Door-to-Door Evangelism Exposed

Do you think that Christians can be hypocritical in their evangelism methods? If you do not understand what I’m getting at, here’s a true story to help explain. As you know, I work for a Fortune 500 company that sells and services products for businesses. I noticed we lost a product opportunity at a large church in the Kansas City area. The explanation intrigued me so I asked the sales rep what the story was. He half-smiled with a touch of disgust as he recounted the experience with this church. This is what I found out:

Our customer contact at the church is frequently involved in door-to-door evangelism. On one occasion, he knocked on the door of one of our team members at work. This ended in our team member asking the church staff member to leave - followed by a cuss word. When that church was experiencing some problems with the product they bought from us, we called in a specialist to fix the problem. This is when two worlds collide. The specialist was the cussing neighbor. The customer contact was the door-to-door evangelist. The customer contact at the church became very difficult to work with and ended up asking us to never come back. He paid tens of thousands of dollars to end the church’s contract with us.

Is door-to-door evangelism a one way street? Do you think this made a positive impression of Christians on my team members? When the church staff member became difficult to deal with, did that just reaffirm the others feelings about church people? If the church staff member would have joked with the specialist about their previous encounter at his doorstep, would that have disarmed any hard feelings and opened him up a little more to the gospel? What would you do in that situation?

The Hidden Struggle of Young Leaders

As a young leader in the business world and the church, I can get frustrated easily. I see things that are broken and I rush to fix them. When I see too many broken things, I want to give up. This is a common. Many people struggle with this feeling and some people give up. Why does this happen?

As I was listening to an interview with Dave Ramsey on the Catalyst podcast, he answered this question for me. God has probably been trying to tell me this for years though! Here’s a paraphrase of what Dave said:

“Young leaders don’t lack energy, talent, motivation, focus or skills. The number 1 thing they lack is patience. They lack the mentality that ‘this too shall pass.’ This will work itself out. We don’t have to fix everything right now. We will get to our goals, but not immediately. I would tell them it took us 15 years to get where we are now so we won’t fix all our problems overnight. We’ve seen a lot of team members come and go. Young leaders would come to me all frazzled that a key member of their team just quit and they didn’t know how their team would survive. I would tell them to give it a couple weeks and it would work itself out. Churches will also deal with drama around church members and volunteers. It will work itself out. Have patience.”

The hidden struggle of young leaders is patience. That was eye opening to me. I don’t have patience. I want everything to be amazing today. I want a 20% pay increase every year. I want our church to experience the same growth pattern as Rob Bell’s church. However, what I need to do is slow down and experience God’s patience in my life.

Good to Great companies were not built in a day or a year or a decade. The “get-rich-quick” mentality glamorized by dot com, network marketing and real estate are just bubbles and eventually crater. God has seen it all and he is not shaken. “There is nothing new under the sun.” (Ecclesiastes 1:9) Click here for some other bible verses on patience. How have you learned to have patience in leadership?

The Right Way to Get Engaged

How many of you experienced mind mush when you got engaged? I know I did. I barely got the blanket down on the ground for our picnic before I dropped to a knee and blurted out "will you marry me?" It was a wonderful experience none the less and I will cherish that moment more each day.

Last night my sister, Angelee, said "yes" to the man of her dreams. She barely remembers what Jon was asking before she said "yes, yes, yes." The world was spinning. She had found her "forever" friend.

Jon is one of the most sincere and caring guys I have met. He did not take this lightly. He carefully sought God's wisdom in choosing the right mate for many years. He diligently planned and prepared for this life event. He rehearsed his speeches over and over again to avoid any communication blunders. In the end, everything went flawlessly.

This morning I received a phone call from Angelee at 6:30am her time. She hadn't slept all night. She was excited. Yesterday was the day she said "yes" to the life-altering question. How could she sleep? What an exciting time in their life! I'm so proud of them and I'm honored to have this man in the family. Jongelee, as they are affectionately known as by their friends, couldn't be a better match. I hope they cherish this moment forever.

The Answer is in the Question

"It is much harder to ask the right question than it is to find the right answer to the wrong question." - E.E. Morison of MIT

What things are making you pull your hair out? Are you asking the wrong question?

My One Year Anniversery

As of today, I have been blogging for 1 year. Yes, I’m still in diapers…figuratively. It’s been a great experience so far. It takes a small amount of time to post once a week and it validates all of the day dreaming I do. If my wife catches me in a blank stare, I can say that I’m just thinking about my next blog post. Here are some interesting facts about my blog over the past year.

My top 3 most popular posts are:
o Dave's Secrets for Great Team-Based Leadership
o From Apathetic Bystanders to Passionate Participants
o Garmin nuvifone vs. Apple iPhone

• I’ve had a total of 1,576 clicks to my blog in the past year
• I’ve written 62 posts
• Average viewing visit is 1 minute and 36 seconds (so short posts are good).
• Half of my visitors find my blog through a Google search.
• One third of my visitors directly type in www.innovationatchurch.com.
• The www.timmygibson.com blog is the number 1 referrer of people to my site.
• Most people read my blog in English. Some read my blog in French and Spanish.

My top 2 posts with the highest number of comments are:
o Do You Have a Cool Church Website?
o Mapping the Future of Conferences

Here is a list of the cities where people are reading my blog:

Atlanta Belle Plaine Bellevue Bloomington Boston Calgary Clarksville Clearwater Dagenham Dayton Denver Detroit Durban Erie Everett Harlan Hephzibah Hickory Houston Indianapolis Kansas City Kissimmee Knapp Los Angeles Madison Nashville New Orleans New York Northgate O Fallon Oakville Olathe Olympia Overland Park Palm Dale Paris Phoenix Pomona Riyadh Salem Schaumburg Scituate Three Rivers Tinley Park Vinton Virginia Beach Waco Warren Washington West Point

It’s fun to look back over previous posts and read my thoughts on various topics. (It’s easier than remembering all of my thoughts and ideas.) Don’t forget you can add your thoughts, ideas and questions in the comments. It’s enjoyable for me to get feedback and other people might benefit from your note on the topic. Cheers!