Trying something new!
Filed under: Church Revitalization, Random Thoughts, church growth, creativity
I am proposing to my college a “new” idea to make us a Kindle Campus. All books, or at least all general education class books would be available as Kindle Downloads that way students wouldn’t have to carry around a backpack full of books anymore. (Sorry to The North Face company and other backpack makers.) This involves a change in the way teachers think about a text book. Can we now embed video in the middle of a text book? Can we make it so that students can click on difficult words and it gives them a definition? I know this isn’t a “churchy” post, but as a church, are we looking for new and innovative ways to present the Gospel of Jesus Christ to people or are we like many professors who want to keep teaching the way they have always taught. If you haven’t made creativity and innovation a part of your gospel presentation, then you are missing the boat! If you sit back and wonder why people are falling asleep in the service, maybe it is because nothing is there to get their attention. No, I am not saying you have to have lights and smoke just to keep people entertained. I am saying that to bring people to the Lord, the same methods that worked in 1950, might no longer be the most effective. Try something new!
For more ideas, don’t forget to check out the “In Search of the Great Pastor Conference” coming up in February!
Becoming a Leader is Hard Work!
Becoming a Leader is easy right? Just get a bunch of people to do what you say and then bask in the glory of a job well done…If you believe that, I have a classic restorable Ford Fiesta for only $20,000. For those with common sense however we know that it isn’t the great things that make a leader. It is the day to day work! One of my friends, Dean, is a pastor of a growing church that is just about to hit the 1000 mark. It is exciting to watch what God is doing in the lives of the people in his church. There are other things that are exciting too. Like that for the first few years, he showed up to the office alone, worked on all the things that had to be done alone, scheduled his meetings himself, was the janitor, preacher, counselor, youth pastor, associate pastor, senior pastor…alone. Now, I believe they have a staff of 6 or 7 with a couple of those being part time. That didn’t happen overnight. If you are that pastor in a church of 40 people, and you don’t have a staff to help you, just remember that most pastors of large churches with great support staff didn’t start that way. They put in the time alone…then developed leaders to come along side of them who believed in the vision God had given them for that congregation. Your support staff doesn’t have to start as full time staff with a complete benefits package. My first paid staff job as a youth pastor paid about $400 a month, and I have known plenty who worked for wages like $25 a week just to be able to help. That isn’t knocking the value of volunteers either! Volunteers that you invest time in can become great volunteer leaders who will help in invaluable ways!
Another friend, Will, has a thankless job in our church. We are a mobile campus, and his job is to lead the volunteers who take down everything on the portable stage and load it into trucks after the service. Will remembers to be a great leader! He isn’t the senior pastor, but his ministry is obviously important! He is quick to congratulate! When something goes wrong, he doesn’t explode, he uses that moment to teach someone how to do the job correctly….even if they have been taught before. He remembers the little things like following up, not just when someone is missing, but the volunteers who are faithful, he calls to let them know they are appreciated or sends a card or thank-you note. He is building and mentoring leaders under him. (Disclaimer-I do volunteer on Will’s team, so I am a little biased about his leadership ability.) Invest in the people you want to be leaders in your church, and soon you will have other leaders to come along side of you so that you won’t be doing the job alone!
Reading to Lead!
I didn’t come up with this quote, but I love it. “Leaders Read and Readers Lead.” Today, I just want to share some of the things I read on a daily basis other than the Bible. (If you are in Christian Leadership and your Bible is dusty, you NEED to start there!)
ONLINE
Pastor’s Blogs
Perry Noble – Pastor of NewSpring Church in Anderson, SC. Writes a great blog that mixes encouragement for Christians and for other pastors.
Dean Herman - Pastor of 5 Point Church in Easley, SC. His church is the fastest growing church in Pickens County, SC and he has a lot of great ideas.
Business and Marketing
Seth Godin – It is no secret that this guy writes one of the best marketing blogs in the world! Great thoughts and many of them can apply to the church.
Publishing and Leadership
Michael Hyatt – He is the CEO of Thomas Nelson Publishers and writes a great blog about much more than the publishing industry.
News and Current Events
Drudge Report – a quick news feed to keep you up to date on what is going on in the news.
ZoeCity – A great feed of news and blogs from a Christian Worldview perspective.
IN PRINT
Non Fiction
Andy Stanley – One of the best writers on pastoral leadership and christian leadership.
Seth Godin (yes, I know I already mentioned his blog, but he is an accomplished author as well.)
John Maxwell – Another great writer on Leadership. Not as focused on pastoral leadership as Andy Stanley, so if you aren’t a pastor, you might get more out of Maxwell.
Joseph Ransom – I wish he had a blog! I would read it! I have read every book and play he has written. The pastor of Shady Grove Baptist Church in Sparta, MO is a great inspiration! He is blind and still pastors a church, has completed a PhD, teaches in a Bible institute and unfortunately doesn’t have spare time for things like blogging…but Joseph, if by chance you read this, I would love it if you did have a blog!
Fiction
John Grisham- Ok, not deep stuff, but I love reading his work.
Robert Ludlum- International Crime and intrigue.
