Tag Archives: Values

5 CORE CONVICTIONS

Posted on May 10, 2012 by in Church Development, Idea Sharing, Leadership

From Mark Batterson on April 10, 2012

http://www.markbatterson.com/uncategorized/5-core-convictions/

Just thought I’d share 5 core convictions that drive us at National Community Church. These are part of our OS or Operating System as a church.

1. There are ways of doing church that no one had thought of yet.

2. We need lots of different kinds of churches because there are lots of different kinds of people.  Let’s stop criticizing and start celebrating our differences.  If the gospel is being preached, it doesn’t matter what name is over the door!

3. The church ought to be the most creative place on the planet.

4. We ought to be more know for what we’re FOR than what we’re against. Paul didn’t boycott the Areopagus.  He walked into the marketplace of ideas and competed for the truth!

5. The church belongs in the middle of the marketplace.

A church that stays within its four walls isn’t a church at all.  It’s a club. Jesus didn’t just hang out at synagogues. He hung out at wells–natural gathering places in ancient culture.  We can’t wait for people to come to us. We’ve got to go to them. We’ve got to meet them on their turf, their terms.

Make Your Values Mean Something

Posted on November 25, 2008 by in Church Development

Make Your Values Mean Something
By Patrick Lencioni

Take a look at this list of corporate values: Communication. Respect. Integrity. Excellence. They sound pretty good, don’t they? Maybe they even resemble your own company’s values. If so, you should be nervous. These are the corporate values of Enron, as claimed in its 2000 annual report. And they’re absolutely meaningless.

Indeed, most values statements, says Lencioni, are bland, toothless, or just plain dishonest. And far from being harmless, as some executives assume, they’re often highly destructive. Empty values statements create cynical and dispirited employees and undermine managerial credibility. But coming up with strong values–and sticking to them–isn’t easy.

Organizations that want their values statements to really mean something should follow four imperatives.
1. First, understand the different types of values: core, aspirational, permission-to-play and accidental.
2. Second, be aggressively authentic.
3. Third, own the process.
4. Finally, weave core values into everything.

Living by stated corporate values is difficult. But the benefits of doing so can be profound; so can the damage from adopting a hollow set of corporate values.