George Strait Comes to Hillcrest

Ok, not really, but this Sunday Hillcrest kicks off our "Faith in Rock n Roll Country Style Series" where each week in April we'll look at a country music classic and connect it to our faith. Looking forward to George Strait's "Love without end, Amen" and the connection to our Easter celebration of the resurrected Christ!

The Waiting is the Hardest Part

True word, Tom Petty, true words. We've got an exciting project in the mix at Hillcrest and right now we're in the waiting process. Waiting on architects and city planners. Waiting on foundations and banks who like to give to charitable causes for the good of the community. And this isn't the complaining kind of waiting, either, but rather the good kind of waiting, the kind of waiting where we've done what we've needed to do, and now we wait on others to do what they need to do. Doesn't make it easier though.

Candidating with the Furniture Mission

I'm always appreciative of the opportunity to serve with the Furniure Mission, as we did last night. Sioux Falls elects a new mayor next month, and I couldn't help but think that the various candidates ought to take a tour with the Furniture Mission, as you learn so much about our city and it diverse citizens. Our first stop we prayed with a family who's brother is in jail and with the second family we prayed that they might find work. The opportunities are always good.

Thanking Partners

We invited several of Hillcrest's ministry partners to our volunteer appreciation event. And while none could make it (presumably because I invited them too late), I think it is important. It is true that Hillcrest provides schools and non-profits with many volunteers, but these agencies also provide Hillcrest with meaningful opportunities to serve in the local community.

One of our partners sent us this: "I think this is so neat that Hillcrest provides an appreciation event for volunteers especially when they go outside the church to spend their time. Please pass along my appreciation . . ."

Thank You

This Sunday Hillcrest had its 4th Annual Volunteer Appreciation Event. Personally, I think it is one of the more fun events we do as we recognize all of our hardworking volunteers who work passionately and tirelessly behind the scenes making a difference for the kingdom. This year's event was hosted by Heath and the gang at the 41st St Pizza Ranch and they did such a great job, especially considering the 150 or so of us filled their banquet rooms and spilled over into their main seating areas.

It's pretty informal- we pick up our volunteer's and their families' meals, hang out a bit, give away tons of gift cards, and say thank you a lot! We also provided childcare back at our facility so parents could even enjoy a bit of a night out.

Before the event, each of our elders and pastors sign thank you cards for the people who serve in their ministry areas. I'm sure I signed over 200 thank you cards (apologies to those who happened to receive one from me as you will probably have to ask my wife to translate my handwriting for you!), and yet I believe I probably don't say thank you enough. When I consider it takes 40 or so volunteers to pull of a Sunday morning, another 40 or so to pull of a Wednesday night, and still more for youth ministry, small groups and bible studies, meals for the sick and volunteers for our facility, I am acutely aware of just how interdependent we are on one another, and how we are all ministers, all in this mission together.

Thank you.

Things to come

We went on a planning retreat as a staff last week where we mapped out Hillcrest's sermon series until the end of the year. Some takeaways:

• Galatians is a tough book- our summer series covers the whole book of Galatians, and it's a meaty book. Looking forward to it.
• Can't wait for our September series based off of this hilarious sitcom
• In another fall series we'll look at predestination vs. free will. Oh yeah.
• Finally, it was good to have Adam and Jesse with us to plan for a day

Planning Retreat

Hillcrest's staff goes on a planning retreat this week. We'll plan the next year's worth of sermons and series, so if you have any ideas or topics you'd like to see taught, leave a comment or drop us an email.

The Xbox Uno Generation

I was mentoring the other day, and we had to stay inside during recess because of the weather, so we went to my student's classroom and played Uno with him and a couple of his classmates. One of his classmates comes up, sees that we're playing Uno, and remarks "I don't know how to play Uno, but I can play it on my Xbox 360". Our society may never be the same if the next generation loses the time honored skill of playing Uno . . .

Linchpin

Seth Godin is one of those authors that I read pretty much anything he puts out, so I read his new book a month or so ago, and it is excellent. Just excellent. Anyone that has a job, likes their job, or wants a different job (that's about all of us, right?!?) ought to give it a look.

Of course, you can always get short slices of Seth's wisdom over at his blog.

