Our “soft launch” is 8 weeks from yesterday.  There are a TON of details that still need finalizing before Sunday, December 7th.  We are putting the finishing touches on our final, concise value statements.  We are finalizing our venue and fund raising efforts.  We are also doing some demo and remodeling to our ministry center/office complex.  Between a dry walling in our ministry center auditorium, a wedding this weekend, and painting and moving our offices, there is a lot going on and a short window to complete it all.

In light of that list, I have come to the realization that although one of our values is excellence, there will be areas that we cannot foresee, nor work out until we launch.  It reminded me of a session I sat in with Guy Kawasaki, venture capitalist and former evangelist for Apple.  In that session on innovation, he said, “Don’t worry, be crappy.”  Now, I am not advocating doing things with less than excellence.  Guy used the analogy of software to bring home his point.  When a company releases a piece of software, it cannot possibly work out all of the issues before they launch or they will never get a cutting edge technology to the marketplace.  That is why Apple released the iPhone with operating software 1.0 knowing that that first model and software version didn’t include all the functions they dreamed for the iPhone to have.  Apple continues to make upgrades to fix functionality and add capability.  Even after the 3G model moved to the marketplace in July, they have continued to fix and move the iPhone closer to fulfilling their dreams for it.  If Apple would have waited until all the bugs to be worked out and all the functions they dreamed of to launch the first iPhone, it still wouldn’t be available and they would have missed out on profits and the world would have missed out on a pretty cool technology.

The point is, in the church, we often won’t make a change or introduce a new program for fear of getting it exactly right.  In doing this, we may have missed out on the fruits of service and ministry that were meant for us to experience, because we were too busy trying to “get it exactly right.”

When Connexion Christian Ministries soft launches in December, we will definitely be in version 1.0 beta, if you will.  We will be working out the kinks.  Not everything will run perfectly.  What happens if what we planned for isn’t at all what happens?  “Don’t worry, be crappy.”  The church that is in tune with God moves and flexes into new updates.  That is the type of church Connexion wants to be.  There are too many lives at stake to let that type of fear paralyze us.