Using Profiles to Build Your Communication Strategy, Part 2

Every church has different personas that make up the congregational body. Each of these personas—New Visitor, Return Visitor, Engaged Member, and Mature Disciple—all need different things from portions of the church website.

We started profiling these personas in a previous post, so today we want to finish out the group with Engaged Member and Mature Disciple.

Again, we’ll be revealing what our research shows as the most important sections for each of these two groups. Understanding the needs of each group is a critical path for creating an effective church website.

Engaged Member

An engaged member is someone who’s been at the church for over two years but no more than ten. They’ll be familiar with the church, the community, programs, and events the church offers. They’ll want to know things like:

Event Registration. How do they sign-up for classes, events, and programs on your website? This group showed the highest demand for an easy-to-use online registration process. Like the other groups, the website is most helpful to them in facilitating connection to the community.

Email Newsletter. Engaged members want their information delivered via email. Make sure there are easily identifiable places on your website to sign-up for e-blasts. (You do have those in place, right?)

Facebook Fan Page. Because engaged members are familiar with the church, they’re looking to connect relationally with other members of the community. More than any other social network, Facebook emerged as a front runner for this specific group. Judging by the data, if you were to poll your Facebook community on how long they’ve been attending your church, most of them will have been there for 2+ years.

Mature Disciple

We’re defining “mature disciples” as community members who have been at the church for 10+ years and self-identify as a Christian. Simply put, these are your “go-to” people; the folks you couldn’t do ministry without!

Here’s what interests mature disciples most on your church’s website:

Text Updates. Although this isn’t a distinct function of a church website, mature disciples were most likely to indicate a strong preference for receiving informational text updates from the church. You can facilitate this connection by offering simple ways for members to sign-up for text updates on your church website. Services like Jarbyco and Tatango are helpful when considering how to do text updates.

Small Groups/Home Groups. Not surprisingly, mature disciples wanted to know where to access information specific to small groups. Although this element of church life is important for all personas, mature disciples seem to be seeking out this information more than any other group.

Email Newsletter. Again, the longer someone attends a church, the more likely they are to opt-in to email updates. Relationships are formed, ministry allegiances are fortified, and people want to know what’s going on in the life of the church. Much like the engaged members, mature disciples proactively seek out information. Make it easy for this group to find email updates.

Conclusion

Community life is at the center of both of these groups interaction with the church website. The more you can facilitate specific connections to the community for these two groups, the more successful your website will be.

Read Part 1 of this series here.

Read more from Justin here.

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Justin Wise

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comment_post_ID); ?> Thank you for this information. I'm going to use this article to improve my work with the Lord.
 
— Abel Singbeh
 
comment_post_ID); ?> Thank you Ed for sharing your insights into the Church Growth Movement. I have my reservations with Church Growth models because it has done more damage than good in the Body of Christ. Over the years, western churches are more focused on results, formulas and processes with little or no emphasis on membership and church discipline. Pastors and vocational leaders are burnt out because they're overworked. I do believe that the Church Growth model is a catalyst to two destructive groups: The New Apostolic Reformation and the Emerging Church. Both groups overlap and have a very loose definition. They're both focus on contemporary worship, expansion of church brand (franchising), and mobilizing volunteering members as 'leaders' to grow their ministry. Little focus on biblical study, apologetics and genuine missional work with no agenda besides preaching of the gospel.
 
— Dave
 
comment_post_ID); ?> Thank you for sharing such a good article. It is a great lesson I learned from this article. I am one of the leaders in Emmanuel united church of Ethiopia (A denomination with more-than 780 local churches through out the country). I am preparing a presentation on succession planning for local church leaders. It will help me for preparation If you send me more resources and recommend me books to read on the topic. I hope we may collaborate in advancing leadership capacity of our church. God Bless You and Your Ministry.
 
— Argaw Alemu
 

Clarity Process

Three effective ways to start moving toward clarity right now.

Responding to Ministry Innovation Negatives: Learn to Experiment and Prototype

Encountering an Air Sandwich

I was teaching an executive education class recently when I saw a textbook example of an “air sandwich.”

If you’re not familiar with the term, here’s how Nilofer Merchant describes it:

An Air Sandwich is a strategy that has clear vision and future direction on the top layer, day-to-day action on the bottom, and virtually nothing in the middle—no meaty key decisions that connect the two layers, no rich chewy filling to align the new direction with new actions within the company.

I was working with a group of future leaders that had been identified by the management of their company.  The firm is in a pretty conservative industry, but they are starting to try to differentiate themselves through innovation.  This vision has been articulated from the top.  And the young managers in the class had been asked to think about how to embed innovation within the organisation.

They came back with a series of pretty interesting ideas, and they presented them in our workshop, with a number of senior leaders from the firm present.  And every new idea that the young guys put forward got shredded by the senior leaders.

Air Sandwich.

How Should You Respond to New Ideas?

There are two ways in which you can respond to new ideas.  Your first response can be “no, that won’t work, here are the problems.”  Or, you can say “that’s interesting.”  And with the second one, you can find ways to build on the idea, or connect it to other ideas to create an even better idea, or at least figure out some way to support the idea.

The firm I’m working with is in a pretty tough industry, and I suspect that the guys giving the rough feedback would say that’s important for the younger managers to harden up – that if they want to make it in this industry they’ll need to be tough.  And that may well be true.