The Sound Guy Problem

How many times have you been at a concert, a wedding, a funeral, a worship service, or any other public event that required a microphone and a speaker, and when there was a glitch in the system, some feedback from front, or the sound cut out, and instantly, without thinking about it, you turned around and looked at the sound person? But, if the event goes off without a hitch, how likely are you to comment to the sound guy or the tech team, "Great job today! No glitches! Excellent work!" It's the sound person problem, where if the sound tech does his job well, no one notices. If he makes a mistake, everyone notices. It also demonstrates our tendency to focus on the negative without crediting the positive.

In reading a new book called Switch about how to change things when change is hard (more on that topic at a later post), one of the interesting things from the book is how predisposed we as humans can be on focusing on the negative. The authors cite the following examples:

• Of the 558 emotion words in the English language, 62% of them are negative.
• People who were shown photos of bad and good events spent longer viewing the bad ones.
• When people learn bad stuff about someone else, it’s stickier than good stuff. People pay closer attention to the bad stuff, reflect on it more, remember it longer, and weigh it more heavily in assessing the person overall.

There's research to back the first three claims, and this last one is anecdotal:

• So when your kids are making As and Bs, you don’t think much about their grades. But when they make a D or an F, you spring into action. It’s weird when you think about it, isn’t it? (46-48).

It's interesting that we have a more of an alignment or focus on the negative. And I think this focus runs true in many different situations- businesses, schools, parenting, and even churches. We notice a problem, we spring into action. We don't notice a problem, we relax and assume all is well. This isn't to say that we shouldn't confront the brutal facts or embrace a negative reality; but if that is all we do, all that we focus on, we run the risk of becoming a 'Debbie Downer', and ironically, we make can make the process of change more difficult.

Oh, and one last thing- next time a public event goes off without a hitch, thank your sound person.

New Blogs

Some new blogs for you to consider checking out:

• Kristi, the mom of the Hillcrest Family who adopoted from Haiti, blogs here.
• The Kindermusik studio that Tarina works with blogs here about all things related to kids and music.
• And finally, the cofounding editor of Fast Company, blogs here.

Soft Skills

I'm not a business or organizational expert by any means, and yet I believe that the winning schools, winning organizations, and winning businesses will continue to excel at what I call soft skills. Soft skills to me are things that any one of us can do, but they are things that can turn an average or pretty good classroom, church, business, or organization into a better one. So in no particular order, here are some of the more important soft skills (I also acknowledge by writing this post, I'm probably guilty of violating several of these as well!):

• Thank yous- it's important to cultivate a culture of gratitude. Just this week I sent a thank you note to a department head at the City of Sioux Falls, to an architect, and to another pastor to thank each of them for their assistance and involvement with a a project we're working on. For some, like the department head and the architect, this is their job, and yet thanking them hopefully builds some sort of relationship as we continue to work together. How can you show appreciation for someone today?
• Return communication- whether it's an email, a voice mail, a text, whatever, I think it's important to return communication. In today's ultra busy and fast blackberry world, perhaps the temptation is to be too quick to return communication, and thus you are never actually accomplishing anything because you're always returning communication. But there's a balance somewhere between being too fast and never returning communication. Those that respond appropriately keep the ball rolling, develop new business, or build partnerships, and continue to win.
• Greeting- one of the easier things human beings can do is simply smile and greet people. How hard is this? And yet, I've been in several volunteer situations and several retail situations where I felt like I was a bother as the volunteer or the customer, instead of being appreciated for my time, my money, or both! It also serves as a good reminder for me and my work to greet people as a way of recognizing who they are and realizing that the had a choice today, and they chose to serve with us, worship with us, etc.

What others might we add to this list?

Never too old

I'm a big fan of the AmeriCorps program. It seems like a lot of the people I work with on community service projects are part of the AmeriCorps program, whether it's the VOA thrift store or the Bowden Youth Center. These young adults are passionate, talented, and dedicated individuals doing reaaly good work in our community and with segments of the city that often get overlooked.

The other day I had a meeting with another AmeriCorps person, except she wasn't a young adult- she was an elderly woman probably in her 70s! I was so encouraged by her and her desire to keep working and to keep advocating for change at an age when most people are worn out from change. There's no retirement from kingdom work.