More Lifechurch.tv Impressions

As I thumbed through my journal after my visit with some folks from lifechurch.tv, I realized that there were too many gems of wisdom to keep to myself. So, here’s a second post on that great visit.

My visit was a half day sit-down with Bobby Gruenewald, Amanda Kerns and Tony Steward.

As I said in my ealier post, I was so impressed with their ethos.  So for your edification, sink your teeth into some of the random quotes and thoughts from my journal of the visit. To give my friends there some plausible deniability, I won’t state who said what and you can assume that if anything is wrong in any of these quotes – well it’s my fault or it’s my spin on what was said.  Remember these are quotes from leaders of innovation from a church of some 50 plus campuses that has around 26,000 in attendance each week. This is a church that takes great risks and sees great fruit. Here we go!

We create everything to give away to others.  None of this is for income generation.

We hire for what we want to accomplish. It’s a tough multi-month process to get hired here. (We use Myers Briggs, Sedat Test, Apptitude Test, in depth interview, followed by a temporary hire period. Often new hires are shifted to a new department.)

Failure is a requirement of our culture.  We try things God puts in us.  If we see fruit, we do more of it. If there’s no fruit, we kill it.

We go with the “mo” (momentum.)

We try to get closer to the feedback. (To measure success or failure.)

Excellence and integrity are among our highest values.

We try to stay on the “bleeding edge.”

We operate from a cost-quality curve.  Excellence curve and effectiveness curve are NOT the same.   (My words here – Extravagence does not necessarily create excellence or increase effectiveness.)

Don’t get locked into format. Remember the mission over the medium.

Example: For around the cost of an SUV, the innovations team created youversion.com with the mission of getting the Bible in everyone’s hands and hearts.  As a result within the last six months 720,000 people have installed it on cell phones, iphones, and blackberries. 230 million minutes of Bible reading has occurred and it’s being translated around the world in multiple languages.  It’s about mission not medium. A traditional approach would have been to print up more Bibles.  Instead, they discoved the best way to get more of God’s Word into more hands, more rapidly.

The business model involves both efficiency and scalability. Scalability insures a high ROI (return on investment.)

We’re advocates of the Harry Houdini “inside the box” approach toward innovation. Many say let’s innovate outside the box without any view to a limitation of resources. Some ask the question, If money were no concern, how would we do this better.  Instead of outside the box innovation, we do the opposite.  We dream an innovative dream and estimate its costs, then ask the ‘inside the box’ question. “If you only had half or a third of the money you think you need, how would you innovate this dream even more effectively and efficiently?”
Facilitating changes involves leading upwards and sideways.

Brand is your biggest anchor.

There have been times when our Lifechurch.tv brand has come in conflict with growth.

We love it that people don’t necessarily realize that some of our free resources are connected to us.  Its not about us its about the Kingdom.

Accept the fact that what you are doing today will not exist five years from now.

The most stubborn anti-change agents within any organization CANNOT withstand the avelanch of success.

Cluster your successes strategically.

Regarding effective blogs and digital communication – Healthy conversation involves conflict.  You can have healthy conflict without being destructive.

If an organization fears losing control, don’t blog.

Not communicating about an issue is “being invisible.” Invisibility implies remaining in control.  The greatest danger to organizations today is to remain invisible.

Blogs can be more efficient than emails.  With one posting a leader of many can communicate with multitudes and when a question arises about an issue, he/she can point people to a blog post where that issue was addressed.

Blogs are a way to “pay attention” to people.

Its about building social trust.  Its more about being present than about what you say.

There are two impacts to blogs. The first response creates an initial wave of comments and hits. The second impact is the twelve month trickle of comments regarding timeless blogs.

Online is a collision of humanity. Whoever is the most interesting wins.

Video is for monkey brains. Audeo is for intimacy. Text is for organized brains.

There is no difference today in online relationships and relationships. Relationships are relationships. Both are real.

I hope you get as much out of these comments as I did.