2008 September | Jeremy Scheller

Sep 23, 2008

My New Top 5 Signature Themes (Strengths)

I recently have retaken the Strengths Finder test to see if there is anything new I could learn about myself.

A few of my signature themes have changed.

Previously, my top 5 was: Self-Assure. Learner. Significant. Deliberative. Analytical.

This is what I look like now…I’m sure Analytical and Learner are still a part of my broader profile (anyone who knows me knows I’m endlessly observing and I like to read), but I’ve got a few new strengths to explore.

Maximizer

Excellence, not average, is your measure. Taking something from below average to slightly above average takes a great deal of effort and in your opinion is not very rewarding. Transforming something strong into something superb takes just as much effort but is much more thrilling. Strengths, whether yours or someone else’s, fascinate you. Like a diver after pearls, you search them out, watching for the telltale signs of a strength. A glimpse of untutored excellence, rapid learning, a skill mastered without recourse to steps—all these are clues that a strength may be in play. And having found a strength, you feel compelled to nurture it, refine it, and stretch it toward excellence. You polish the pearl until it shines. This natural sorting of strengths means that others see you as discriminating. You choose to spend time with people who appreciate your particular strengths. Likewise, you are attracted to others who seem to have found and cultivated their own strengths. You tend to avoid those who want to fix you and make you well rounded. You don’t want to spend your life bemoaning what you lack. Rather, you want to capitalize on the gifts with which you are blessed. It’s more fun. It’s more productive. And, counterintuitively, it is more demanding.

Deliberative

You are careful. You are vigilant. You are a private person. You know that the world is an unpredictable place. Everything may seem in order, but beneath the surface you sense the many risks. Rather than denying these risks, you draw each one out into the open. Then each risk can be identified, assessed, and ultimately reduced. Thus, you are a fairly serious person who approaches life with a certain reserve. For example, you like to plan ahead so as to anticipate what might go wrong. You select your friends cautiously and keep your own counsel when the conversation turns to personal matters. You are careful not to give too much praise and recognition, lest it be misconstrued. If some people don’t like you because you are not as effusive as others, then so be it. For you, life is not a popularity contest. Life is something of a minefield. Others can run through it recklessly if they so choose, but you take a different approach. You identify the dangers, weigh their relative impact, and then place your feet deliberately. You walk with care.

Self-Assurance

Self-Assurance is similar to self-confidence. In the deepest part of you, you have faith in your strengths. You know that you are able—able to take risks, able to meet new challenges, able to stake claims, and, most important, able to deliver. But Self-Assurance is more than just self-confidence. Blessed with the theme of Self-assurance, you have confidence not only in your abilities but in your judgment. When you look at the world, you know that your perspective is unique and distinct. And because no one sees exactly what you see, you know that no one can make your decisions for you. No one can tell you what to think. They can guide. They can suggest. But you alone have the authority to form conclusions, make decisions, and act. This authority, this final accountability for the living of your life, does not intimidate you. On the contrary, it feels natural to you. No matter what the situation, you seem to know what the right decision is. This theme lends you an aura of certainty. Unlike many, you are not easily swayed by someone else’s arguments, no matter how persuasive they may be. This Self-Assurance may be quiet or loud, depending on your other themes, but it is solid. It is strong. Like the keel of a ship, it withstands many different pressures and keeps you on your course.

Input

You are inquisitive. You collect things. You might collect information—words, facts, books, and quotations—or you might collect tangible objects such as butterflies, baseball cards, porcelain dolls, or sepia photographs. Whatever you collect, you collect it because it interests you. And yours is the kind of mind that finds so many things interesting. The world is exciting precisely because of its infinite variety and complexity. If you read a great deal, it is not necessarily to refine your theories but, rather, to add more information to your archives. If you like to travel, it is because each new location offers novel artifacts and facts. These can be acquired and then stored away. Why are they worth storing? At the time of storing it is often hard to say exactly when or why you might need them, but who knows when they might become useful? With all those possible uses in mind, you really don’t feel comfortable throwing anything away. So you keep acquiring and compiling and filing stuff away. It’s interesting. It keeps your mind fresh. And perhaps one day some of it will prove valuable.

Significance

You want to be very significant in the eyes of other people. In the truest sense of the word you want to be recognized. You want to be heard. You want to stand out. You want to be known. In particular, you want to be known and appreciated for the unique strengths you bring. You feel a need to be admired as credible, professional, and successful. Likewise, you want to associate with others who are credible, professional, and successful. And if they aren’t, you will push them to achieve until they are. Or you will move on. An independent spirit, you want your work to be a way of life rather than a job, and in that work you want to be given free rein, the leeway to do things your way. Your yearnings feel intense to you, and you honor those yearnings. And so your life is filled with goals, achievements, or qualifications that you crave. Whatever your focus—and each person is distinct—your Significance theme will keep pulling you upward, away from the mediocre toward the exceptional. It is the theme that keeps you reaching.

