On Memorial Day we remember those who died as we honor those who live. We watch Flags of our Fathers and thank God it was them and not us. A friend of mine said that every man in our generation (Boomers) should be forced to watch Saving Private Ryan to understand what our dads and their friends went through.

My wife and I love the men and women who are serving, or have served, in the military. Vicki is an introvert, but she’ll walk up to a total stranger in uniform and fight back tears as she thanks him or her for serving. More than once she has called over a waitress to ask for the check of some serviceman she’s never met. “Just tell them it’s been taken care of” she’d say. A couple of weeks ago she went to a local bakery run by a husband and wife (both former military) who send thousands of cookies to places you will never see and whose name you cannot pronounce. Give them an address and they’ll bake and box and ship. They charge some minimal fee that does not cover their costs.

Look around your small group. Think about your neighbors. Walk around your workplace. Who do you know who has served?

My brother was a Captain in the Army. He trained men who fought and died in Vietnam. My friend Steve was a member of the honor guard in Washington, DC in the early ‘60’s and personally escorted LBJ in and out of JFK’s funeral. Jim was the first Asian-American two-star General. Rick spent the end of the cold war commanding a submarine under the Med.

Three good friends spent their time in the air: Craig flew Harriers for the Marines; Don, a Canadian, flew fighter jets and worked on the (then) ultra-super-top-secret Blackbird; Frank flew choppers for the army in Iraq. (When he came home a couple hundred people showed up.)

These are some of the finest people I know, and their service continues in the kingdom. Rick leads Seeker small groups and trains leaders in evangelism. Craig was the best Small Group Coach I ever had. Steve has personally counseled more troubled men than anyone can count… as a volunteer. “General Jim” leads a table of five or six guys at a monthly men’s breakfast.

A couple of years ago I got to baptize a young Marine named Ben who accepted Christ at boot camp. The only time he could do it before he shipped out was New Year’s Day. In Chicago. I pictured us chipping a hole out of the ice in Lake Michigan. It would not have bothered this tough PFC a bit. It would have bothered me. I found a Willow Creek family with an indoor exercise pool who opened their house to strangers to celebrate a 2,000 year old sacrament. Not only was Ben’s extended family there, so was General Jim. And Frank the Pilot, with his wife and kids (Frank left for a year in Iraq the next day).

There are lots of things that you can do as an individual to support someone who is serving… or the family left behind. There is more you can do as a group. One neighborhood group at Willow took care of a year’s worth of errands, lawn care (and snow removal) for a temporarily-single mom and kids.

Ship some cookies. Buy a meal for a stranger. Welcome home somebody you’ve never met. Mow a lawn, run for groceries, babysit.

Remember.

A couple of other thoughts about The Dip With Seth Godin.

Ben Arment from Reston Community Church has four posts on Church Planting and the Dip. You can read them starting here. How I found them: On Seth's blog.

Back to our staff trip to hear Seth. (The first part is here if you missed it.) One of Seth's points caused several of us to make comparisons to The Long Tail by Chris Anderson. (You can read the Wired Magazine article that pre-dated the book here.) Anderson himself calls The Dip Seth's "latest mind-grenade" so we know Chris thought it was thought-provoking.

What provoked us was the thought that one of the primary points of The Dip is to strive to be "the best in the world." In other words... concentrate on the head and not the long tail. Is it possible to do both?  It seemed to us that both are important. Greg Bowman and I are in the middle of planning the Group Life Conference in September and this is exactly what we are trying to do. Lean into the head (several world-class speakers with broad appeal topics). Run down towards the end of the Long Tail (98 breakouts led by topical specialists, a few of which may appeal to those with a deep interest in a very narrow niche). I guess by the first of October we'll know whether we Digg Seth or Chris... or both.

Our team did not exactly come to agreement on whether or not Seth and Chris' positions could (or should) be resolved. What was cool was that having been exposed to both The Dip and The Long Tail enabled us to have the discussion in the first place. Combining new ideas with biblical worldviews and specific ministry objectives... we explored each other's views, rationale and potential outcomes. 