But still, if you are trying to build your innovation capability, you can’t take ten of your bright young managers, ask them to come up with creative ideas to help build that capability, and then just absolutely tear those ideas to shreds when they show them to you.  This is particularly important for this firm – because they have set themselves a tough challenge.  But their overall objectives are admirable, and it’s important that they succeed.

How Should You Respond When Your New Ideas Get Shredded?

So what can you do if you’re the bottom layer of bread in an air sandwich?  You can’t control how others respond to your ideas, but you can exert some control over your own actions.  Here are some ideas:

  • Learn from it. Getting our great ideas to spread is an important part of the innovation process.  Overcoming resistance is a big part of that.  Every criticism of your ideas contains some element of truth – even if it’s based on a misunderstanding, that shows that you need to get your point across more clearly.  We have to learn from this, and improve the deliver of our new ideas.
  • Don’t take it out on others. One big danger in a situation like this is that the young managers will learn that this how to respond to ideas in their firm, and react the same way when the people working for them come up with new ideas.  This will completely kill off innovation.  Instead, we have to use these experiences to build our empathy.  This way, when others put new ideas in front of us, it might help us respond by supporting the idea, building on it, and connecting it to other good ideas.
  • Change your culture. The culture of a firm is not an unchanging fact of life that simply acts upon us.  We re-create it every single day through our interactions.  Just because our managers act in a particular way doesn’t mean that we have to.  We have the opportunity to start re-shaping a culture by changing the way we respond to things.  If we accept new ideas and build on them, others will start to do so as well.
  • Band together. It’s hard to change a firm’s culture on your own.  So another good idea is to find others that are also committed to driving change, and band together.  Cultures rarely change through edicts – it is one thing that is especially open to bottom-up change.

This is Why Innovation is a Challenge

Innovation is hard – if it weren’t, everyone would be doing it.  The environment that we create for new ideas is an important part of building an innovation culture. One of the big problems with shooting down ideas immediately is that doing so assumes that we can know in advance which ideas will work and which won’t.  But we can’t.  This is why experimenting and prototyping are such critical innovation skills.

The best way to figure out which ideas are good is to try them out.  If they work, scale them up.  Here’s how Saul Kaplan puts it:

Learn by doing. Constantly test new ideas. Learn, share and repeat. The world is ever changing — stay ahead of the curve. Embrace the art of discovery.

We need to try more stuff. Innovation is never about silver bullets. It’s about experimentation and doing whatever it takes, even if it means trying 1,000 things, to deliver value.

My main piece of feedback to the teams was: “how could we prototype your ideas?”  If we test an idea, gather data from the test, and learn, that is the best way to combat a culture that shoots new ideas down on sight.  It’s a lot harder to argue with data.

Testing your ideas, and making evidence-based decisions are two more ways to change your culture.  That’s my new idea for the day.

How will you respond – will you tell me why it won’t work, or will you build on it to make it better?

Read more from Tim here.

 
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Tim Kastelle

Tim Kastelle

Tim Kastelle is a Lecturer in Innovation Management in the University of Queensland Business School. He blogs about innovation at the Innovation Leadership Network.

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Recent Comments
comment_post_ID); ?> Thank you for this information. I'm going to use this article to improve my work with the Lord.
 
— Abel Singbeh
 
comment_post_ID); ?> Thank you Ed for sharing your insights into the Church Growth Movement. I have my reservations with Church Growth models because it has done more damage than good in the Body of Christ. Over the years, western churches are more focused on results, formulas and processes with little or no emphasis on membership and church discipline. Pastors and vocational leaders are burnt out because they're overworked. I do believe that the Church Growth model is a catalyst to two destructive groups: The New Apostolic Reformation and the Emerging Church. Both groups overlap and have a very loose definition. They're both focus on contemporary worship, expansion of church brand (franchising), and mobilizing volunteering members as 'leaders' to grow their ministry. Little focus on biblical study, apologetics and genuine missional work with no agenda besides preaching of the gospel.
 
— Dave
 
comment_post_ID); ?> Thank you for sharing such a good article. It is a great lesson I learned from this article. I am one of the leaders in Emmanuel united church of Ethiopia (A denomination with more-than 780 local churches through out the country). I am preparing a presentation on succession planning for local church leaders. It will help me for preparation If you send me more resources and recommend me books to read on the topic. I hope we may collaborate in advancing leadership capacity of our church. God Bless You and Your Ministry.
 
— Argaw Alemu
 

Clarity Process

Three effective ways to start moving toward clarity right now.

Measuring Ministry Progress in Your Church, Part 4: Gospel Articulation

Last week when I wheeled my son in his pram, down our steep driveway, I was super careful. I wasn’t taking any chances – I had precious cargo and I would do everything in my power to concentrate and carefully bring him down the hill.

We ought to treat the gospel like precious cargo. With God’s help it must be guarded, and passed down, entirely unchanged, from one generation to the next.

“Guard the good deposit that was entrusted to you—guard it with the help of the Holy Spirit who lives in us.” 2 Timothy 1:14

Sadly, as Philip Jensen has explained, the gospel can be all too easily lost. He explains how this often happens in a 4-generation process:

  1. The gospel is accepted.
  2. The gospel is assumed.
  3. The gospel is confused.
  4. The gospel is lost.

“The generation that assumes the gospel is the generation most responsible for the loss of the gospel”.