Sep 22, 2008

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Starting Your De-Branding Project

ChangeThis has a fresh take on branding from Jonathan Salem Baskin.

Basically, Baskin is taking the approach that the old ways of creating “Brand Awareness” are dead. Getting awareness and recognition means nothing to the post-modern consumer who is longing for experiences in our society that is in constant change through the latest technical, cultural, and behavioral trends.

You can’t afford to just talk about brands and branding in a post-branded world. You have to do them

10 Rules for Branding in the Post-Branding world

You Can ’t Brand Your Way Out of Reality
Say What You Meant to Say
Everybody is Selling a Service
Shoot For the Moon, Not the Stars
Integrate Over Time, Not On Content
There ’s No Time Like Now
Reality Has To Trump Virtual
Kill Your Mascot
No More Secret Codes
Talk is Cheaper Than Ever Before

Check out the rest of this brief manifesto at changethis.com

So what does this mean for the church?

Less about my church, more about our church
Messages need to emerge from the medium. In other words, just using a projector and screen isn’t enough, if you’re not able to effectively get the message to jump out, make sense and be relevant.
Get your message to the people. It’s not so much about getting the people to the message.
We can finally stop selling church. People aren’t interested. They are looking for experiences that bring them to an emotional relationship and a real connection with God, not with churchiness.
People are coming to church with their community already formed. We don’t necessarily have to push our brand of community.
Don’t over-promise and under-deliver. People won’t trust you. People have options. People won’t come back to give you a second chance. Under-promise and over-deliver.

Sep 19, 2008

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The Heart Behind Innovate 08

I’m not going to lie. I was very skeptical. I’ve read about, seen some clips of, and had some wild assumptions about Granger Community Church. I know people there. Good people. But I was still skeptical of a church that has a hundred foot screen in their auditorium and every service is truly a multi-media pop culture experience.

My skepticism couldn’t have been proven more wrong.

The people at Granger pour everything they have into the Innovate Conference. And when it all comes down to it, it’s all about pursuing God’s kingdom here on earth. It’s all about bringing people into a relationship with Jesus and moving them deeper into missional living.

I expected a lot of glitz. And while I trust the people I know there, I still had an expectation that something would be off. Something would be contrived. And it wasn’t.

I spent the last few days getting truly inspired to stop talking and start doing. Inspired to get results. Inspired through stories of transformation that were ignited by people responding when they heard God calling.

Their passion is genuine.

The tools they use aren’t overdone.

The leaders know who they are and what they want to do.

And that is why they are a church and a community that makes waves.

A church we hear about.

A church that gets a spotlight shined on them.

A church that I would champion.

A church that leads.

Thank you Granger Community Church. Your leadership was inspiring.

Sep 19, 2008

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Innovate 08 – 10 Takeaways

Ten takeaways from Granger Community Church’s Innovate 08 Conference.

Balance is static. Who needs balance? You have to lean into progress. – Mark Beeson
The Gospel is Good News for Right Now. Stop Talking, Start Doing. Mark Beeson
Stuff=how we tell the story. Spoken, Sung, Printed, Visualized. Brand Schizophrenia = When we fall in love with the stuff instead of Jesus. – Shawn Wood
Leveraging Technology for Ministry is all about engagement. It’s not about toys, it’s about tools to reach the increasing population and their shortened attention spans. – Bobby Gruenwald.
We forget the promise and forfeit the payoff because we faint in the process. We need to understand that the process is the point. The payoff of God’s promise comes in the processes we go through as we’re faithful to act on what we hear from him. – Steven Furtick
An organization is the reflection of its leadership. Leaders must be willing to “get naked.” The difference between where you are and where God wants you to be is the pain you’re unwilling to endure. Accept the pain of the journey and enter in to God’s kingdom here on earth. – Life Church Directional Leadership Team
Pop Goes the Church. Harness pop culture in the church to:
- Package events to attract a crowd.
- Get people to Think or Laugh
- Provide a new interpretation of a pop cultural element
- To encourage people in their service.
WHY do all of this? It’s all about engagement. – Tim Stevens
Better off going 30 ft deep in 3 places than 3 in deep in 30 places. Don’t confuse the great commission with the great commotion. – Rob Wegner
Social Media allows people to fulfill their human desire to affiliate, associate and belong on a smaller scale. It’s also an environment where trust and relational collateral is developed at levels as shallow or deep as you want. - Kem Meyer, Zach Montroy, Tim Schraeder and Jeremy Scheller (Ha!)
Changing the course is good. Be confident in knowing who you are and what you want to do and then you’ll have the space to be creative in how you do it. - Mark Beeson

I’ve got a second much more important post about Innovate coming next…

Sep 17, 2008

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On Living in Community

Upon coming back from France (and my wife Sarah’s back surgery) in the middle of June, we were entering into an entirely new reality. Sarah would spend the summer in recovery. For the first few weeks, she could barely move. She was drugged. Constantly. The pain was intense.

