Craving a Burger in Long Beach, CA?

My wife, Dana, mentioned she was craving a burger. A rare opportunity for a carnivore like me that lives with a frequent salad lover, so I offered her my thoughts on where we could go. Maybe some of you would appreciate my quick burger preferences:

Good burger places in Long Beach:

1. Lucilles (huge, but delicious, the Smokehouse burger has it all, but also a price worthy of such a claim)

2. Chilis (Homer drools and says, "Mmmm, extra thick bacon with brown sugar rub.")

3. Five Guys (they do one thing but do it well--fresh ingredients and a simple menu with a good price.)

4. In-n-out (see Five Guys for same description. Actually, I like Five Guys a little better but don't tell my fellow So Ca friends. Nevertheless, people from all over the world come here for Disneyland, and a Double-double...and that says a lot!)

5. Tommys (greasy and good, it shortens your life by a year w/every bite...and it's worth it!)

6. Carls Jr. (This one has burger variety if not quality, something for everyone's taste...just not that much taste.)

7. McDonalds (everyone knows what you get here, but actually their angus chipotle burger is real good. No, really!)

8. Claim Jumper (the Widow-maker is so big I have never finished one. It's name says it all, but the price will leave your widow on welfare).


Note: This blog post was unsolicited and the blogger received no freebies or payment in any form for it...but he is poor, hungry and definitely open to it if you want to send him some. \;o},

Ingredients of a Good Catalyst for Movements #6: A Strategic Pathway

A Good Catalyst Follows Strategic Relational Pathways.

In Organic Church I spelled out the idea that each of us are connected to people who are connected to others.[i] In fact, as you have probably heard before, we are all only six degrees separated from any person on the planet. In other words, between you and any other person on the planet—a gondolier in Venice, a Pygmy in the Congo or the Prime Minister of England—are five or fewer intermediaries. This concept can open your mind to the powerful idea that each of us is connected to everybody and capable of reaching thousands or even millions by reaching just one.

This powerful truth is amazing, but in actuality what makes it all work is not everybody, but what Malcom Gladwell calls “the law of the few.” He breaks these few into three types: the connectors, the Mavens and the sales people. The real reason for such a phenomenon is that some people are extraordinarily connected so they make up for the rest of us.

I have a friend that I mention often in almost all my books because she is a mentor and powerful woman in God’s kingdom. Her name is Carol Davis. You probably either know her, or someone you highly respect does. I am only partly exaggerating. Carol has never written a book, though I always encourage her to get her ideas down. She does not have a doctoral degree or a position in some large organization. She is not wealthy or politically powerful. What Carol does have is a keen understanding of people and God’s kingdom. Her wisdom is valued by many people. In fact, you can’t find her name on the cover of any books, but you will often read it in the acknowledgements of books by dozens of well-known authors. Carol’s most incredible gift is she knows people, naturally assesses their unique qualities and likes to connect them…and she knows a lot of people.

We often joke that every person on the planet is separated by six degrees, unless you know Carol—then its only two. God has created and placed these key people in the world for a purpose higher than selling products. Carol is what Godin would call a “powerful sneezer.”[ii] He teaches that viruses spread because people sneeze, and he likens the key people in an ideavirus movement as “sneezers.” There are two he describes “the promiscuous sneezer” who likes to sell anything and everything. But it is “the powerful sneezer,” someone like Carol, that really propels a true movement.

Powerful sneezers will not just sell anything. They have very particular taste based upon a deep and highly respected knowledge. They are very careful with their recommendations because they know they have a reputation. They highly value all their friends and would never want to recommend something that is not helpful. When they do find something that they value and they start telling others about it, their wide range of important friends will buy it, because it comes from this respected sneezer. When you get the promiscuous sneezers also spreading the same idea than you have a movement. This is the pathway of a movement. If a few of these types start sneezing your idea, then a rapid movement will be released.

I always give Carol a free copy of my books. I do so because she is my friend (and she is probably mentioned somewhere in the book), but also because she is a “powerful sneezer.” With a couple of my books she has done more to generate interest than the entire marketing department of the publishers.[iii] With others of my books she was grateful for the gift. Even friendship doesn’t guarantee influence, and that is why I will buy any book she tells me to get.I respect her opinion...as does at least half of the known world!