It’s too easy to assume the gospel – to assume that people know the gospel, to assume that when you encourage people to ‘share the gospel with your friends’ that people know what it is and can explain it to others. It’s too easy to assume that they have believed it for themselves.

The gospel is too precious and powerful to simply be assumed. This is why measuring gospel articulation is so important, and an important indicator of church health. Let me explain.

The importance of gospel articulation

Being able to articulate the gospel demonstrates 2 important things:

  1. You know the gospel. This doesn’t mean you’re saved necessarily, but it does mean that you know everything necessary in order to be saved.
  2. You are able to explain the gospel to others. Again, this is meaningless (and dangerous) if you haven’t accepted the gospel. But if people have accepted the gospel, and can also explain the gospel, they are powerfully equipped to do their role (and let the Holy Spirit do His) in bringing dead people to life.

How to measure gospel articulation

I think it would be very beneficial to meet up with members of your church, and ask them the question:

“What is the gospel?”

While there’s no ‘right answer’, there are core elements that must be included for the gospel to be the gospel. If these are missing, or if extra elements are added, you are able to care for these people, and help them to have a clear understanding of the

The benefits of measuring gospel articulation

I think having a better understanding of how many people in the church can articulate the gospel is helpful in a number of ways:

  1. It helps pastors get a better sense of who is unconverted. Not a perfect sense, but a better sense. On this topic, Mark Dever’s talk ‘False Conversions: The Suicide of the Church‘ is essential listening.
  2. It helps pastors know who might be serving in order to get God’s love (not in response to God’s love).
  3. It helps pastors avoid challenging people to live in response to the gospel, who don’t yet get the gospel.
  4. It stops pastors encouraging or enabling evangelism by unbelievers.
  5. It enables pastors to encourage people who don’t know the gospel, to explore it further.

Wise words from Spurgeon:

“Do not number your fishes before they are broiled; nor count your converts before you have tested and tried them. This process may make your work somewhat slow; but then, brethren, it will be sure. Do your work steadily and well, so that those who come after you may not have to say that it was far more trouble to them to clear the church of those who ought never to have been admitted than it was to you to admit them.”

If you’d like to equip people in your church to know and share the gospel, allow me to recommend the best book I’ve read on evangelism.

Read previous posts in this series: Part 1; Part 2; Part 3.

Read more from Steve here.

 

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Steve Kryger

Steve Kryger

I don’t deserve it, but I’ve been redeemed by Jesus. I can’t begin to express how thankful I am for all God has done for me, and it’s my privilege to serve Him. I am the Executive Pastor at Church by the Bridge in Kirribilli, Australia. Prior to serving at Church by the Bridge, I worked as a marketing manager in Canberra, as well as a social media specialist.

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COMMENTS

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Recent Comments
comment_post_ID); ?> Thank you for this information. I'm going to use this article to improve my work with the Lord.
 
— Abel Singbeh
 
comment_post_ID); ?> Thank you Ed for sharing your insights into the Church Growth Movement. I have my reservations with Church Growth models because it has done more damage than good in the Body of Christ. Over the years, western churches are more focused on results, formulas and processes with little or no emphasis on membership and church discipline. Pastors and vocational leaders are burnt out because they're overworked. I do believe that the Church Growth model is a catalyst to two destructive groups: The New Apostolic Reformation and the Emerging Church. Both groups overlap and have a very loose definition. They're both focus on contemporary worship, expansion of church brand (franchising), and mobilizing volunteering members as 'leaders' to grow their ministry. Little focus on biblical study, apologetics and genuine missional work with no agenda besides preaching of the gospel.
 
— Dave
 
comment_post_ID); ?> Thank you for sharing such a good article. It is a great lesson I learned from this article. I am one of the leaders in Emmanuel united church of Ethiopia (A denomination with more-than 780 local churches through out the country). I am preparing a presentation on succession planning for local church leaders. It will help me for preparation If you send me more resources and recommend me books to read on the topic. I hope we may collaborate in advancing leadership capacity of our church. God Bless You and Your Ministry.
 
— Argaw Alemu
 

Clarity Process

Three effective ways to start moving toward clarity right now.

Using Profiles to Build Your Communication Strategy, Part 1

Every church is made up of different groups (or personas) on any given Sunday.

Collectively, you may not be able to tell the difference between them. But these groups—new visitor, regular attender, committed member, and mature disciple—all use your website in profoundly different ways.

Today, we’ll profile the first two personas and reveal what our research shows as the most important sections for each.

New Visitors

A new visitor will be paying attention to different areas of your website than someone who’s been to the church before. They’ll want to know things like:

About Us/Directions. How do they find your church? If they’re on a mobile device, are the directions in your site easy to read? Better yet, is the site mobile-ready?

What can they expect on a Sunday morning? If they show up in a three-piece suit, will they feel out of place? If they don’t show up in a three-piece suit, will that ruffle some feather? More than just attire, people showing up for the first time will want to know what to expect. Can they find this easily on the website?

Event calendar. We find consistently new people want to get connected to the community as quickly as possible. The best way to facilitate this is through the event calendar. If a new person comes to the event calendar section, are they able to find events relevant to them?

Regular Attenders

These folks are the ones who are casually involved with the church. They drift in and out of church life, but they have made an increased commitment to attending regularly. If your church has a membership program, this group isn’t likely to make that commitment without a personal invitation or increased engagement through programs and events.

