Thursday Three For All
It’s Thursday, kiddies: the day when I roll out a few things I’ve been reading over the past week. Three of ‘em, to be exact. Enjoy. (Remember: click on the bold print to read the entire article.)
Megachurch or Large Gathering of People? 12 Disciplines Beyond a Title. (via @TheBryanRose) Bryan adds some great insight to what we call ourselves vs. what we are.
The Harvard Institute for Religion Research defines a megachurch as a congregation that sustains an average of 2000 persons or more in its worship services. However, the more I work within local church congregations, the more apparent the disciplines of an actual megachurch become. Without ongoing practices or skills beyond Sunday morning service attendance, a leader is free to call their congregation a megachurch, but in reality they may just be a large gathering of people in worship.
And a large gathering of people in worship can be found at most any concert, sporting event or Whole Foods grocery store.
Therefore, it becomes critical to realize identity beyond title, through ongoing practices and skills. Here are 12 disciplines of megachurch leadership:
Training Employees on Nonverbal Cues. (via @ColinShaw_CX) How good of a job does your volunteer team do in picking up the subtle-yet-significant feelings of your guests?
When you hear a person (read Customer) sigh, what do you think they are communicating? Is it sadness? Frustration? Exhaustion? All three? Chances are, it’s a subconscious communication of many things, including all of the above. It’s important to identify what nonverbal clues like a sigh communicates—whether you are the one that heard it or the one that is doing it.
The University of Oslo researched the motivation and interpretation of sighs in a series of three studies and concluded following about the act of sighing:
Raccoon Memorial on the Streets of Toronto. (via @22Words) This is one of the most meaningful (translated: bizarrely hilarious) things I’ve ever witnessed.
When is roadkill more than roadkill? When it happens in Toronto and the deceased raccoon is stuck on the sidewalk for hours before animal services can come scoop it up and take it to that big trash can in the sky.
Luckily for us, it all also played out on Twitter with the clever hashtag #deadraccoonTO.
It all started when a man found the dead raccoon on the street around 9 a.m. and alerted the city authorities that Rocky would no longer be roaming through neighborhood trash bins.