Morphine.

Vicodin.

Oxycodone.

Tylenol.

Ibuprofen.

Throughout the coarse of the summer, I had little idea how much our lives would revolve around the recovery. The promise was healing. Immediate improvement. The reality was slower. More painful and left our house in more disarray than we’d hoped for.

There was another story unfolding as well. We were entering in to a new season of community.

Intentional,

in your face,

in our house,

community.

The mills family moved in within two weeks of us coming home. Betsy and Corey, Lily and Jonathan.

One house.

Five bedrooms.

2,000 square feet.

Eight people.

It’s been a crazy journey. There’s a sharing of chores (Sarah and I have the bad backs, so it sometimes falls more on the Mills). There’s been a sharing of food. Breaking of bread. And the intentionality that it’s not just us, it’s US.

The intermingling of the kids has been, at times, really hard, and yet they all have new playmates available which brings a lot of joy.

There has been the confrontation of personalities. Parenting styles. Spiritual practices (or the lack there of, *raising hand in the air*).

We’ve also shared the struggles of life together. Money. Schedules. Burdens. Wrapping our arms around Sarah to make sure she is healing, not just doing things beyond where her healing is at.

We’re still in the journey. Trying to make sense of it all.

“And they devoted themselves to the disciples teaching, breaking bread together when ever possible.”

Communing. In Communion. In Community and union with one another. “Being of one mind.” Living in knowledge and understanding that despite our greatest efforts to fend for ourselves, God has a bigger picture in mind for his church. A picture that is worth the time, the effort, the confrontation, the forgiveness, the intentionality to choose to love one another in the midst of our journeys and support each other along the way.

We have no idea how long this experiment in community will last. Another week. Another month. Maybe longer. What we do know is that the earliest followers of Jesus, after they got it. After they really got it, they held things in common. They separated themselves from their “things” and gave to each as any had need. They took care of each other. They were fillers of the gaps. They became provision at the point of need to one another.

It’s what we’re called to do.

Not live in community.

But be community.

Sep 16, 2008

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Innovate 08

Tomorrow, I’ll be heading to the Innovate Conference and Granger Community Church in Granger, IN.

I’m really excited about this conference, especially as Sanctuary looks to the road ahead and we talk about the potential for having multiple sites, better integration with new media technology and a better grasp on the use of pop culture elements into who we are as a worshipping community.

I’ll be blogging and tweeting from the conference for the next three days.

Sep 10, 2008

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Work: Coming Together

I haven’t posted any work in a while, even though Redwire has been working. This is a quick peek at a job we did last month.

Coming Together is a leadership Conference for the Multi-Cultural Church. It’s coming up in October.

Fun job to work on.

Logo

Brochure

Postcard

Sep 6, 2008

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Who says Christians don't know how to jam!

linklove: Blake Atwood

Sep 4, 2008

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Hyper-Blogging: Loud Message + Deaf Ears = No Communication

I’ve previously let the air out on twitter about how much I dislike hyper-blogging. Hyper-blogging is forced blogging. When you blog often with little new to say. When you keep bombarding with messages, until no one can hear them anymore.

Hyper-blogging is rampant. One of my favorite marketing minds, whom I look to for wisdom, puts up new posts, sometimes twice daily. Why? He doesn’t have an overwhelming amount of new ideas. Rather, it’s the same basic principles tweaked in new ways. I can get excited about this for a few weeks, but it quickly fades. The over-stimulation of even having to clear my RSS reader every day is annoying.

I think there’s a point at which you need to stop the bombardment of messages. If you’re blogging daily, or for those of you who are blogging multiple times daily, you need to know something:

You don’t have as much to say as you think you do. You’re message is like a fine cocktail. Putting it out there too often is like diluting it with water: It’s losing it’s flavor…and effectiveness.

This graph below is just for me, by me, based on my own personal tastes of the bloggers I love to read. No matter how much I love your content, I’m not going to devote all my time to it. I’ve got other things going on in life. I think you need to find your sweet spot.

Share your message less often, and strive for higher impact.