Yes

There are four 4 words to be spoken at CTK:  "Yes, Sure, You Bet."  God has good works that He has prepared in advance for people to do.  We want to get out of the way, so those good works can happen.  This has been a consistent theme for CTK over the years...

From Always a Place for You (CTK Orientation)…

At CTK we have a can-do spirit.  We say, “Yes, Sure, You Bet” instead of “No, Sorry, We Can’t.” 

From Deliberate Simplicity…

At Christ the King we don’t like the word “control.”  We like the word “empower.”  Authoritarian cultures spawn passivity and create codependency.  To combat that tendency we train our organization to be ready and able to say “Yes, sure, you bet.”  Often, those are words that cannot be spoken in church.  Typical of a bureaucracy, church leaders tend to have the power to say “no” but seldom have the power to say “yes.”  We want “yes” to be a valid answer again in the church.  God is at work in people’s lives.  We want to unleash the church. 

From Opportunistic Leadership…

Christ the King Community Church (lovingly referred to as CTK), in a dozen years, went from one location in the Pacific Northwest to over four hundred locations around the world.  How did we/God do that?  We got the board out and waxed it.  God sent the waves and we rode them, partly by learning to speak four words that are seldom heard in church:  “Yes, Sure, You Bet.” 

About a year after we began holding services in Mount Vernon, Washington, I came off the platform after one of the services to be greeted by an older couple who said, “I sure wish there was a CTK in Oak Harbor.”  Oak Harbor is an island community about forty-five minutes southwest of Mount Vernon.  The response I gave shocked them.  I said, “Let’s do it.”  They asked, “Do what?”  I replied, “Start CTK in Oak Harbor.  You want to do it, and I want to do it, so let’s do it.”  Shortly thereafter I began to drive to Oak Harbor on Saturday nights and began holding meeting with this couple and some of their friends in a local coffee shop.  Within a year the group had grown to over a hundred people, outgrowing the coffee shop.  At the same time we began holding Saturday evening services in nearby Anacortes.   Within three years we were convening in ten towns in four counties.  Now we are meeting in more than four hundred locations.  But it all began with three words:  “Let’s do it.”  As Greek statesmen Demosthenes opined:  “Small opportunities are often the beginning of great enterprises.”  Surfing begins with a “Let’s do it” spirit, that becomes a ride, that ultimately eventuates in a culture.

From Intrepid Faith…

Faith-inspired guts is not only required on a personal level, but also on a corporate one. Faith or fear appear to be the options, for you individually and for the church as a whole.  One of the greater decisions a church can make is deciding which side of the line they want to be on.  Will we be on the faith side as it relates to God and people? 

You know when you are on the fear side of the line when you keep hearing words like accountability, process and authority.  Fear-based congregations habitually say, “No, sorry, you can’t.”  You know you are on the faith side of the line when you keep hearing words like support, story and empowerment.  Faith-based congregations habitually say, “Yes, sure, you bet!”

From Our Values (Staff Training)…

Key words in the CTK vocabulary are “Yes, Sure, You Bet.”  Often, those are words that cannot be spoken in church.  Typical of a bureaucracy, church leaders have the power to say “no” but seldom have the power to say “yes.”  We want “yes” to be a valid answer again in the church.  God is at work in people’s lives, and we want to fan into flames the gifts and passions that are resident in the body.  We want to unleash the church. 

This is not to say that we have no structure or accountability.  We have freedom, with handrails.  But what structure we have serves mainly as a supportive handrail, not as a restrictive barricade.

In our context the role of the pastors and staff is to create and sustain an environment where the people of the church (the ministers) can carry out their ministries with minimum obstacles and maximum fulfillment.

From Wild (dMail)…

A church, it seems to me, should provide generous fairways on which people can play the game.  I have used the phrase “freedom with handrails” to describe the organizational philosophy of CTK.  The handrails are our beliefs (doctrinal statement) and our brand (mission, vision, values).  As Chesterton noted, there has to be “rule and order.”  But the chief aim of boundaries is “to give room for good things to run wild.”

How do we as leaders give room for good things to run wild?  One of the key ways is to repeat four words: “Yes, Sure, You Bet” to people and their “wild” ideas.  Caution is acceptable, but you can’t lead with it.  Caution needs to come later, in the shaping of things.  In a wild kingdom our predisposition needs to be “Yes.”  Then, we come alongside to train and support. 

From Ideas that Matter…

Learn to say "Yes, sure, you bet."  Our goal is to cooperate with God in what He is doing in the lives of people.