God will meet you through your repentance. I didn't know that I didn't deeply love people - I didn't know that I couldn't deeply love people. It is important to have intimate relationships with people without an agenda. Once we left the doors of the church we realized that God was in the streets. We create our own Christian bowling alley in the church so we can bowl like the world but not be in the world. I think that discipleship is meant to happen on the road. I desperately cared if the church failed, but I was willing to risk that because I didn't want to play church anymore. It's not about things you're doing - it's about things you're not doing. It's when you get peoples' hearts before God that they are transformed. We have kind of done this thing in the western church where we don?t do discernment ? the reality is the Holy Spirit will give you discernment. Don't create a list of rules - we want the culture to change their morality before they change their hearts so we can sit there and talk about Jesus. The primary identity of the church is that we are the sent spirit of God - one of the things that I recognized that was hard for me as a pastor was that these people were not my people and secondly, that the programs that you're creating may have nothing to do with what God has created them for. There are a lot of unique expressions that are created around mission. We strengthen the family and the things that we like and we ignore the things that we don't like - this is Darwinian. The city of Portland likes Imago Dei. This is a city that doesn't really like Christians, so why do they like the church? They know that the church doesn't hate them. We realized that the community around us thought that we didn?t like them. We were protecting the Gospel instead of proclaiming it. The Gospel is that God wants to bless his Creation. We came along side the city and culture and asked how can we help? How can we be a little city in an empire? The lie that the enemy wants you to believe is that we get it right and the world doesn?t get it at all. If you protect yourself from the culture, you lose your voice. Rick, in terms of starting Imago, how would you encourage pastors' in a singular way? What would you encourage them to think about? Don't look at problems - the reality is the church is the hope of the world. It is not the size or the methodology - it's the people on a mission. When we get ourselves outside the doors, God is waiting there on the streets. God is in the streets waiting for the church to join Him, and we need to take our people there, and when we do I believe it will change the world.

I work for the International Justice Mission. Sometimes you just need to go to the places of need, and bring the law on people's behalf. Global trade is rape for profit - there are one million children in bondage. God is calling to exhilaration of joy through adventure. How do you gather people to go on the adventure? Paul said to prepare your mind for action. Have clarity about the world around you. The hardest thing for people to believe in the world is that God is good. What is God's plan for making this believable to suffering people? We are the plan. He doesn't have another plan.; You are the light of the world - let your light so shine among men that they will see your good works and give glory to your father in heaven. When we help people, they see the body of Christ show up and they can believe that God is good. There are so many people in the world who are suffering because of the abuse and oppression of other people. Injustice is a specific kind of sin - the abuse of power to take from others the good things that God intended for everyone - life, liberty, dignity, fruits of our love and labor - this is the sin of injustice. A million children a year are taken into forced prostitution - how are they supposed to believe that God is good? In the world of injustice there is a God of justice who wishes to bring rescue - Micah 6:9. Jesus feeds the 5000 - the magnitude of the need and the lack of our resources allows Jesus to work. We just provide Him what we have and He works with the rest. Jesus does the miracle. God is still in the business of transformation, and not only does he change lives, but He changes history. Why in a world of so much suffering, hurt and need, have we been given so much? My prayer is that God will rescue us from all things small. May God yet find us useful in what matters to Him.

In church world, how do you lean into your strengths? As quickly as possible, begin to lean towards the things that you do very well. A lot of it is trial and error. When you equip people, you work with their strengths - when you counsel people you work with their weaknesses. Find something you do naturally that's a 6 or a 7 - don't if you are a five or less. What if my job description just doesn't let me get there? Let people complete you in the area of your weaknesses. One of the first things a leader has to understand is that we attract who we are, not who we want. Jesus the leader hand picked people with certain giftedness to help him spread the gospel. The greatest return for the kingdom is putting the best in the best and let it trickle down. You can develop a person's attitude and confidence and skill - how does this translate in the church? Competence and skill level and giftedness and ability can only increase by about two numbers. Anything that is not a choice in life is only going to increase about two numbers; attitude is a choice. You develop great leaders by finding potentially great leaders. Martin Luther King, Mother Theresa, Ghandi - some of the people that have influenced others the most didn't have the top leadership position. How do you avoid the minefield that comes with leadership? People who fall morally have three things in common: no accountability, they aren't continually in the word of God, and they never thought that it would happen to them. I said, "I'm going to assume that it will happen to me, live the rest of my life as a coward." "Lead us not unto temptation;" pray that prayer everyday. Have an accountability partner. I had one who I requested ask me questions - the last question was, "have you lied about the previous questions?" Have prayer partners.