Here’s what interests regular attenders most on your church’s website:

Event registration. Because regular attenders are more involved in the life of the church, they want to be able to register for events online. In addition to listing out event details, regular attenders want to be able to sign up for classes all online.

Missional or theological statement. Doctrinal or theological positioning statements are rarely important to people until they commit to attending. A regular attender is more likely to seek these out.

Social media outposts. Because a regular attender is increasing their commitment level to the church, they’ll seek other ways to stay involved throughout the week. One of the easiest ways to do this is via social media outposts. Users in this group are highly likely to engage socially with a church.

Conclusion

As you can see, there are similarities between these two groups, namely around community-based activities. In fact, every group profiled does or will include a deep desire to connect to the church community through the website. Join us next week for the profiles of both a committed member and mature disciple.

Read Part 2 here.
Read more from Justin here.
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Justin Wise

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Recent Comments
comment_post_ID); ?> Thank you for this information. I'm going to use this article to improve my work with the Lord.
 
— Abel Singbeh
 
comment_post_ID); ?> Thank you Ed for sharing your insights into the Church Growth Movement. I have my reservations with Church Growth models because it has done more damage than good in the Body of Christ. Over the years, western churches are more focused on results, formulas and processes with little or no emphasis on membership and church discipline. Pastors and vocational leaders are burnt out because they're overworked. I do believe that the Church Growth model is a catalyst to two destructive groups: The New Apostolic Reformation and the Emerging Church. Both groups overlap and have a very loose definition. They're both focus on contemporary worship, expansion of church brand (franchising), and mobilizing volunteering members as 'leaders' to grow their ministry. Little focus on biblical study, apologetics and genuine missional work with no agenda besides preaching of the gospel.
 
— Dave
 
comment_post_ID); ?> Thank you for sharing such a good article. It is a great lesson I learned from this article. I am one of the leaders in Emmanuel united church of Ethiopia (A denomination with more-than 780 local churches through out the country). I am preparing a presentation on succession planning for local church leaders. It will help me for preparation If you send me more resources and recommend me books to read on the topic. I hope we may collaborate in advancing leadership capacity of our church. God Bless You and Your Ministry.
 
— Argaw Alemu
 

Clarity Process

Three effective ways to start moving toward clarity right now.

Opportunity Creep: It May be Your Biggest Ministry Challenge

The term “scope creep” is a term consultants use when their clients expect more than what the project originally outlined. The idea is that the scope of the project is slowing getting bigger, usually in imperceptible increments. Of course, no consultant wants scope creep to happen, but in an effort to please the client, its hard to prevent sometimes.

The same dynamic is ever present in ministry. It’s called “opportunity creep.”

What is “opportunity creep?” Its roughly the same idea, just applied to all of the positive ministry opportunities a pastor may face in the days and weeks of church life. By calling it “creep” we are acknowledging that it’s all too easy to say yes too much. By positioning this as a problem, we are highlighting that a lack of “opportunity management” can distract and dilute our ministry efforts.

Think about how many kinds of opportunities cross a pastor’s path:

  • We serve a congregation that’s a bottomless well of  members’ needs.
  • We are captured by the buzz of new ideas, new people, and new initiatives happening in church space.
  • We live in  communities riddled with issues that we would love to “missionally” engage.
  • We are digitally connect to an ocean of information and “friends.”

The bottom line: church leadership is rich soil for opportunity creep.

I will address opportunity creep with two follow-up posts:

1) The Five Primary Sources of Distraction in Ministry- this is about spotting the creep.

2) Applying Five Filters to Ministry Decision Making– this is about beating the creep.

Read more from Will here.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Will Mancini

Will Mancini

Will Mancini wants you and your ministry to experience the benefits of stunning, God-given clarity. As a pastor turned vision coach, Will has worked with an unprecedented variety of churches from growing megachurches and missional communities, to mainline revitalization and church plants. He is the founder of Auxano, creator of VisionRoom.com and the author of God Dreams and Church Unique.

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Recent Comments
comment_post_ID); ?> Thank you for this information. I'm going to use this article to improve my work with the Lord.
 
— Abel Singbeh
 
comment_post_ID); ?> Thank you Ed for sharing your insights into the Church Growth Movement. I have my reservations with Church Growth models because it has done more damage than good in the Body of Christ. Over the years, western churches are more focused on results, formulas and processes with little or no emphasis on membership and church discipline. Pastors and vocational leaders are burnt out because they're overworked. I do believe that the Church Growth model is a catalyst to two destructive groups: The New Apostolic Reformation and the Emerging Church. Both groups overlap and have a very loose definition. They're both focus on contemporary worship, expansion of church brand (franchising), and mobilizing volunteering members as 'leaders' to grow their ministry. Little focus on biblical study, apologetics and genuine missional work with no agenda besides preaching of the gospel.
 
— Dave
 
comment_post_ID); ?> Thank you for sharing such a good article. It is a great lesson I learned from this article. I am one of the leaders in Emmanuel united church of Ethiopia (A denomination with more-than 780 local churches through out the country). I am preparing a presentation on succession planning for local church leaders. It will help me for preparation If you send me more resources and recommend me books to read on the topic. I hope we may collaborate in advancing leadership capacity of our church. God Bless You and Your Ministry.
 
— Argaw Alemu
 

Clarity Process

Three effective ways to start moving toward clarity right now.

Measuring Ministry Progress in Your Church, Part 3: Small Groups

5 useful measurements for Bible study group involvement.

