8 Habits of a Highly Effective Campus Pastor

by: Rich Birch

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I’ve had the privilege of seeing a lot of multisite campuses over the last 10+ years of leading in multisite churches. During that time I’ve had the opportunity to see dozens of Campus Pastors up close as they lead their locations.

Over the last few months we’ve been launching our most recent Campus at Liquid Church and I’ve had a front row seat to see Mike Leahy lead as a Campus Pastor. I think Campus Pastors from any multisite church should learn their craft from Mike.

This is the fourth campus that Mike has lead and it shows … the guy is a real professional! Here are a few habits I’ve seen him repeat time and time again that I think drive his effectiveness.

• Replication Focused // Mike is incredibly focused on raising up the next round of leaders to take over the ministry. Not only is he modeling that with his own associate campus pastor but he pushes to see training happening in every area of the campus. Effective long term multisite churches unlock the ability to replicate leaders and Mike pushes our campuses to always be raising up the next level of leaders.
• Sweat the Small Stuff // There are thousands of details that make the launch of a new campus great and Mike does an amazing job of digging into the details and making them work for our guests. From the layout of our main auditorium to the flow of parking to how our team fill out name tags … each of those details is sorted through and then documented so it can be replicated at this new location.
• Pocket Briefcase // If you followed Mike for any time on Sunday you’d notice that he’s constantly pulling out a small note pad and making notes about every interaction he has with people. Each note represents a follow up item for someone from our church … prayer items to loop back on, important milestones coming up, connections to be make. He uses a notepad rather than his phone because he doesn’t want to give the impression that he’s goofing around on his smart phone. This small tactic gives Mike the ability to turn every Sunday into a follow up treasure trove for the rest of the week.
• “Pollinating” the Audience // At the front end of our service you’ll notice Mike meeting and greeting people through out the audience during the musical worship part of the service. He’s attempting to make as many personal connections as possible with people … during the service! I love the site of our band cranking on stage and Mike is focusing on individuals in the room. This sort of personal care to connect draws people into our community.
• Embedding the Vision // Mike is constantly looking for ways to reinforce the vision of our church. Although he’s not the “main communicator” he doesn’t miss an opportunity to explain the “why” to our team. Listen in on a voicemail he sent out to our campus team on launch Sunday recently. It’s classic Mike … “pastoring” our people at where they are at on a “big day” like that while helping them understand the vision one more time!
• Central vs. Campuses // Mike understands that the central support team’s role is to generate content and lead the development of the church while the campus teams’ responsibility is to deliver the content and craft community connecting experiences. He consistently comes back to that fact with his teams and articulates the “division of labor” and works to ensure the lines don’t get fuzzy in this approach to doing church.
• Ombudsman // A part of the role of a campus pastor is keeping an eye on a wide variety of areas and ensuring that they are functioning at a healthy level. Mike does this in an elegant manner and is always working to draw in other members of our team to improve the ministry of his campus. He resists the urge to solve the issues directly while focusing on leveraging the skills of other members on our team to help make his campus great!
• Connection Triage Machine! // Above all else Mike is amazing at constantly helping our people get connected to the community of our church. He is always moving people onto their “next steps” … helping them find a place on a team or in a small group. Every conversation with people in his campus points towards how can we see this person get closer to being fully connected to our church.

Mike is a gift to our church … he’s a big part of what God is using at Liquid to see people get connected to Jesus! I’m thankful for his leadership and friendship!

Read more from Rich here.

Tags: Campus Pastors, Multisite, Rich Birch, Staff Leadership Roles

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A 5-Part, Vision Centered Systems Model for Your Church

by: David Putman

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Over the past few years I have consulted with a number of fast growing churches to help them get unstuck.  Here’s what I’ve learned:

• The church is a living organism designed to grow.
• Growing churches grow.
• Growing churches get stuck.
• Growing churches are often one big decision from getting unstuck.
• These big decisions are often predictable.

As a result of this work I’ve put together a little model that has help me in working with growing churches.  Represented in the model below are five areas to which every church, regardless of model or context, must pay attention.  Let me give you a brief overview.

 Vision

At the very center of this model is the Vision Frame developed by Will Mancini.  Pastors of growing churches do the hard work of vision. This work comes first and forms the vision frame of any growing church.  They recognize that God has given them a unique vision.  They understand this vision frame consists of five irreducible questions of clarity.  These questions include:

•  What are we doing (mission)?
• Why are we doing it (values)?
• How are we doing it (strategy)?
• When are we successful (measures)?
• Where is God taking us (vision proper)?