Movements do not spread via advertising or clever marketing. In the end a movement is the result of people connecting to other people. The gospel flies best on the wings of relationship. It always has and always will.

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[i] The Tipping Point by Malcom Gladwell, pp. 159-169

[ii] Unleashing the Idea Virus, Seth Godin, pp. 49-51

[iii] Cultivating a Life for God and Organic Church have been spread everywhere by my friend Carol. My other books have not had the same connection with her…yet.

Ingredients of a Good Catalyst for Movements #5: A Sticky Potential

A Good Catalyst Has “Sticky” Potential.

In the breakthrough book TheTipping Point, Malcom Gladwell introduced an idea that was so descriptive and helpful that it “stuck” with us. He called it the “Stickiness Factor”. His terminology became sticky itself. There are more and more books using the language. Larry Osbourne has a book called Sticky Church, and I have referenced the Heath Brothers book Made to Stick; each is influenced by Gladwell’s sticky terminology.

The stickiness factor has to do with the memorable quality of the idea, product or method that is spread in a movement. When the idea is so intriguing that it sticks with people—they can’t forget about it—a movement can happen. This is, pardon the pun, the glue that makes a movement come together. If the idea itself is not such that people want to tell others about it, then you cannot start a movement. You can sell products, ideas and even ministries with advertising and mass media promotion, but that is not a movement. In order to ignite a true movement, the idea itself must spread from one person to another and only sticky ideas can do that.

Chip and Dan Heath’s book on this very subject called Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and OthersDie pays due homage to Gladwell for applying the word “sticky” in this way. They go on to examine all the traits necessary to make an idea stick; some of them (simplicity, surprise, importance) are already included in my own six characteristics of apostolic genius, but they also add three others that I think are worth mentioning.

1. Concreteness: an idea can be solid to people when we make it clear, using concrete images that relate to life experience, so that it is understood and believed in instantly.
2. Emotions: people must feel something for the idea or it will not land very deep in their memories.
3. Stories: people remember stories, not facts.

The reality is you do not need an assessment tool to discover whether something is sticky or not. All you have to do is examine the way you feel about it. If it doesn’t stick to you it probably won’t stick to someone else. That said there are some things that are sticky only to certain tribes of people. But if you’re the one motivated enough to create something in a specific field and it doesn’t stick with you it’s time to go back to the drawing board. Of course the ultimate test of an idea’s stickiness is its spread or lack thereof. It really is easy to find out if it is sticky or not; just hand it off and see what happens.

Within Church Multiplication Associates’ history we have invented many viral methods and ideas. We found that the ones that were truly sticky we did not need to publish or produce in any formal manner. They were passed along verbally (usually diagramed on a napkin). In fact, we will not even publish an idea until we have seen it already going viral first. When we do see something truly sticky that is spreading on its own, then we will begin to think of ways to publish it and accelerate the process.

The movie Pay It Forward is a good story of a sticky idea that spawns a movement. It is the story of a middle school boy who is challenged by his sociology teacher to come up with an idea that can change the world. He does. His idea is called paying it forward. It works using all the basic movement principles listed here. One person helps someone else, but it has to be something important. Then the one helped, instead of paying it back, pay’s it forward by doing something really big for three other people. Those three in turn pay it forward to three others as well, and a movement is catalyzed by a simple, memorable idea that is a significant idea spread in small packages using natural pathways. The important thing that makes the idea viral is that you have to do something really big for the other people, something they couldn’t do for themselves. That is what makes the idea ‘sticky.” If it were just a little thing, like helping a lady across the street or holding the door open for someone else, it would be acknowledged and then quickly forgotten—it wouldn’t be sticky. 

Having a sticky church is not enough to ignite a movement. Even if the church is healthy and enjoyable enough that people want to tell their friends about it all they can do is bring their friends to the church. Stickiness alone is not enough; the church must also have the other attributes mentioned in these blog posts if you want to release a movement. That said, it is a good thing if your church is so good people can’t help but tell their friends.

