us harm.
• Huge response of cheers and anticipation when I announced the big news about two new full-time staff members coming on board Team Colwood this June!
• This email I received late Sunday says it all:
  HI Jon!!!!!
  I am so beyond excited about the new staff choices.
  I was so excited and thrilled about it. 
  You had me in tears, my brother!
  Man, God just totally rocks! 
  He blew me away with this one. :)

SNL + Church: You Are Not Guaranteed Another Season

In case you missed the blog series, here are the Top 5 big ideas your church can learn from Saturday Night Live:

#5: Your Past Doesn't Promise Your Present

#4: Sketches Don't Equal Movie Success

#3: Nobody Likes A Debbie Downer

#2: The Betty White Phenomenon

And now for the final big idea.

Every cast member on SNL is a union actor/writer.  Contracts are renegotiated annually.  Sometimes Lorne Michaels keeps you for a few seasons, sometimes you're a one season blip.

Everyone eventually bows out sometime. 
Even Don Pardo at age 90 retired from announcing SNL last year after 34 years.

You are not guaranteed another season.  So live it up now.

You do not control your destiny - God's eternal purposes converge with your desires in life. 

Enjoy this moment. 
Don't fret over what happens to your church after your gone (its not even yours!). 

Love widely. 
Give generously
(and maybe have a will leaving a tithe of your entire estate to Jesus). 

And don't worry about your "legacy." 
I think it was Matt Chandler who said, "We only get 40 years (maybe)." 

It doesn't matter right now who will be the next senior pastor to follow you.  Be the most faithful one you can be now.  God's got the details... and the future.

Selecting Your Leaders

If you follow my Twitter, than you know that this Sunday I'm excited to announce some new staff hires at the church I love.

My philosophy is to bring aboard the bus the best staff in the country and fully release them to do whatever it takes to achieve our ministry strategy.  We are a Staff-led church, which means that the people who are gifted, called, and biblically qualified to lead as elders and deacons are the ones exercising day-to-day leadership.

Throughout Scripture, God hands the ball off to leaders He has chosen.  God empowers leaders who are entrusted with a specific vision.  He appoints individual leaders to lead His people; He does not appoint groups to lead the leader.

We believe in giving our staff the flexibility they need to carry out our vision in a fast-growing church environment.  Our staff are humbly stewarding both authority and responsibility.

My coach always encourages me to surround myself with men and women who are smarter than me.  I need a staff team that loves Jesus (first!) and loves me (second!).  I'm learning that I don't need "Yes Men"; I need a team that will speak the truth (love Jesus first) in love to me.  Wounds from a friend can be trusted.

Details on our new staff members coming this Sunday - can't wait!

What Your Church Can Learn from SNL's Betty White Phenomenon

1st Lifetime Channel made The Golden Girls cool again.

2nd Snickers aired this brilliant Super Bowl commercial.

3rd Facebook enabled Betty White fans to petition SNL.

The result?  Betty White hosting SNL to huge ratings.

The #2 big idea your church can learn from SNL? 
Listen to this generation.

Millennials grew up in the 1990's during Exxon & Bill Clinton - they naturally question authority.  Just because you have the title "Rev" or "Pastor" doesn't necessarily = respect and submission to authority.

Add in the rise of AOL + iPods and you have a younger generation wired for instant access to communication while flattening leadership structures.

So of course the "Get Betty on SNL" campaign worked. 
It appealed to Millennials' nature.

In 2010, your church can tap into this phenomenon as part of its mission.  The message isn't compromised, but like all missionaries, the method flexibly adapts.

Listening to the ideas Millennials creates missional pathways + builds long-term trust.

And who was the champion of Millennials? 
88-year-old Betty White. 

This younger generation is hungry to
honor and learn from Old Timers. 

My thought?  Instead of complaining, criticize by creating relationships between Seasoned Citizens and Young Pokes. 
See what God might do.

Dave Dickson knocked it out of the park this past weekend at the church I love (grab the iTunes podcast here). 

His message on how serving others through the local church is part of Jesus' plan for your spiritual maturity was right on.  

This video led into Dave's talk:

3 take-aways:

1) As a parent, I love Colwood KIDS' Orange Philosophy!

2) Volunteering in your local church deepens your spiritual maturity.

3)  Josh Phillips, one of Colwood's high-impact volunteers, created this digital video.  Josh is a prime example of unselfishly pouring out one's gifts to advance God's agenda.

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Ready to find out more? 
Colwood's next Partnership Learning Experience is Sunday, June 13th at 8:30am.  Registration info here.

SNL + Church: The Church Lady

Dana Carvey's Church Chat introduced 80's audiences to the Church Lady.  With her trademark snide glances, a new saying entered the American lexicon: "Well, isn't that special?"

Good satire echoes reality.  Carvey's imitation continues to be spot-on for the attitude in too many churches today.  Entitlement and self-righteousness easily trump

SNL + Church: Nobody Likes a Debbie Downer

Rachel Dratch was brilliant as Debbie Downer.
Always ruining conversations and moments with her downers.
Here's my favorite sketch where everyone cracks up on live tv:

My #3 big idea for what the institutional church can learn from Saturday Night Live is simple: Nobody Likes a Debbie Downer.

Does your Lead Pastor have a white-hot, God-ordained vision for where the church could and should go in the next several months?  Don't be a fire extinguisher; encourage and fuel his holy fire!

Only in church world do we give Debbie Downers a megaphone.
Only in church world do we reap the benefits of a Lead Pastor's giftings and loudly lament the areas God has not gifted him (by the way, maybe the reason you notice a problem area in your church is because God has gifted and appointed YOU to be the solution!).

Criticize by creating.  
Breathe life, not death, into your church leaders.
Nobody likes a Debbie Downer.

SNL's MacGruber + Church: Sketches Don't Equal Movie Success

Ugh.  Another SNL sketch-turned-movie, another box office BOMB.  

Seriously, MacGruber on the big screen?  
Looks like it will join Ladies Man, A Night at the Roxbury, and It's Pat as great SNL sketches but horrible Hollywood pitches.

Great on the micro level, but not successfully duplicated on the macro level.

How often do we take something that works in a specific, micro context and try to franchise its success in another venue?

The #4 big idea that the institutional church can learn from Saturday Night Live is simple: Sketches Don't Equal Movie Success.

Sure, there's the rare Blues Brothers/Wayne's World success (or in church world, Elevation Church/Mars Hill Church).  But those are acts of God that aren't necessarily to be duplicated and replicated nationwide.

You are not the next Mark Driscoll or Steven Furtick. 
And that's by God's design.

Learn from them?  Yes.
Replicate them?  No.

There's one leadership idea God has been pounding into me lately:
He doesn't want/need you to fill someone else's shoes;
He wants you to fill yours!  

Just because something "works" in one place doesn't mean it will succeed in another. 

Continue reading/learning.  Ask questions.
But like any good fisherman, eat the meat and spit out the bones.  

Church-world is not one-size-fits-all.  
Listen to God and lead forward.  
He brings forth fruit, not an oversized comedy sketch.