“0 to 1 Guy”

Some of the most revolutionary words ever spoken to me by another person took place on a trip from DFW airport to a hotel near my church. I had the privilege of picking up Leonard Sweet and hosting him when he spoke at our Student Ministry conference, “Lift.”

At this point in my life I had resigned from pastoring The Gathering, a young adult ministry I started at our church and I was working primarily as the church and public relations director for Master’s Commission of Dallas. Although I loved my job, I was still confused about how this would all play out in my life. So, I broke one of my own rules about hosting a speaker and I began to unload all of this stuff on him about my past, present and future goals. And that’s when it happened. That’s when he spoke to me words that ended up changing the trajectory of my life. Before I tell you, I must say, sometimes someone says something that is life-changing to one person and to another it sounds ordinary. If this falls in the ordinary category to you then I apologize for wasting your time on this blog.

He said (paraphrased), “Justin, it sounds to me like you are a ‘0 to 1′ guy. The greatest space between any two numbers is the space between 0 and 1. It is greater than the space between 0 and 100. Lots of people can do 1 to 100 but not many can do 0 to 1. The biggest problem with 0 to 1 people is that when they bring something to 1 everyone always assume that they should be the one to bring that something to 2 and 3 and 10 and so on. Every time you bring something to 1 you need to find a way to get back to ZERO as soon as possible. When I find someone who is a 0 to 1 guy I treat them with kid gloves and I don’t let them go past 1.

Needless to say, my eyes were open after this conversation. It was only a couple of weeks later that I began to write a job proposal that would eventual flesh out beyond even what I thought it. I now am the Development Leader for The Oaks which mostly involves starting new campuses for us. It doesn’t get more 0 to 1 than that.

Leonard and I have continued our friendship and I have kept him up-to-date on what that conversation did for my life. That God for people who speak wisdom into your life!

“I’m busy…”

As I grow older I become more and more aware of what my personal “pet peeves” are. Most of the time my pet peeves are things I would never do because they are frustrating or annoying to me. For example, being late to things is a pet peeve of mine, and pretty much you can count on that I am going to be 5-15 minutes early to everything.

With that said, I just discovered a pet peeve of mine that I actually participate in from time to time. It is answering the question, “how are you?” by saying, “I’m busy” or “Things are crazy right now” or any other variation of that. I have been noticing how much it bothers me lately then I caught myself saying it today. I started wondering how much I actually say that phrase to people. You might be wondering, “why does this bother me so much?”

1. Who isn’t busy?
2. When was the last time someone responded, “I have nothing going on.”
3. Is it something we say to make people think we are important?
4. Busyness is so relative. I know busy people who live at home, work 20 hours a week and play 30 hours of xbox.

I don’t really know what I am looking for out of people when I ask “How are you doing” but I do know I’m not looking to hear about their time management. Well, I must end this blog, things are crazy for me right now.

NEW OAKS CAMPUS!!!

As of yesterday night the oaks plans on opening up its next campus in Mesquite! A small congregation voted to have The Oak adopt it. Our plan is to close it down for a couple of weeks for renovation and then opening it early October for a couple preview services and have the Grand Opening October 19!

If you know anyone who lives near Mesquite TX looking for a great church let me know and we will get them connected.

I’m especially excited about this opportunity. About four months ago our church went through a reorg. I was on team of 5 people that visited 35 multi-site churches and did a survey on staffing structure. From that report we developed a structure that would serve our church well. As a part of that restructure I became the director of development for our organization. The main function of this role is starting new campuses. One month later this opportunity came to us! It feels good that God prepared us structurally for this opportunity. It this had come our way before the reorg we would have probably said, “we don’t have the time to take on something like that.”

If anyone wants a copy of the 35 church multi-site study let me know and I will email it off to you.

Bells Palsy

As many of you know, for over 5 months I have had bells palsy . I am happy to report that as of this week I feel like it is 95% back to normal. This has been quite a trial in my life and to be almost done with it is incredibly satisfying. Thanks for all that prayed with me that it would end. I have to be honest there were moments that I didn’t think it would ever go away.

If you don’t know what Bells Palsy is, it is a virus that causes half of your face to be paralyzed. It is hard to explain to people how much this effected my daily life, but here is several major issues I had:

1. Not being able to close one eye.
-Very blurry vision
-Taping my eye shut at night

2. Ear pain
-Apparently there is a nerve in your ear that opens and closes to help shut out noise. Mine was left open. This made it impossible to go to a church service and listen to the worship band.

3. Half smile
-I’m not a big smiler for pictures, but having to work not to smile so I don’t look like an idiot was difficult.

4. Speech impediment
-I had to think through every word I said. I started to learn how to talk well, but I noticed whenever I had to project my voice it was extremely hard. Not to mention it is a huge confidence issue to talk in front of people.

Well that was the last 5 months of my life. Thank God it is over!

road to productivity

I was given a great opportunity at a young age to work at a wonderful church. Although, I am eternally grateful to Nate Ruch for giving me the chance at such a young age, I still don’t know what he was thinking. I think of how young and ignorant I was at that time and I’m not really sure why he gave me a shot. I will never forget starting to work as a youth pastor and coming into the office and sitting down at my desk thinking, “what do I do now?” There was lots of ministry to be done and lots of students to provide for, but what does that really mean when you sit down at a desk?

I don’t know what really got me through those couple of years, other than having an incredible boss that walked me through things like, vision casting, delegation, preaching, and administration. But then I think of the majority of Bible College grads that don’t have that opportunity. They may get hired and start working at a place that doesn’t have a Nate Ruch to walk them through things. They may just have a pastor that says, “make sure we have something on Wednesday nights for the youth.” What does that person do when they are sitting at their desk thinking, “what do I do now?” Playing solitaire on the computer only takes up so much time.

I quickly realized there is always lots to be done in ministry. There are endless meetings to be had, sub ministries to start and sermons to write. It wasn’t boredom that was keeping me unproductive, it was not having a trusted system to keep track of all that was going on. My constant busyness was the main culprit in my lack of productivity.

More on this later…

ministry productivity

I’m going on 10 years in full-time ministry. I have been blessed to work at two great churches. Emmanuel Christian Center for over three years and The Oaks Fellowship for over 6 years. Something over those years that has become a soapbox for me is productivity in ministry. It seems at times, pastors, especially staff pastors are looked at by others in the secular field as people that don’t do very much, or at the very least don’t really produce very much. There are many a joke passed around by the congregation. Most of them center around golfing or eating out. 

I’m not sure what this blog will actually turn out to be, but in my mind right now, I think of it as a place to share what I have learned about productivity in ministry. I don’t want to pigeon hole myself, but, by in large, that is what I am going to focus it on. As much as I think the world wants to hear about the restaurants I go to and funny things my daughter said to me today for the most part I am going to give it some focus. 

I by no means, think I have it all figured out in ministry or think that I am the most productive minister around, but I have dedicated the last couple years of my life in ministry to learning of to be more productive and efficient in ministry. I simply want to share what I have learned and observed.