Ingredients of a Good Catalyst for Movements #4: A Significant Principle

A Good Catalyst is Significant.

It is certainly not enough to have a simple process packaged in a surprising and small way, if indeed what you are passing on is of little to no value. After you have fiercely scrutinized your ideas to the core, if that core is potent than you have a significant principle.

From my point of view, what we are spreading must be important although importance is given less value in the increasing literature on viral marketing. Some write about the spread of Hush Puppy shoes popularity,[i] or an innovative vegetable peeler,[ii] but those are fads, not a movement. A movement does more than change your footwear; it moves you to do something or be something. It asks more of you than to just buy a product, but to buy in to an idea. It lasts longer than a fad and it leaves behind a lasting mark on society. This can be a good mark or a bad one. The Nazi Youth movement in Germany was not a good thing, but it was a movement that left a mark on history.

The difference between a fad and a movement is in the way it changes people and leaves a mark on the world. A fad, like a Hula Hoop, simply comes and then goes away. Today it is seen in nostalgic footage edited to reminisce about the good old days. Yes, you can still find a Hula Hoop in some places, but you are not likely to see a commercial for it today because so few are interested in buying one—the fad is over. “Been there, done that, bought the T-shirt.”

If you drop a stone the size of your palm into a small, calm pond you will see the water ripple outward until they stop at the shore. Within a few minutes all the energy is absorbed and the reaction is gone…the pond is unchanged. That is like a fad. If you drop a tablet of Chlorine the same size and weight of the stone, you will also see the same ripples come and go, but there will also be a chemical chain reaction that will cleanse the water over the hours. That is what a movement is like; it creates a chain reaction that changes things.

Many ask me if the organic church movement is just a fad. It is my belief that if we see lives transformed than it will not be a fad. If we just see Christians meeting in homes and doing the same thing they previously did in church buildings—or more significantly still not doing the things they didn’t do before—than we will be a short-lived fad. The key is: do we change lives? Are people so moved and changed that they cannot go back to the old way? Ultimately, it is not the missiologists, theologians or even the statisticians that determine whether or not you are a movement…it is the historians of the future. Simply doing church in a home rather than a cathedral is not enough of a significant principle to incite a movement, only a fad. Hopefully we are passing on transformative ideas and methods that will birth a movement and not just a fad.

While there are plenty of good ideas in the kingdom of God, I have personally found that the most transformative has always been the Scripture itself. How could we miss that? When we devise a simple process that involves a small group that lets the Word of God speak for itself, then it is something that not only can spread, but is worthy of spreading. I have found, working on these things for two decades now, that this is not hard to do at all. The Scriptures are given to spread. We simply need to place our faith in them rather than in our own ideas. Later on this blog I will present a couple examples of how the Scriptures can be the significant principle that speaks for itself as a catalyst.

The truth is if we have the truth, we have the most significant principle of all. As I pointed out in my earlier work, Organic Church, Sir Walter Moberly, a non-Christian educator, once said to us as Christians: “If one tenth of what you believe is true, you ought to be ten times more excited than you are.”[iii] We should ask why we are not seeing more movements. I suppose the answer would be that we are not letting out the most significant part of our faith—God’s revealed word!

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[i] Gladwell, The Tipping Point, pp. 3-5

[ii] Seth Godin, Unleashing the Idea Virus, pp. 43-44

[iii] Cole, Organic Church, p. xxviii, quote is from Sir Walter Moberly in his work Crisis in the University

Ingredients of a Good Catalyst for Movements #3: A Surprising Proposition

A Good Catalyst is Surprising.

There is a problem with the status quo. Even when you read the words “status quo” you felt some disdain, didn’t you? Status quo doesn’t stimulate any excitement or creativity. It is the curse word of the new millennium.

The Gospel is all about transformation—change. The Christian life and the status quo are opposites. If I read my Bible correctly, any life that stays the same is not Christian. Nevertheless, so much of the religious world values “not rocking the boat” and maintaining the status quo. We, of all people, should be the ones who not only embrace change—but bring it with us wherever we go. Our reputation, however, is the opposite of that. “Religion” says, Godin in Tribes, “at its worst reinforces the status quo, often at the expense of our faith.” [p. 81]

To incite movements we must acknowledge the spot we’re in and then set off on an alternative course. At the risk of the obvious: to stay put is to not move. We cannot be a movement and remain in the status quo.