In a prior post we explored the first measure of ministry progress: attendance. We looked at 5 measurements related to church attendance.

Another relatively simple measurement to make is involvement in Bible study (or whatever your church calls it) groups.

As I speak with pastors, I’ve discovered this is as common a measure as attendance, and it’s an important measure. As one pastor explained about his church:

[This is an indicator that] people aren’t simply using the church but wanting to partner in the Gospel and do community with other Christians.

Why do groups exist?

As the pastor above has done, identifying why these groups exist is essential.

Let me illustrate it with an example. Why does a soccer team have mid-week training?

  • Is it to build relationships?
  • Is it to have a fun activity on a Wednesday night?
  • Is it to get fit?
  • Is it to develop better ball skills?

Training will most likely accomplish these things, but the goal of training is to be prepared to win the match on Saturday afternoon. If training doesn’t meet this purpose, something needs to change. If people are becoming great friends, but this comes at the expense of preparation for the game, training hasn’t achieved what it exists to do.

I believe it’s very important to clarify what the purpose of the groups are, and ensure they are meeting this purpose, and include this with other measurements about group numbers and attendance.

Without this clarity, improving your effectiveness at multiplying groups and increasing the number of groups could actually work against what your church is striving to achieve.

Without a direction, running faster in the wrong direction will just get you to the wrong place, sooner.

At Church by the Bridge, the purpose of our Connect Groups is maturity. What is the purpose of these groups at your church?

3 cautions about measuring Bible study group involvement

As with measuring attendance, the most basic measurements – number of groups, and number of people in groups, simply aren’t enough enough.  Here’s why.

  1. People can sign-up for a group, but not attend. You can have 60% (or higher) of your church signed up, but signing up is the easy part. Attending is where the rubber hits the road. In a friend’s group last year, 2 of the people who signed up for the group never turned up throughout the entire year.
  2. Attendance can drop. You can have high attendance at the start of the year, but it can drop as the year progresses. If this happens, it’s worth asking the question – why? Perhaps the groups are getting so large that people don’t feel they are able to contribute, or feel uncomfortable sharing with new people in the group each week.
  3. The groups may not be achieving their purpose. This is my point above. Lots of people in lots of groups that aren’t helping people to mature/the church to be united/people to confess their sins/new people to explore church life – whatever the purpose is – is in fact, not helpful.

5 useful measurements for Bible study group involvement

I believe there are several steps necessary before jumping into the measurements.

Step 1. Identify the purpose of the groups. Why do they exist?

Step 2. Identify how progress towards this goal (e.g. maturity) will be measured. I think this is by far the trickiest part of the process.

Step 3. Then, keep track of the following measurements:

  • Measurement #1. The number of small groups per adult members.
  • Measurement #2. The % of adult members who have signed up for a group.
  • Measurement #3. The frequency of attendance of members. As with attendance, it’s important to know not just who has signed a form, but who is actually going along to their group.
  • Measurement #4. The attendance of leaders to training and discipleship events. This will look different in every church, but involves measures such as attending leadership training events, meeting regularly with the small groups pastor, etc. If the leaders aren’t well connected to the church’s purposes, the groups can easily get off-track.
  • Measurement #5.  This is optional, and links back to the purpose of the group. If groups are an entry point for unbelievers (e.g. a place where church members are encouraged to invite their friends to), you could track how many unbelievers are joining groups. Depending on the purpose of your groups, this 5th measurement can be adjusted.

Tools for measuring progress

If you’re going to get serious about measurement, you’ll need tools that help you to track how you’re progress. Most church databases will enable you to keep a roll of attendance – at church and in groups. We use Elvanto, but there are many other helpful solutions out there (here’s a series that explores how to select a church member database).

Read Part 1 of this series here.

Read Part 2 of this series here.

Read more from Tim here.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Steve Kryger

Steve Kryger

I don’t deserve it, but I’ve been redeemed by Jesus. I can’t begin to express how thankful I am for all God has done for me, and it’s my privilege to serve Him. I am the Executive Pastor at Church by the Bridge in Kirribilli, Australia. Prior to serving at Church by the Bridge, I worked as a marketing manager in Canberra, as well as a social media specialist.

See more articles by >

COMMENTS

What say you? Leave a comment!

Recent Comments
comment_post_ID); ?> Thank you for this information. I'm going to use this article to improve my work with the Lord.
 
— Abel Singbeh
 
comment_post_ID); ?> Thank you Ed for sharing your insights into the Church Growth Movement. I have my reservations with Church Growth models because it has done more damage than good in the Body of Christ. Over the years, western churches are more focused on results, formulas and processes with little or no emphasis on membership and church discipline. Pastors and vocational leaders are burnt out because they're overworked. I do believe that the Church Growth model is a catalyst to two destructive groups: The New Apostolic Reformation and the Emerging Church. Both groups overlap and have a very loose definition. They're both focus on contemporary worship, expansion of church brand (franchising), and mobilizing volunteering members as 'leaders' to grow their ministry. Little focus on biblical study, apologetics and genuine missional work with no agenda besides preaching of the gospel.
 
— Dave
 
comment_post_ID); ?> Thank you for sharing such a good article. It is a great lesson I learned from this article. I am one of the leaders in Emmanuel united church of Ethiopia (A denomination with more-than 780 local churches through out the country). I am preparing a presentation on succession planning for local church leaders. It will help me for preparation If you send me more resources and recommend me books to read on the topic. I hope we may collaborate in advancing leadership capacity of our church. God Bless You and Your Ministry.
 
