You pay, I'll pray ...

Just so you know, if you think it's really important to say grace before meals, I have a long-standing practice with my lunch companions: you pay, I'll pray. (Yeah, I know: it's not much of a deal.)

Today, I had lunch at one of my favourite restaurants with one of my favourite Winnnipeggers: John Mohan, the Executive Director of Siloam Mission. Several people of this calibre have been kind enough to have lunch or breakfast with me this summer. It's an incredible learning experience for me and I can't thank these people enough for sharing their expertise. I'm amazed at the quality of people who live in this city (including a Wittgenstein scholar who poses as a radio show host).

John asked me on the spot to give him five questions I'd ask an organization considering development and change. I've been doing doctoral work on leadership in emerging culture with Leonard Sweet since summer 2005, so I shared the questions I've been asking my own org these days:

1. Are we still GOOD? Jim Collins said we should move from good to great, but sometimes we need to go from great to GOOD. "GOOD" is a Sweet acronym for "get out of doors". If our organization is only on the radar of people inside the org, are we really making the world different?
2. Who's in charge? Many orgs don't believe in leadership anymore. Or they're experimenting with shared/joint leadership models that de-emphasize decision-making and champion consensus-building. Ultimately, this brings an org down to its lowest common denominator. The org stalls, nose dives, crashes and burns. Having said that, I think the best leaders are the best followers ... following whoever or whatever inspires them.
3. Are we doing what we love doing? In the church world, our mission as churches is uniform: make disciples. But our vision (i.e., how we accomplish our mission) should reflect our unique passions and perspectives. Added insight: go for iconoclash -- allow the opposites within you to create new insights and opportunities.
4. Are we EPIC? EPIC is another Sweet acronym. I break it down as follows: are we creating Experiences that allow people to Participate around inspiring Images that Connect them to God and others?
5. What's our MRI results? Yet another Sweetism. Is what we're doing Missional AND Relational AND Incarnational. In other words, are we out where the people are, are we living in relationship with others, and do we look and sound and smell like Jesus? Note: you can't truly be missional, if you aren't also relational and incarnational, etc.

Any other questions?