Transitions

The more I learn, the more I realize how little I know. It's true, the name of my blog has changed. This change is evidence of the continuing metamorphosis that I am undergoing in my life. I am learning more and more each day that, in order to significantly impact the world around me, and the lives of the people I am called to invest in, I must be willing to jump to the next curve. I can't be content with improving the same curve I find myself on by 10 or 20%, but instead, I must be committed to being willing to make mistakes while pioneering new ventures and new paths. I must be willing to polarize people and create emotive responses to what I do.

Don't misunderstand me, I am not saying that I go out of my way to make people mad (though some might argue differently), but I'm saying that what I do must elicit a response one way or another, good or bad, rather than leave people impassive. It's kind of like Harley Davidson motorcycles. No one is impassive about Harley's. Whatever your feelings about them and the people who ride them, you almost certainly have an emotional response one way or another to these classic, powerful machines. Another great example is TIVO. A great invention no doubt, especially to those of us who love watching shows like Heroes, 24 and NFL football, but find ourselves unable to always watch them live. TIVO guarantees that we don't miss our favorite shows. I assure you though, that advertisers hate TIVO. Anything that allows the viewer to randomly skip through the ads and get to the juicy bits of the show, is definetely going to polarize the advertisers. Other than that one Sunday in January or February (Superbowl Sunday) most of us would rather skip the ads, and that's why there's such a great market for TIVO.

I am learning that I can't let the "status quo" dictate to me what can and can't be done. I'm learning that Western Union made a huge blunder when they determined that there would never be a market for the telephone and so they remained a monopoly in the telegraph industry instead of making the leap to the next curve. Unfortunately, their lack of innovative insight remains a topic of barbs and jabs around the water cooler in many offices where the internet is now standard. It's hard to imagine the leap from telegraphs to internet without the invention of the telephone!

So I'm trying to be innovative and creative about how we go about carving a niche for The Well in the Orlando area. I'm beginning by revising our Mission Statement (which I'm confident most of the folks that attend our church probably couldn't recite) and simply going with a mantra that better expresses who we are and what we are called to do. When you think of The Well, think simply of "an encounter that authentically changes lives."