_Ministries_ () |Fri, Sep. 10 2010 06:13 AM EDT
Christians Challenged to Stop Ignoring Innovators, Early Adopters
By _Audrey Barrick_
(http://www.christianpost.com/columnist/audrey-barrick/) |Christian
Post
Author and speaker Erwin McManus believes that all the innovators and
early
adopters have been filtered out of church _leadership_
(http://www.christianpost.com/topics/leadership) .
In the meantime, the church has been led by late adopters and
nostalgics,
he pointed out on Thursday.
And though early adopters make up a small percentage of the
population,
McManus is convinced that churches will not be able to shape the
future of
any
_culture_ (http://www.christianpost.com/topics/culture) if they
don't
reach what he sees as "the top 12 percent."
"Even if you have the majority, you do not have the defining
influence of
where culture is going unless you reach the top 2.2 and 12.4
[percent] of
culture," he said as he addressed seminary students and _pastors_
(http://www.christianpost.com/topics/pastors) at The National
Leadership
Forum, held
at Southeastern University in Lakeland, Fla.
"But most of the decisions we make cater toward the majority and the
nostalgics and entirely ignore those who shape and create culture."
McManus, an innovator, recently made the transition from full-time
pastor
at the influential Mosaic church in Southern California to
starting a
company that would engage the world of art and culture. It was a
dream he
has had
but never tended to, he said.
In the last couple of years, he and his wife took out millions of
dollars
in investment loans to forge forward with what he felt his soul was
saying
to do. He felt called to create community, tell a story and bring
meaning
and beauty to the world on a different platform.
Meaning, story, beauty and community are the four things he is
convinced
every organization, church and business needs to focus on if they are
going
to develop the healthiest and most vibrant people.
There are many unhealthy Christians out there, he lamented, along
with an
incredible number of unhealthy companies that are influenced by
Christians.
The 51-year-old speaker said he meets a lot of people who have a
relationship with Christ and yet are still searching for answers
to their
life
"One of the things you'll discover ... as you listen to your own
soul is
that you spend a great amount of your life trying to bring meaning
to
your
own life. And, by the way, most people are not going to church so
the
place
they're actually trying to find meaning in their life is at work,"
he
noted.
"And if their job seems meaningless, if it seems as if it's just a
waste
of their life, they just go in and clock in but check out, you
will never
get the best of people."
"How many people just get up on Monday and do the same thing
they've done
every single Monday – go to work and just turn on route automatic
and no
longer have any meaning in their life?" he laid out.
When he started his new company, which includes a filmmaking
component,
McManus wanted to make sure that he does things that are meaningful
in
every
way. He was inspired by the Old Testament figure Solomon who found
everything "utterly meaningless" after experiencing wealth, power
and
success.
"We want to help everyone find meaning in their life and help
translate
the
story that each person actually matters in the world," he said.
He rejected the business model that former General Electric CEO
Jack Welch
had famously employed – finding "A" people, tolerating "B" people
and
getting rid of "C" people, as McManus summarized it.
McManus believes there is greatness in everyone and leaders need to
help
pull that out of everyone.
"The reality is that every human being is placed on this planet and
one of
the things that drives humans is their need for meaning and if you
can
make
every job meaningful then you will guarantee that every job will be
done
to its highest level of excellence," he said.
The innovator recently employed a young designer who creates bags
out of
materials that are tossed, particularly military pieces from World
War II.
"Steve (the designer of Temple bags) had a metaphor ... to take
everything
that's trash, [that] no one cares about ... and redesign them so that
people can realize that their life, though it may seem worthless and
ragged and
no longer of any value, if they'll just allow God to reshape and
repurpose
their life, He can create something beautiful because we're really
the
temples," McManus highlighted.
Christians are called not only to bring meaning to people's lives
but also
to bring beauty, he emphasized.
But he has found that churches have brushed off the importance of
beauty.
Early this year, Mosaic church produced a Doritos commercial that was
among
the three chosen by the American public to air during the 2010 Super
Bowl.
McManus was criticized by Christian leaders for not placing the
Gospel
message in the commercial.
To such criticism, he responded, "We actually believe that if we do
something better than anyone else in the world, we will earn the
right to
be
heard."
"Part of what has happened is that we have lost our conviction that
beauty
is actually important in carrying the Gospel to the world," he said.
In the church, McManus feels there is an "arrogant misconception"
that
Christians hold – that because they are people of the book or peop
le of
truth,
they're healthy.
"The truth of the matter is, even if you're right in your beliefs,
right
in
your doctrine, you may be actually wrong in your execution," he
pointed
out.
"We can keep trying to preach at people, demand that they listen to
us
rather than tell a story so compelling they can't help but hear
us," he
told
Forum participants. "[But] if we're going to reach these innovators,
early
adopters, pioneers, explorers, artisans, cultural creators ... we
better
stop
acting as if we've already earned the right to be heard and trying
to
cram
the most beautiful story that has ever been told down people's
throats."
"We need to start doing things that are astonishing and beautiful,
that
are
compelling and reach inside of the human spirit and make people
long for
the God who created them," he challenged Christians.
"The wonderful thing about the opportunity that we have is that we
can
take
the broken wreckage of our life, the worn out pieces, the stuff
that we
thought God could never use and through the honest, transparent
expression of
who we are sharing what God has done, we can tell a story that
will pack
them in."
--
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