— Argaw Alemu
 

Clarity Process

Three effective ways to start moving toward clarity right now.

5 Hidden Leaders in Your Church Waiting to be Asked to Jump In

Chances are your church is looking for more leaders to serve within various ministries. Whether your kids ministry needs some more coaches to motivate the teams … or your small group ministry is needs some great new leaders … or maybe even your weekend services needs some support to ensure that everything runs smoothly.

Churches are driven by the volunteer leaders and you need to find some new ones!

I believe that God has provided the leaders you need in your church to push the mission forward. The problem is that often leaders might be hidden within your church and you need to seek them out. Here are some types of leaders that I’ve found over the years … look closely into these types of people in your church you’re bound to find some new leaders!

  • People with Followers // Potential leaders are leading people already. This Sunday after your service look around your foyer and try to notice those people who seems to be “holding court” with a circle of people. Those people are influencing and leading in your church … even if you haven’t given them a role!
  • Young People // Chances are that someone trusted you when you were too young to lead something. Are you trusting young people as much as you were trusted? Find some young folks in your church … and give them a small project to lead.  When they succeed give them more!
  • Moms are Leaders // Keeping the modern home on the rails takes incredible leadership. There are still “at home Moms” who are attending your church who would welcome the opportunity to lead within your church. If you were able to find some mid-week and mid-day opportunities you would unlock fantastic new capabilities as a church!
  • Zoomers! // Boomers that zoom! There is a generation of leaders who have been leading for years in the marketplace and had great success but are now looking for significance. Look among the boomer generation to find some leaders who might be looking for a new way to invest their time, efforts and energy!
  • Entrepreneurs Lead // There are business leaders in your church who run their own businesses and might be up for investing a few hours a week in a project at your church. These leaders are going to want something that will show results and push the kingdom forward! Look for business owners and pair them up with some projects this month!

The problem with leaders is that they want to lead!  Remember to give new leaders roles that make a difference in the life of your church and release them to change the world!

What are some other hidden leaders that you have found within your church?

Read more from Rich here.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Rich Birch

Rich Birch

Thanks so much for dropping by unseminary … I hope that your able to find some resources that help you lead your church better in the coming days! I’ve been involved in church leadership for over 15 years. Early on I had the privilege of leading in one of the very first multisite churches in North Amerca. I led the charge in helping The Meeting House in Toronto to become the leading multi-site church in Canada with over 4,000 people in 6 locations. (Today they are 13 locations with somewhere over 5,000 people attending.) In addition, I served on the leadership team of Connexus Community Church in Ontario, a North Point Community Church Strategic Partner. I currently serves as Operations Pastor at Liquid Church in the Manhattan facing suburbs of New Jersey. I have a dual vocational background that uniquely positions me for serving churches to multiply impact. While in the marketplace, I founded a dot-com with two partners in the late 90’s that worked to increase value for media firms and internet service providers. I’m married to Christine and we live in Scotch Plains, NJ with their two children and one dog.

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Recent Comments
comment_post_ID); ?> Thank you for this information. I'm going to use this article to improve my work with the Lord.
 
— Abel Singbeh
 
comment_post_ID); ?> Thank you Ed for sharing your insights into the Church Growth Movement. I have my reservations with Church Growth models because it has done more damage than good in the Body of Christ. Over the years, western churches are more focused on results, formulas and processes with little or no emphasis on membership and church discipline. Pastors and vocational leaders are burnt out because they're overworked. I do believe that the Church Growth model is a catalyst to two destructive groups: The New Apostolic Reformation and the Emerging Church. Both groups overlap and have a very loose definition. They're both focus on contemporary worship, expansion of church brand (franchising), and mobilizing volunteering members as 'leaders' to grow their ministry. Little focus on biblical study, apologetics and genuine missional work with no agenda besides preaching of the gospel.
 
— Dave
 
comment_post_ID); ?> Thank you for sharing such a good article. It is a great lesson I learned from this article. I am one of the leaders in Emmanuel united church of Ethiopia (A denomination with more-than 780 local churches through out the country). I am preparing a presentation on succession planning for local church leaders. It will help me for preparation If you send me more resources and recommend me books to read on the topic. I hope we may collaborate in advancing leadership capacity of our church. God Bless You and Your Ministry.
 
— Argaw Alemu
 

Clarity Process

Three effective ways to start moving toward clarity right now.

Better Worship Requires Better Theology: How to Increase Joy, Fidelity, and Intensity in Worship

“How do I help people engage in worship?”

I know of few church leaders for whom this isn’t a concern on some level. Whether we’re small group leaders, playing in the praise band or the senior leaders, we all want to see the men and women in our churches increasingly engaged in worship (in every sense of the word).

So… how do we do that?

Is it through turning up the speakers? Singing songs with lots of participation, clapping and suggested actions in the lyrics?

D.A. Carson offers a pretty different suggestion in his recently released book, Jesus the Son of God: A Christological Title Often Overlooked, Sometimes Misunderstood, and Currently Disputed:

We increase the intensity, joy, and fidelity of our worship, not by including the verb “to worship” in every second line in our so-called “worship songs,” but by knowing more about God, and bringing our adoration to him, as he is.