Three things enabled our experience: Exposure to some carefully selected books (careful meaning somebody on staff read it and said "Hey... this has ministry implications... you need to read it!); a willingness to devote several man-hours of work time to a field trip; and a commitment to community that valued the post-presentation coffee (relationships and application) as much as the presentation itself (knowledge). 

Two questions. First: Heads... or Tails? Second: What does your ministry team do to stretch itself? To build community?

Have you read Seth Godin's books? Maybe you have read Purple Cow or Small is the New Big? He's good. But... is he good enough to get someone out of bed at 4:15 AM to catch the 5:25 train into downtown Chicago and hail a cab to get to Maggianos Little Italy by 7:00 AM to hear him speak?

Yes.

Greg Bowman and I rode down together today and hooked up with some other Willow Creek staffers to hear Seth speak to the Chicago Chamber of Commerce. He's a great speaker and did a talk about his new book The Dip. It's an insightful little book... an easy read (about 80 pages). His talk and presentation were virtually identical to the book content... if I'd have known that I wouldn't have needed to take five pages of notes... but I didn't want to miss anything!

The best moment: In the Q&A at the end someone asked Seth how he stays inspired and he said something like this:

It's the circle of people you see face to face and the circle of people you create online...communities... who will inspire you. I will go away... these people won't.

He was right.  When it was over, Seth was back on his book tour and we were back to Willow. On the way we stopped at Corner Bakery and spent about 90 minutes debriefing the experience. We talked for another hour on the train. We agreed and disagreed about the talk... and learned about each other. We are closer now than before our little excursion. We are a community and we will be again tomorrow. I feel inspired.

Who inspires you? Great authors? Great pastors? Great communities?

At the Small Groups Advanced Training the other day, Russ Robinson had a great line:

The effectiveness of your small group ministry can be monitored by the statistics you track and the stories you hear.

A few years back I tried to convince my boss that this was true. Unfortunately, he had a bad case of "MBA Syndrome" and only wanted numbers. In fact, if I told him a story of how group leaders were really starting to "get it" and were increasing in their effectiveness his eyes would glaze over. His eyelids became heavy when I talked about developing relationships and life-change. Give him a page of numbers and as long as he thought they were going "up and to the right" he was happy as a clam.

Figures often beguile me, particularly when I have the arranging of them myself; in which case the remark attributed to Disraeli would often apply with justice and force: “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics.” – Mark Twain

Metrics can both enlighten and mislead. If your leaders are abandoning groups in droves, wouldn't you want to know about it? How about when you pour a couple of years into a developing leader and she finally starts coaching... in another ministry? Look at the numbers: Your leaders just decreased by one. Was it a "win" for the Kingdom? You bet. But you won't know that unless you hear and comprehend the significance of the story.

We sometime track the wrong things (number of group members) when we should be tracking something else (regular attenders). You can get anybody to "join" a group, but try to get them to come! Showing up once should not get you on the roster. If you create an expectation that a large roster is how you "win," exceptionally creative staff members will figure out a way to make that happen. Unless you rely on story, you won't be able to find the mirrors in the smoke. 

When I was in Men's Ministry I used to ask leaders how many guys were in their group (numbers). Then I would ask them to tell me the guy's names and something about their lives (stories). Unbelievably, some leaders did not even know last names, whether a guy was married, or whether or not he was a Christ-follower. These situations became teaching moments. I use a 2x4 as a pointer.

If he passed the first round, I'd ask the leader what a guy was like six months ago, what he was like now, and (for bonus points) what he thought God wanted the guy to be like in six months. Only then could we understand if the life-change process was stalled, progressing, or even in reverse. 

Any leadership debrief should include stories as well as statistics.

What are you counting?

The Ancient-Future Community is the 2007 Group Life Conference of the Willow Creek Association.

Almost everything you want to know about the conference can be found here. Let us know what we left out. The site is dynamic and we are posting session descriptions, etc. as they become available.

We would love to hear your feedback, ideas, and questions about the themes, schedule, speakers, and workshops for this year's conference. When inspiration strikes, please attach questions and comments to this post.