Transformation happens mostly in the lives of children; however, churches put most of their resources into adult programs. We must prepare our children for a war and a battle against the enemy. There is a remnant of people changing the way that we are Christians and the way that we do church. These are "revolutionaries" who will do whatever it takes to make sure that 24/7 they are embodying Christ. They are having a hard time finding conventional support. God doesn?t give a rip about methodologies; He cares about our hearts. Studies show that about two thirds of all Americans would express their faith through a conventional church environment. Others seek alternative experiences, such as through arts and media. The research is showing us that within the next twenty-five years only about a third of Americans will have their dominant Christian expression in a traditional church environment. Should we be disheartened? No. It's a great thing because the latent spiritual energy of Americans is trying to find a place for release and transformation. People aren't walking out on the church. God didn't call us to go to church, He called us to be the church. What do you say to the local churches of today on what basis are things working well? This is the first challenging question: are people's lives being transformed? Where is the fruit? Who do you serve? Why do you serve? What are the elements of having church outside of church? To be the church. Revolutionaries get involved in evangelism by building relationships and having faith based conversations, not memorizing things to say. How do you manage God's resources? You own nothing - everything you have has been given to you by God. You are a portfolio investment for the kingdom. What do you do with your family? God made the family to be the central church experience - worshipping, praying, and serving together. This is where it begins. From all that you have learned, what is the one thing you would tell them [church leaders] to do and not do? To do: really emphasize how it is that you are preparing each family unit to be the church. Really focus on the issue - what does transformation mean? What does it look like? There are a lot of younger people - what should their priority be? You have more tools than ever before - you must be thinking strategically at all times.

Marcus Buckingham studies the best teams and organizations to discover what makes them work, and then develops new teams with the same qualities. Why do some organizations retain talent and some bleed talent? All great teams have a great manager or a great boss running them. You can join an organization for any reason, but you leave from poor management. People join organizations and then either physically or mentally quit their boss. The job of a manager: to turn one person?s talent into performance. This is the chief responsibility of a manager. Great managers speed up the reaction between the talent and the person and the goals of the team. Their starting point is always to get you into a place where you can turn talent into performance. The best managers in the world have a natural ability to see very small increments of growth in someone else, and they get a kick out of it -to see someone grow is their fuel. People are always a work in progress - not everyone can see this. Great managers do not look at people and think, "what can you get done?" What makes great managers different from average ones? Great managers find out what is unique about a person and capitalize on it. This is the one thing you need to know about great managers. Great managers don't generalize. All of this seems very crushingly obvious; however most organizations teach their managers the exact opposite: maintain a person's strengths and work on their weaknesses. The world believes that the way to succeed is to discover your flaws and work on them. We live in a remedial world - where people think that if you study bad you get good; but instead you just get "not bad." When companies say that our people are our greatest assets, but what they mean is our people's strengths are our greatest asset. How much time per day do you spend using your strengths? Data suggests that very few of us spend our time at work working with our strengths - we have all been blessed with amazing talent, and it is so sad that so many people are not using them. Many believe that as you grow your personality changes; not true. As you grow, you become more and more of who you are. We are all blessed with unique contributions. The goal isn't to change them, it is to channel them. It is a myth that you should invest the most time into your weaknesses. Everyone has areas where we can grow and develop, but the areas where we can grow the most is in our strengths. What teams most need from you is identification of your strengths, and then volunteering them as often as possible. The best teams are made up of sharp people with different strengths - the team is well rounded because each individual isn't. It won't be easy to stay on your strength path, and people with misguidingly try to take you off the path. You must stay clear-headed to know which doors to open and which doors to close. Look in the mirror tomorrow and say what are my strengths and how can I volunteer them to the world?