{"id":32643,"date":"2023-04-28T22:16:29","date_gmt":"2023-04-29T05:16:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/?p=32643"},"modified":"2023-04-28T22:16:29","modified_gmt":"2023-04-29T05:16:29","slug":"b-h-a-g","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/b-h-a-g\/","title":{"rendered":"B.H.A.G"},"content":{"rendered":"

Let me tell you a story about a B.H.A.G.\u00a0 What is a B.H.A.G. you may ask?\u00a0 Why it\u2019s a Big, Hairy, Audacious, Goal. The term was originally coined by Jim Collins and Jerry Porras in their book Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies, first published in 1994.\u00a0Collins<\/a>\u00a0says, \u201cThe power of the BHAG is that it gets you out of thinking too small. A great BHAG changes the time frame and simultaneously creates a sense of urgency.\u201d\u00a0 I came across this concept somewhere in my education and had never really utilized it until I arrived with my husband in 2010, to a small, dying church in a lower-income neighborhood in Spokane, Washington.<\/p>\n

My husband was called as the (revitalization) pastor, so as the dutiful pastor\u2019s wife myself and 2 young toddler sons packed up and arrive to \u201crevitalize\u201d.\u00a0 This church believed that a young pastor and family would attract more of the same, and I don\u2019t think they were wrong.\u00a0 Little did I know I was about to start a small cascade, defined as \u201canything that resembles a waterfall, especially in seeming to flow or fall in abundance\u201d[1]<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery moment starts with a sense of grievance\u201d.[2]<\/a> And this is where I pick up with my cascade movement.\u00a0 I lived in the parsonage on the church property (not my favorite memory) and I would watch all these neighborhood kids spend hours playing and running around our property, a large grassy field that was the only of its kind anywhere nearby.\u00a0 I heard in a board meeting the grievances stated on how our misbehaving neighborhood kids continue to stomp and destroy all the flowers planted.\u00a0 It was then, that the B.H.A.G. light bulb went off in my head.\u00a0 I asked anyone who loves to work with children to come to a B.H.A.G. meeting without discussing what this meant.\u00a0 I began this meeting by defining B.H.A.G.\u00a0 So, in essence if time, money and resources were not a hinderance, what would we like to do for our neighborhood children, most of whom did not attend our church.\u00a0 This was our \u201cidentifying a Keystone Change\u201d.[3]<\/a> We had a targeted group who were already showing up to our property, what could we do for them?\u00a0 We set the ground rule as we went forward that any future vision casting would be with no agenda other than to serve.\u00a0 We discovered that we could really bring our church out of our building into the open.\u00a0 So, with amazing and miraculous networking we found we had a plethora of resources.<\/p>\n

Now we \u201cMade a Plan\u201d[4]<\/a> We planned 2 large events in our field (the location of the grievance). One was a carnival with games and prizes and free food and 2nd<\/sup> we planned an outdoor obstacle course.\u00a0 These first event found most of the church volunteering and over 75 attendees from our neighborhood.<\/p>\n

This led into a \u201cnetwork of small groups\u201d[5]<\/a>.\u00a0 We now had a Children\u2019s committee, who splintered off into sub-committees to begin planning future events.\u00a0 We soon found that many people discovered spiritual gifts and found places where they felt needed and offered value.<\/p>\n

\u201cIndoctrinate Genomes of Values\u201d[6]<\/a>.\u00a0 We all had a deep desire as a church to want the final outcome to be that more people became part of our church.\u00a0 Holding on to the value of \u201cno agenda\u201d was difficult but was a necessary part of our original vision. \u00a0We had to keep our events agenda free, it was about service and not what they could do for us.<\/p>\n

\u201cCreate platforms for Participation, Mobilization, and connection\u201d[7]<\/a>\u00a0 As we continued our cascade of events, the church started to grow.\u00a0 More families arrived each Sunday and slowly became part of our community, participating in small groups ( a first in a long time for this dying church ), and becoming part of our Children\u2019s committee.\u00a0\u00a0 More and more started to happen, which led to me being hired part-time as Family and youth pastor.\u00a0 We had a children\u2019s Sunday school, and a youth group!!\u00a0 More and more opportunities to participate and create more vision, continue to dream our B.H.A.G. with new energy and levels of participation.<\/p>\n

And finally, \u201cSurviving the Victory\u201d.[8]<\/a> This is where our story thrives and then dies.\u00a0 I will give a brief run-down of the cascade.\u00a0 Those 2 summer events turned into repeats each summer, Sunday School, Small Groups, and Youth Group.\u00a0 From there it grew into Vacation Bible School (led by a mom who attended one of our events and joined the church).\u00a0 We also added Movies on our lawn with a large inflatable screen and movie license, as well as hosting a trunk or treat in our parking lot and a (silly, slightly creepy) maze in our church basement. Perfect, huh.\u00a0 I am exceedingly proud of this cascade movement. It did exactly what we all secretly dreamed, it brought souls into our church, we baptized a number of people, however, everyone who came was new to church, so the concept of tithing was not catching up quickly enough to help our church stay open.\u00a0 We also, behind the scenes had to tolerate other grievances such as the older generation asking, \u201cwhat about us old duffers?\u201d.\u00a0 We also struggled with hospitality, it was one thing to ask the church to come outside and serve the neighborhood, but they were not ready for the outside to come in, new people change the dna of a church and there was a deep sense of wanting to hold on to what they always knew and thus began the end.\u00a0 Great movement, fantastic results, changed lifes I hope, but not sustainable. Big, Hairy, Audacious, Goals are life changing and a great way to begin a cascade!<\/p>\n

I never heard a complaint about the flowers again, Victory?<\/p>\n

\n

[1]<\/a> \u201cCascades,\u2019 definition, dictionary.com, last modified 2011. http:\/\/www.dictionary.com\/<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> Satell, Greg. Cascades: How to Create a Movement That Drives Transformational Change, <\/em>(New York, McGraw Hill Education, 2019),98.<\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> Greg Satell, \u00a0Cascades: How to Create a Movement That Drives Transformational Change, 230.<\/em><\/p>\n

[4]<\/a> Satell, Greg. Cascades: How to Create a Movement That Drives Transformational Change, <\/em>(New York, McGraw Hill Education, 2019), 232.<\/p>\n

[5]<\/a> Greg Satell, Cascades: How to Create a Movement That Drives Transformational Change, 232.<\/em><\/p>\n

[6]<\/a>Ibid., 233.<\/p>\n

[7]<\/a>Ibid., 234.<\/p>\n

[8]<\/a> Ibid., 235.r<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Let me tell you a story about a B.H.A.G.\u00a0 What is a B.H.A.G. you may ask?\u00a0 Why it\u2019s a Big, Hairy, Audacious, Goal. The term was originally coined by Jim Collins and Jerry Porras in their book Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies, first published in 1994.\u00a0Collins\u00a0says, \u201cThe power of the BHAG is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":187,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2778,2489,2691],"class_list":["post-32643","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-bhag","tag-dlgp02","tag-satell","cohort-dlgp02"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32643","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/187"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32643"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32643\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32644,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32643\/revisions\/32644"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32643"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32643"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32643"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}