The Sixth Dysfunction of a Team
Good teams are where you find them. And these days they are everywhere—at least in name. I’ve witnessed many churches transition to “team-based” ministry simply by applying the word as a suffix to their existing groups (e.g., “The Ushers” become “The Ushering Team”). In the long-term this move usually accomplishes only one thing: convincing everyone that the whole “team” thing has no merit—which it doesn’t when handled that way. This trend is indicative of just how easy it is to get a really important idea really wrong. In his classic book, Five Dysfunctions of a Team, Patrick Lencioni outlines the primary ways in which good intentions turn into bad teams. The five include: 1. absence of trust 2. …
ContinueSidewalk University
Berkeley is a center of learning. In fact, one of our city’s nicknames is “The Athens of the Pacific.” The reference is not to the book of Acts, but to the golden age of Greek philosophy. A number of surveys identify Cal as the top-ranked public university in the United States. Sierra magazine even places it among the nation’s top ten “cool” schools. We understood the university’s reputation when we moved to Berkeley, but were unprepared for how much learning we would have to do just to become naturalized citizens. If life in the east bay could be thought of as a school, some of our recent classes might be something like this: APOLOGY 101: Jan and I often reflect on how many…
ContinueSidewalk Contextualization
Americans now send 35 billion text messages a day. That’s on top of the 2.2 trillion wireless minutes (100 billion more than last year) they spent actually speaking to each other. With all those electrons flying you would think communication would be easier than ever. Surely the tsunami of radio waves we all wade through every day has purged us of any barrier to full understanding. Not so. Our church planting project in Berkeley has proven that connectivity is not the same as connecting. In other words, having superb channels available is no guarantee of being understood by another person. Consider this example: our community features fairly consistent protocols for how and when to speak to someone you don’t know. They look…
ContinueThe AARP Generation Plants Churches
Recently I wrote an article on the potential of church planters who are over 50 years of age. My friend Curt Harlow calls this phenomenon the “Lipitor revivial.” The piece just went online with Enrichment Journal as “The AARP Generation Plants Churches.”
Renewal in the AG Video
George P. Wood shot a brief of video of me discussing renewal in the Assemblies of God while we were standing in the Houston airport. It’s not long, but it’s how I feel. You can find it at YouTube or right here:
Reverse Mentoring Study Guide Available
Good news. A free Study Guide for my book on Reverse Mentoring is now available on this website. Just click the “Download” button on the upper right part of the homepage and the Study Guide will be yours as a PDF. Written by Joel and Rachel Triska, two of my Reverse Mentors, the SG adapts the book for individual or small group study as well as making it more accessible for training of all kinds. A brief overview of each chapter is followed by some insightful discussion questions that will help unpack the material and make it more personal. I asked Joel and Rachel to write the SG from the perspective of younger Reverse Mentors, so you’ll find using it to be…
ContinueMulti-Conversation
In the Summer 2009 issue of Neue Cynthia Ware, Shaun King and I discuss the impact on ministry of multiple cultures, sites, and generations.
Tom Bandy's Book Review of Reverse Mentoring
Tom Bandy recently posted a very nice review of my Reverse Mentoring book on the Leadership Network blog: Leadership development has evolved from training, to coaching, and most recently to mentoring. There is a growing interest in how to impart wisdom to the inexperienced, so that great organizations can survive through a succession of great leaders. As you know, I like to read books in unusual and provocative pairings. This time I read Reverse Mentoring by Earl Creps (Jossey-Bass, 2008) alongside A Companion to the Study of Augustine by Roy W. Battenhouse (Oxford, 1955), during my summertime reflection of how the “City of God” might overlap with the City of New Orleans. Reverse Mentoring…
ContinueDoes Twitter Exist?
Recently I came across a disturbing article presenting evidence that some social networking activities, specifically Twitter, have much less of a following among the young than I was assuming. I find this disturbing because I would really prefer that all of my assumptions be proven correct. When I asked Glen Davis (Chi Alpha, Stanford University) about this article he responded this with these words: “I was just at a conference where representatives from LinkedIn and Twitter both spoke. The LinkedIn guy was asked about his demographics and he said, ‘The readership of the Wall Street Journal.’ And then the twitter guy said, ‘Our users are a lot older than people think.’ Glen concludes: “I don’t know a single student who twitters.” Now that’s…
Continue10 Reasons Why Southwest Is the Best Airline Ever
1. The Wardrobe: Flight attendants wearing shorts in March tells me everything is going to be allllllriiiiiight. 2. The Humor: When the pilot over the PA refers to the female flight attendant performing the seatbelt ritual as “my ex-wife or my girlfriend…you decide,” I know I’m flying with a crew that appreciates irony…the signature trait of an airline that gets it. The more mundane the announcement, the funnier they become. 3. The Honesty: When the crew announces that Southwest no longer accepts cash for drink and food purchases on board, they make no pretense of apologizing for this fact, or for the too-high prices of those items. Everyone knows that airline apologies are our culture’s new benchmark for insincerity. They…
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Earl Creps—a popular speaker and leader—is director of the Doctor of Ministry program and associate professor at the Assemblies of God Theological Seminary (AGTS) in Springfield, Missouri. He has been a pastor, ministries consultant, and university professor. Along the way, Creps earned a Ph.D. in communication at Northwestern University and a doctor of ministry degree in leadership at AGTS.
What is Earl doing? View or subscribe to Earl Creps' Google calendar. Or learn how to contact him directly.