Insofar as our conceptions of him diverge from what he has disclosed of himself, so far are we worshiping a false god, which is normally called idolatry. To study hard what holy Scripture says about the Son of God, who has most comprehensively revealed his heavenly Father, is to know more about God, and thus to begin to ground our worship in reality rather than slogans. (Kindle location 1204)

Carson’s point is simple: better worship requires better theology.

It seems counterintuitive. Indeed, some have suggested it’s simplicity, rather than complexity, that increases the intensity of worship. You often see this argument used in connection with battles over hymns in modern worship services.

The language is unfamiliar (unless the lyrics have been updated) and the theology expressed is too complex for the average Christian, or so go some arguments (never mind that the audience for many of the hymns we still widely sing today was illiterate farmers).

True, many (but certainly not all) of the hymns are anything but simple. But, then, neither are many of the preeminent examples of songs of worship found in the Psalms and throughout the rest of Scripture. They communicate profoundly deep—and often complex—truths about God.

At the risk of overstating, I would suggest the objection many have today about complexity in worship is not because “simple” is better. It’s that we are too ill-equipped to handle much more than the most basic truths of Scripture.

While we must always be careful that we don’t succumb to sinful intellectual elitism, we can’t ignore the way God appears to have wired the Christian faith—increased knowledge and understanding of God leads to increased worship.

Depth begets awe.

This is (at least in part) the desire that is to fuel our disciple-making, as Paul’s prayer for the Colossians makes clear. Maybe it should be our prayer, too:

And so, from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God. May you be strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy, giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share inthe inheritance of the saints in light. (Col 1:9-12)

 Read more from Aaron here.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Aaron Armstrong

Aaron Armstrong

Aaron is the author of Awaiting a Savior: The Gospel, the New Creation, and the End of Poverty (Cruciform Press, 2011). He is a writer, serves as an itinerant preacher throughout southern Ontario, Canada, and blogs daily at Blogging Theologically.

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COMMENTS

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Recent Comments
comment_post_ID); ?> Thank you for this information. I'm going to use this article to improve my work with the Lord.
 
— Abel Singbeh
 
comment_post_ID); ?> Thank you Ed for sharing your insights into the Church Growth Movement. I have my reservations with Church Growth models because it has done more damage than good in the Body of Christ. Over the years, western churches are more focused on results, formulas and processes with little or no emphasis on membership and church discipline. Pastors and vocational leaders are burnt out because they're overworked. I do believe that the Church Growth model is a catalyst to two destructive groups: The New Apostolic Reformation and the Emerging Church. Both groups overlap and have a very loose definition. They're both focus on contemporary worship, expansion of church brand (franchising), and mobilizing volunteering members as 'leaders' to grow their ministry. Little focus on biblical study, apologetics and genuine missional work with no agenda besides preaching of the gospel.
 
— Dave
 
comment_post_ID); ?> Thank you for sharing such a good article. It is a great lesson I learned from this article. I am one of the leaders in Emmanuel united church of Ethiopia (A denomination with more-than 780 local churches through out the country). I am preparing a presentation on succession planning for local church leaders. It will help me for preparation If you send me more resources and recommend me books to read on the topic. I hope we may collaborate in advancing leadership capacity of our church. God Bless You and Your Ministry.
 
— Argaw Alemu
 

Clarity Process

Three effective ways to start moving toward clarity right now.

The Values of Your Senior Leader Become the Values of Your Organization

There is a bullish, uncompromising law that you cannot ignore as you consider building a leadership development culture:

The values of the leader become the values of the organization

Now, I’m not necessarily talking about the values that are posted in the hallway by the water cooler, but the values the leader lives out on a day in day out basis.    (Unfortunately too often there is a big difference between the two).  A leader may order the execution of a new leadership development program, set an organization wide goal for the development of leaders or even assign a task force to develop solutions to the leadership development problem.  But if he himself is not involved in developing leaders then that organization will never cultivate a leadership development culture.

Don’t worry senior leaders, this does not mean that you have to suddenly put aside significant portions of your role to take on this new added responsibility.  No, it simply means you begin to invest in replicating yourself in at least one other person in the organization.  If you don’t model it yourself you can’t expect it from others.   But realize, It’s not the volume of leaders you reproduce that matters; it’s your voice and actions championing the cause that will lead others to follow your example and ultimately be the greatest contributing factor in building a culture of leadership development in your organization.

Read more from Mac here.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Mac Lake

Mac Lake

Mac is a pioneering influence in the church planting movement. In 1997, he planted Carolina Forest Community Church (Myrtle Beach, South Carolina). In 2004, he began serving as Leadership Development Pastor at Seacoast Church (Charleston, South Carolina) where he served for over six years. In July 2010, Mac Lake joined with West Ridge Church to become the Visionary Architect for the LAUNCH Network. In 2015 Mac begin working with Will Mancini and Auxano to develop the Leadership Pipeline process. He joined Auxano full time in 2018. Mac and his wife, Cindy, live in Charleston, South Carolina and have three children, Brandon, Jordan and Brianna.

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COMMENTS

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Recent Comments
comment_post_ID); ?> Thank you for this information. I'm going to use this article to improve my work with the Lord.
 
