I was recently in LA for some amazing meetings with the great team at Cooke Pictures…I just love collaboration! I was fortunate enough to also spend some time enjoying the city and stayed in Hollywood for a couple of nights. For those of you who have been there you’ll remember the street performers in front of the Chinese Theater…there you will see all the characters SpongeBob, Jack Sparrow, Elvis, Transformers, Spider Man…you name it someone was there dressed up trying to make a living in Hollywood.

The difference between those who did well and drew a crowd and those who were wasting their time was all about their commitment to what they were doing. Spider Man did okay, he got up on the light poles and did his thing, but his outfit looked like children’s pajamas…he found a shortcut, and it spoiled the experience. SpongeBob and the Transformer had the outfit, the Transformer’s costume was hand crafted and very nice, but just stood there and waved. The best they got was a kid pointing and waving…from across the street.

Then there was Jack Sparrow. He went all in. He had the costume and threw himself into the part (although probably a bit too much with the alcohol). It was as if Jack Sparrow himself had jumped out of the movie and everyone wanted in on the action. I don’t have any doubt that this isn’t his ultimate dream, I don’t think he came to Hollywood to street perform on the strip…but he was committed to the craft and threw himself into the role.

Which are you? Who are your ministries, communications, preaching? Are you Spider Man who has the passion but has taken the shortcuts? The Transformer who has the flash but has no passion?

Or will you be Jack Sparrow? Will you fully commit to what you do and how you do it? We need more Jack Sparrow’s in the church (minus the stench of alcohol). All the flash in the world doesn’t make up for a lack of passion and I’m seeing a disturbing trend in ministry, especially in these tough times of a ‘just get it done’ attitude. We’ve made getting ministry done, especially in the world of communications, simply a list of to do items and we try to get each of them checked off with the least amount of effort.

This will save time and money. But it is rarely (and only because I hate the words always and never) a winning strategy.

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Tags: commitment, hollywood, passion

This entry was posted on Monday, December 15th, 2008 at 11:13 am and is filed under excellence . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.