We must present an alternative that is surprising enough to capture the curiosity of others. In Made to Stick, Heath and Heath say, “We need to violate people’s expectations. We need to be counterintuitive…we must generate interest and curiosity…by systematically ‘opening gaps’ in their knowledge—and then filling those gaps.” [p. 16] Christianity is an invitation to launch on a mysterious journey from which we will never return. Our message should be memorable because it is not what was expected. When someone finds an unusual solution to a dreaded problem it is hard to forget. In fact, it becomes hard to keep to yourself.

The Gospel is a solution to death, not just eternal death, but a life slowly dying because of inescapable sin day after day. Freedom from the captivity of sin is Good News worth telling. And it is a surprising proposition that we are set free from death because a perfect proxy, sent from a loving God, died in our place and then rose from the dead! How could we not want to tell people this powerful and surprising idea?

It is a sin to present the Gospel in a boring way. Everything about the Good News is surprising, transforming and should incite movement. The Gospel is not an invitation to walk down an aisle or a sawdust trail; it is an invitation to the adventure of a lifetime! It is an introduction to a journey that will end with great significance and a life lived well. It is an invitation to an intimate relationship with an eternal God who adopts you as his beloved Son or Daughter! The Gospel presents the opportunity to have Christ’s intimate presence at all times and in all circumstances. The greatest surprise in all of life is called a mystery by the apostle Paul: it is Christ in you the hope of glory. Who can resist that?

Ingredients of a Good Catalyst for Movements #2: A Small Pattern

A Good Catalyst Starts Small.

I am a big thinker. Some people assume that because I do church in a small way that I am opposed to big things, and that is vastly untrue. I will not satisfied until the whole world is changed and you can’t do that in a single church, but you can with many small ones. But the way to effect the global is to start with the microscopic.

Seth Godin boldly declares, “Small is the new big.” Contrary to the way we usually think, the way to big is really to go small. Of course this is counter intuitive. So often we try to make something grow bigger and end up doing less than we could. Jesus used the parable of leaven to show the effect of a small thing on a massive scale. He also often referred to the smallest known seed as having huge potential for earth shaking results (Matt. 17:20).

In his hugely successful book, The Tipping Point: How Little Things can make a Big Difference, Malcom Gladwell identifies three characteristics necessary for an epidemic-type spread of a trend, idea or even a virus itself: “one, contagiousness; two, the fact that little causes can have big effects; and three, that change happens not gradually but at one dramatic moment” (he calls that moment the “tipping point”).[p. 9] He devotes an entire section of his book to “the law of the few,” in which he cites example after example of how huge epidemic-type movements began with very few people. In fact, that is only how they begin.

Not every small thing is powerful. It matters what is within the small package. A grain of sand and a grain of wheat are both small. One has the God-given potential to eventually feed the hungry world. The other can be the catalyst to create a blister or a pearl—but only one.

Before we can change the world we must be able to change a single life. But we must change a life in such a way that the same life is able to do it all over again with someone else. That is best done in small ways that eventually affect the global. When you are looking to spread an idea virus by coordinating larger groups to do so, the whole process breaks down. But if it is as simple and small as one life to another, the virus can spread easily and each person carries the contagion.

A tiny microscopic virus is bringing an entire continent made up of dozens of nations to its knees in Africa—AIDS. This virus is passed on person to person in a very predictable manner but it spreads almost unhindered. It spreads because those infected have an internal motivation to continue doing what spreads the virus. In combating the virus we are not just trying to figure out a way to stop the virus itself but to stop the behaviors that spread it, and that is the hardest part, because it is against the natural drive in the people.

Why is small so big? Small does not cost a lot. Small is easy to reproduce. Small is more easily changed and exchanged. Small is mobile. Small is harder to stop. Small is intimate. Small is simple. Small infiltrates easier. Small is something people think they can do. Big does not do any of these things. We can change the world much quicker by becoming much smaller in our strategy.