— Abel Singbeh
 
comment_post_ID); ?> Thank you Ed for sharing your insights into the Church Growth Movement. I have my reservations with Church Growth models because it has done more damage than good in the Body of Christ. Over the years, western churches are more focused on results, formulas and processes with little or no emphasis on membership and church discipline. Pastors and vocational leaders are burnt out because they're overworked. I do believe that the Church Growth model is a catalyst to two destructive groups: The New Apostolic Reformation and the Emerging Church. Both groups overlap and have a very loose definition. They're both focus on contemporary worship, expansion of church brand (franchising), and mobilizing volunteering members as 'leaders' to grow their ministry. Little focus on biblical study, apologetics and genuine missional work with no agenda besides preaching of the gospel.
 
— Dave
 
comment_post_ID); ?> Thank you for sharing such a good article. It is a great lesson I learned from this article. I am one of the leaders in Emmanuel united church of Ethiopia (A denomination with more-than 780 local churches through out the country). I am preparing a presentation on succession planning for local church leaders. It will help me for preparation If you send me more resources and recommend me books to read on the topic. I hope we may collaborate in advancing leadership capacity of our church. God Bless You and Your Ministry.
 
— Argaw Alemu
 

Clarity Process

Three effective ways to start moving toward clarity right now.

An Architect’s Secret Weapons: Color

What turns a building into a work of art? What makes good architecture stand out from the masses of boring buildings? These are all questions of opinion. Most people don’t know the answer to these questions, but they know a good building when they see it. They may not know why they like it, or what specifically makes them like it…they just know it’s good.

This next series of posts is going to discuss some of the secret weapons in the architect’s arsenal to pull off great designs. The exciting thing I’m going to share about each of these is also that they can all be done without busting the budget…in fact this first item probably gives a project more bang for the buck than anything else you can do.

What is this ultimate secret weapon? Color. Yep, that’s it, simple color.

Central Christian Beloit

Central Christian Church – Beloit, WI. Photo by PlainJoe Studios.

Since my company, Visioneering Studios primarily works with churches, I’m going to aim most of this discussion in that direction. Your typical church architect faces a dilemma when it comes to color…the church building committee. There are usually two outcomes from this dilemma, neither of which is good. Result 1: the building committee doesn’t want to “offend” anyone with color so you get three shades of gray, white and beige throughout the building. Result 2: the building committee lets everyone have an opinion and they pick 325 colors that don’t match with anything.

Nothing changes a room, a building, or an environment as quickly as good color selections. Look at the ads in any magazine (especially architecture or interiors magazines), or just pay attention to the “rooms” shown on any TV show or commercial. You may have never noticed them before because they are usually the “backdrop” for the product being sold or the entertainment show you are watching. But if you pay attention you will find a carefully coordinated and selected color palette in every environment, not plain white, not wildly clashing colors, but complementary, well-orchestrated colors and textures.

Color can set moods. Color can create environments that can be bold and playful, elegant or rustic, comfortable and uplifting. Your project can have so much more impact if you find a good interiors person and allow them the freedom to infuse color into your building (inside and out!).

Northside Christian

Northside Christian Church – Spring, TX. Photo by G. Lyon Photography.

On your next project, turn color loose and don’t be afraid to let your interiors person fill your building with a palette of perfection. After all you have to paint every surface or have some finish on it anyway. What other material could you select that doesn’t affect price? Maybe it costs you a few hundred dollars extra for a little more labor “cutting in” between the colors and having to buy smaller quantities of multiple colors instead of one big batch of “white”, but where else could you get more bang for your buck on your next project? Give it a try. You won’t regret it, but even if you do, you can always go buy that “white” paint and have a painting party.

Do you have a favorite building or room? I bet it’s not plain vanilla! Share a link to a picture of it with us by leaving a comment below.

Read more from Jody here.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jody Forehand

I am the national Vice President of Operations for Visioneering Studios, an architectural, urban planning, construction, design, and development firm based out of Irvine, California with other offices in Phoenix, Denver, Austin, Chicago, and Charlotte (which is where I’m located). Every day is an incredible journey and I’m excited to have the opportunity to work on some amazing projects with some of the most dynamic and fastest growing churches in the country as well as spend time with incredible people both as coworkers, clients, and friends.

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COMMENTS

What say you? Leave a comment!

Recent Comments
comment_post_ID); ?> Thank you for this information. I'm going to use this article to improve my work with the Lord.
 
— Abel Singbeh
 
comment_post_ID); ?> Thank you Ed for sharing your insights into the Church Growth Movement. I have my reservations with Church Growth models because it has done more damage than good in the Body of Christ. Over the years, western churches are more focused on results, formulas and processes with little or no emphasis on membership and church discipline. Pastors and vocational leaders are burnt out because they're overworked. I do believe that the Church Growth model is a catalyst to two destructive groups: The New Apostolic Reformation and the Emerging Church. Both groups overlap and have a very loose definition. They're both focus on contemporary worship, expansion of church brand (franchising), and mobilizing volunteering members as 'leaders' to grow their ministry. Little focus on biblical study, apologetics and genuine missional work with no agenda besides preaching of the gospel.
 
— Dave
 
comment_post_ID); ?> Thank you for sharing such a good article. It is a great lesson I learned from this article. I am one of the leaders in Emmanuel united church of Ethiopia (A denomination with more-than 780 local churches through out the country). I am preparing a presentation on succession planning for local church leaders. It will help me for preparation If you send me more resources and recommend me books to read on the topic. I hope we may collaborate in advancing leadership capacity of our church. God Bless You and Your Ministry.
 
— Argaw Alemu
 

Clarity Process

Three effective ways to start moving toward clarity right now.