These leaders understand that vision is more than a statement.  Best practices among visionaries are:

• They have spent hours in prayer and scripture seeking God’s heart.
• They have taken their team through a healthy process to discover God’s vision for their church.
• They have crafted a culture, shaping language to articulate their unique vision with absolute clarity.
• They value the “law of the outsider” and have consulted with someone who can help them navigate this unique journey.
• They focus on implementing the vision frame over time.

Leaders who lack in vision ultimately end up getting stuck.

Leadership

Churches often get stuck when the churches growth outpaces that of the leadership.  This is why it is so important that we understand in order to grow the church, we must grow the leader.

There are five areas that every Senior Leader must grow.  They are:

• Visioneer – Ability to discover, to communicate, and implement vision.
• Communicator – Ability to communicate God’s word in a gospel-centered, passionate, and relevant way.
• Team Leader – Ability to discern leadership, develop a leadership pipeline, develop new leaders, and execute ministry through others.
• Funder of Mission – Ability to create a culture of generosity and raise capital for big endeavors.
• Vitality – Ability to grow personally, emotionally, spiritually, intellectually, and professionally over the long haul.

Discipleship

As the church we have one and only one mission.  It’s a disciple-making mission.  Growing churches have a systematic process for accomplishing this mission. We often refer to this as disciple-making assimilation.  Disciple-making assimilation is different then church assimilation systems.  Church assimilation systems often focus on church membership.  Disciple-making assimilations systems focus on the quality and quantity of disciples.  It ultimately answers three questions:

• What is a disciple?
• How are disciples made in this context?
• What are the measures of a disciple?

Environment

Space is important.  I wish it wasn’t.  It would make our work and lives much easier.  At the end of the day when a church runs out of space or has a poor environment it causes growth to slow and often time stop growing.  I often get inquires from new church planters wanting help for their lack of growth.  Many times it’s simply hindered by their meeting environment.

Many of our church buildings were built during a time when Christianity was the dominant worldview in the US.  That is no longer true.  We must become much more intentional about our environments if we are to reach people who begin their journey with their backs toward Christ and the church. Our partners at Visioneering Studios understand this.  I first encountered them at a conference during an Architectural Evangelism presentation.  We (Mountain Lake Church) were well into our design phase of a new worship space.  We were so convicted about the importance of space and environment that we ditched our project and began from scratch.  Growing churches that resolve the space and environment issues most often explode in growth.

A healthy practice is to utilize a Guest Service Perspective.  This service is designed to have a consultant who is trained in space and environment issues come in and do a kind of secret shopping experience in your church context.

Finances

A lack of funding is one of the best ways to kill a good idea.  The same is true for churches and ministry.  This is among the top two or three issues I deal with in helping fast-growing churches.  Vision most often out paces our resources.  Without exception, I watch young churches hit the financial huddle sooner or later in their ministry.

This happens due to a number of reasons.  They are:

• Failure to disciple new and existing disciples in generosity.  Somewhere along the way we bought into the lie that people won’t come to your church if you talk about money.
• No practical tools for teaching people how to get out of debt, budget, and give.  The number one tool for increasing a churches financial health over the long haul is a consistent financial ministry for the people, by the people.
• Lack of healthy financial systems in the church.  Churches consistently spend inordinate percentages of their income on staffing and facility-related issues.  A balanced budget with appropriate checks and balances goes a long way.
• Lack of communication about church finances.  People often feel in the dark when it comes to church finances.  We ask them for their money, but we refuse to tell them how God is using it.
• Failure to conduct discipleship-oriented capital campaigns.  Churches make two common mistakes when it comes to raising capital for specific needs.  First, they often fail to hire an outside consultant.  Research consistently demonstrates that a consultant makes a huge difference when it comes to a campaign.  Secondly, they conduct a poorly executed campaign.  When conducting a campaign you must go all in.  A well-done campaign can compel a church into the future, enabling you to overcome the barriers that come along with lack of funding.

As a part of the Auxano Team we are eager to serve you and your church as you deal with those natural barriers of a growing church.  Don’t hesitate to contact us.  We offer a number of on-site consulting services.  They include: Vision Pathway, Resourcing, Leadership Pipeline, Communications, and StratOps.

Read more from David here.

Tags: David Putman, Leadership Pipeline, Resourcing, StratOp, Systems, Vision Frame

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7 Killer Lessons from Derwin Gray’s School of Ministry Vision Casting

by: Will Mancini

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I have the privilege of spending lots of time thinking about, reading about and listening to others talk about vision. Rarely do I find so much packed into one learning experience as I did with Derwin Gray who recently spoke at a Velocity.

