Summit Reflections (Part 8)

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Poke holes above the waterline.

This is what Gore-Tex employees are encouraged to do. Innovate and create but don't poke holes below the waterline and sink the ship. What's below the line? Their core values as a company. Lots and lots of freedom as long as the core values are followed. 

The interview with the Gore-Tex CEO was fascinating as she described an organizational structure that is highly collaborative company-wide, peer-based (the CEO is basically elected, as are other leaders, and everyone understand that their job is to make everyone else successful) and places a high value on the individual. One of the most unusual aspects of this company is that they don't allow any manufacturing plant or other facility to grow beyond 250 people. 

Declaration: I've been talking about innovation in ministry over the past year or so. I'd love to see more of our members launch new ministries to targeted groups of people in the church and outside the church. But we have not taken steps to clearly outline how that can happen at Five Oaks (how we can support people's innovations, the boundaries, the core values that can't be violated, etc.). I'm hoping this will happen as we develop a more intentional mobilization ministry over the next couple of years.

My Favorite Summit Session (Summit Reflections, Part 7)

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I was prepared for disappointment but not years of disappointment...I wasn't prepared to be a disappointment.

Jeff Manion's session was my favorite. We will play this one in our services some day after the Summit DVD's come out. Manion talked about living in "the land between." Like the Israelites in the wilderness, living between Egypt and the Promised Land, we go through wilderness times in our lives. 

The land between is hard to go through and it can be long, but it is fertile ground for transformational growth. But growth is not automatic. There is danger to our souls in the land between. Complaint against God can set in, but trust evicts complaint. 

Declaration: I will continue to trust God in the land between. I will rejoice.