I know this list didn’t impress anyone, but it might give you an idea or two or challenge you to read something new. (If you want a list of the stuff I read in Spanish, let me know…I have some favorite authors but they are all in the fiction genre.)
Yesterday, Satan got upset!
Yesterday was a great day! Not only at my own church – NewSpring (Greenville Campus) but also at many churches across the country. At Elevation Church in Charlotte, NC 581 souls are now bound for heaven after yesterday’s services!!! That is incredible. At NewSpring, 516 people gave their hearts to Jesus! I am sure that in the thousands of other churches that dot the landscape of our great country and around the world, God was doing incredible things! I would love to hear comments on what God did in your church this Sunday! If you don’t attend a church anywhere, I encourage you to find one in your part of the world to get involved in. God uses churches of all kinds! None are perfect, but if we are willing to be used by HIM, He will make things happen!
Young Leaders!
Filed under: Church Revitalization, Direction, Encouragement, Random Thoughts, creativity
I just had one of my advisees, Jarrick Lee, stop by my office. He is studying to be a pastor and feels that God is calling him to plant a church. It is incredible to spend time with young leaders who are so full of passion for our Savior! If you have been hanging out with a bunch of Christians who were Christians when Kennedy was shot or even when the Challenger blew up, it is time to make a conscious effort to get out of your box and spend time with some baby Christians and young leaders who are challenging the status quo! I love teaching on a college campus where there are so many young people who are on fire for God!
What is the church to do in a country headed to Hell?
I am not referring to Hell, Michigan
America, is a great country for religious freedom. We still have the freedom to assemble and worship together! Many Americans take advantage of this freedom each week. We live in a country where the majority of people still believe in a god of some kind. As the church, we are seeing that freedom slowly deteriorating. This country is having problems! Many people can instantly point to the economic abuses of our federal and many of our state governments. We see moral dilemmas such as killing unborn children, state funded immorality(Funding groups that support gay, lesbian, trans gender, or pedophilia agendas), and I am sure you can add to my examples. We see limits on how and when churches or groups can assemble. So what is the bride of Christ to do?
2 Chronicles 7:14 reminds us: “if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.” Also, when Jonah was sent to preach to the wicked city of Ninevah, those people surprisingly listened and turned from their wicked ways. They repented in sackcloth and ashes from the greatest to the least! And Ninevah prospered for about 400 more years! That is quite a few generations! We can work politically. I am not against Christians being involved in politics. At the very least, we need to vote for people who will push for values that are like our own. More than that we change this world one person at a time. We share Jesus with one person, disciple them, and as that one person repents and comes to be “Christ-like”, and they repeat that process with another person…then this nation and this world can be saved from going to Hell! (And for any readers in Hell, Michigan, I am sure you realize I am not dissing your city…though you really need a new name!)
Had to laugh…at/with Seth Godin
A couple days ago, Seth Godin, who is one of my favorite authors in the area of marketing and leadership, published this post on his blog. What I had to laugh about is that he seems to take for granted an age old idea in publishing which is the idea of “the platform”. That means, how many people out there care what you have to say to them. He has somewhere around half a million subscribers to his blog. If only 10% of those people buy something he publishes, he has still made some money on the deal. In comparison, there are about a hundred of you who read my ramblings…which means I am doing pretty well as my book has sold 26 copies! For Seth, cutting out the traditional publisher and self publishing is a great idea! He doesn’t need the publisher anymore. If I had written Wild About the Church in order to get paid, I would be starving to death. An author needs either their own platform, like a pastor of a mega-church, or leader of a large organization, or they will need a publisher who can get behind their book and market it to the masses. I know this post is a little out of the ordinary for me, but I am curious what you think about it. (You may want to go back and read Seth Godin’s post to understand what I am talking about first.)
In Search of the Great Pastor Conference
Just a reminder that spots for the In Search of the Great Pastor Conference are filling up. I do want you to go! If you are a pastor and can share one thing that you are doing right in the leadership of your church that God is blessing, we want to learn from you! If you have one thing that you feel like you are failing as a leader or that you are beating your head against the wall and struggling to overcome, then we want to help you!
New Beginnings
Filed under: Church Revitalization, Encouragement, creativity
The semester here at NGU starts tomorrow and so students are arriving in droves, moving into their dorms and greeting each other with smiles, laughter, hugs and a few screams of joy. The classes haven’t started yet. Joy is in the air because of relationships. Soon, things will get hard, and they won’t be quite as happy as they are now. Church plants can be like that. In the beginning, there is a great passion to reach the community for Jesus Christ, and then something happens as things begin to get hard. There is a struggle to pay the rent on the building or a deacon or staff member you thought would be there forever leaves. Starting something new takes work, but it can be just the thing to revive a dead environment too. Like our campus which seems lonely without the students, the church can be brought back to life through doing something new…anything new short of sin. Getting the membership to grab a hold of a new passion can ignite a fire in your church that will cause people to once again be excited about being a part of it like they were back when it was first planted.
An Incredible Post by Brooke Pizzati!
Just want to share a blog post I read this morning! If it doesn’t rock your world, you are probably dead.
http://pizzati.blogspot.com/2010/08/until-im-safely-home.html
It isn’t long, but it is powerful. Just take a moment to read it.
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