In his book, Unleashing the Idea Virus, Godin even warns of moving from small to big too fast. [pp. 180-183] If you outgrow the viral nature of your idea too quickly you can corrupt the very things that make it contagious in the first place. You can shift from a viral approach to a more conventional means before that infamous “tipping point” occurs and lose everything in the process. Do not despise the day of small beginnings (Zechariah 4:10), and do not be in too big of a hurry to get past them.

Ingredients of a Good Catalyst for Movements #1: A Simple Process

A Good Catalyst is Simple.

Simple things reproduce. Complex ones break down and do not get passed on. You simply cannot have something pass on from one person to another and then another and so on if it is complicated. The more complicated an idea is the more people will feel like they are incapable of mastering it and will therefore not be empowered to tell it to others for fear of getting it wrong. There is a reason so many old Beetles are still driving around town 40 or 50 years after leaving the assembly line...they are simple so they do not break down and are easily repaired. In fact you may pay the same for one today that your grandfather paid off the show room floor. They have no power steering, power windows...power; but they keep on going.

In the book Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die by Chip and Dan Heath, they also start with this most fundamental characteristic. Simplicity is not just about being able to pass something on. There is more to it than that. There is something very powerful about the editing process that creates a simple and yet potent thing. It is not just about what is excluded, but about what you deem so significant that it is included, that makes an idea potently simple. The Heath brothers say, “To strip an idea down to its core, we must be masters of exclusion. We must relentlessly prioritize. Saying something short is not the mission—sound bites are not the ideal. Proverbs are the ideal. We must create ideas that are both simple and profound.” [p. 16] This process of relentlessly prioritizing solidifies something so important that it cannot be ignored. Seth Godin also articulates this in Tribes when he says, “The art of leadership is understanding what you can’t compromise on.” [p. 79] Antoine de Saint Exupery, best known as the author of The Little Prince, once said: “Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.”

Sanity is knowing what to fight for. Insanity is fighting for everything. Cowardice is not fighting for anything. Some things are worth fighting for. Some things are worth even losing a fight over. Some things are worth dying for. I’m convinced that you are ready to lead when you are able to know the things that are worth dying for, and the things not worth fighting over. You will find that after you have lived enough to know these things that your message will be received by more people—your authority increases as you realize that this is what you know to be true and all else is secondary.

I recently had breakfast with a leader in our movement that was frustrated that others were less capable of casting the vision for the city-reaching ministry he started. He did not have a problem recruiting people to the vision, in fact he could do that too well (in my opinion). But others could not internalize the vision and pass it on to their friends as if it were their own. I asked him what it was that kept him from associating with a given church or ministry. What are you willing to risk offense for? What are you willing to be hated for? When you ask these questions you are chipping off excess marble to reveal the masterpiece that lies within the hard rock. When you get down to the rock bottom of you can state things with a bold clarity that others will not only understand, but relate to and be able in turn to verbalize themselves.

Coming up with a vision is easy. Releasing a movement is more of a challenge. A vision does not sell itself and become a movement unless it is something people can buy into and then sell as well. If you cast your vision you may get followers and draw a crowd to your work. But a movement is much more. In a movement it is not your vision; it is a vision all want to spread, because they have come to own it themselves—it is as much theirs as it is yours.

To get there you can’t just add more attractive things to the vision, in fact, quite the opposite—you have to cut out attractive things. When you can cut everything out but the most important core you have something simple and profound at the same time. Package this idea in something so simple anyone can do it in a memorable way and you have a catalyst of a movement. It’s that easy, and that hard. It’s easy to describe this, but hard to pull off. Most of us need to learn the hard lessons of valuing the editing process more than we value our own ideas. We have a vested interest in the components that are less valuable. We tend to want to slide some of our own cherished things in the mix and then the whole idea gets more complex, less powerful and does not spread. So the scrutinizing process also involves objectivity that is often at your own expense. That’s what makes it hard.

Jesus is the King and He is the one who has given us the message of our movement. And it is remarkably simple, so simple a toddler can understand it and buy in. The Gospel is profound enough that theologians spend their lives trying to work it all out. Nevertheless, it is simple.