Derwin is a former professional football player who leads Transformation Church. I have arranged fifteen quotes from his talk that boil down the essence of Derwin’s philosophy. These ideas are so clear in articulation and comprehensive in scope,  they actually create a mini-course in one post.  I hope you enjoy them as much as I do.

• Effectively casting vision never comes to an end.  It is a discipline.
• You never leave the fundamentals.  You just drive deeper and deeper into them.
• We are ruthless in our communication of the vision over and over and over again.
• You cannot cast a vision that has not cast a spell over you.
• Your ethos, culture must communicate the vision.
• If you want to know what your vision is just look around.
• Do your systems and processes move like an arrow to make your vision sharper?
• Vision is the God-inspired ability to see a future that does not yet exist, but should.  This future is so Messiah-exalting and life-giving that people run into the future and drag back to the present.
• What is not, but should be, according to the glory of God?
• An effective vision casting has four parts – The Problem.  The Solution.  Why The Vision Must Be Implemented.  Why The Vision Must Be Implemented NOW.
• Do you really believe your church can give a foretaste of the New Heaven and New Earth.
• Every member has a role to play.  I am calling them into their destiny.
• Every human being wants to be part of a cause beyond them.
• The essence of leadership is embodying what you want people to do.
• What sense would it make to learn the plays but not play the game?

Think for a minute, how consuming the very idea of vision is for Derwin. When we read these quotes, we gain all of these fundamental lessons about vision. Here is a restatement of Derwin’s ideas in seven killer principles.

#1   Vision is a daily pursuit that you never outgrow but only grow deeper in. #2   Vision is inseparable from culture and therefore it connects to every other act of leadership, decision-making and communication.  #3   Vision is not a organizational idea first but a human idea #4   Vision is nothing if it’s not rooted in human problem and growing toward God’s glory.  #5   Vision is a waste of time if it doesn’t involve everyone today. #6   Vision must be lived as it is heard or it won’t really be heard. #7   Vision gives meaning to the daily immersion of activity.

What else strikes you form these quotes?

Read more from Will here.

Tags: Derwin Gray, Recasting Vision, Vision casting

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Five Reasons You’re Not Getting Leadership Development Results

by: Mac Lake

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You’re spending time, money and man power trying to develop leaders in your organization but your leadership pipeline remains dry and devoid of any new potential leaders. Why aren’t you getting the results you want? Here are five potential problems you should consider as you evaluate your efforts.

• You’re trying to develop leaders too fast. We want leadership development to be fast, easy and linear. But the truth is it’s slow, messy and customized to the learner. True development takes time. When we rush development we short cut the process and don’t get the results we’re looking for.
• You’re not using a reproducible model. If you survey your staff you’ll likely discover that each are using different processes to develop leaders. Left to their own they had to come up with something, so they did. And now there are varying levels of success across the organization. But no one has every stopped long enough to ask, “What are the best practices for developing leaders in our industry?” I’d recommend you communicate, coordinate, collaborate and develop a reproducible model you can use across all departments.
• You’re building your development on the shoulders of one person. We love it when there’s one person in our organization that’s a leadership development machine. It comes natural to them. They’re passionate about it and there’s a constant outpour of new leaders coming up behind them. This is a huge benefit to an organization until that person leaves. Building a culture of leadership development requires building an army of leadership developers in your organization.
• Your training isn’t adding value to your leaders. I hear this comment all the time, “We tried getting our leaders together for development but they stopped showing up over time.” Listen carefully…People will attend things that add value to their lives. Stop blaming them for not showing up and take a look at what you’re delivering. Was it boring? Was it irrelevant? Was it all lectures? Did it violate adult learning principles? Could they apply the principles in their leadership at home, work and ministry? Make it valuable and they won’t want to miss it.
• Your training is not accessible. Leaders today need options. Offering training at one time in one location is restrictive and inhibits people from participating. Leadership development will have broader impact when it’s delivered anytime, at any place and at any pace. This means less control and will require more leaders willing to invest themselves in reproducing new leaders. But with new tools such as Ministry Grid, a new online leadership development resource by Lifeway, accessibility to leadership development increases exponentially.

If you’re not getting the results you want then take time, evaluate and make adjustments. Allowing your leadership pipeline to remain dry is damaging the future impact of your mission.

Read more from Mac here.

Tags: Mac Lake, Staff, Volunteer leaders

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Pastor Geoff Surratt on 4 Lessons of Healthy Ministry

by: Geoff Surratt

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My heart broke recently as I watched pastor Ron Carpenter pour out his heart in his weekend message to his congregation. It was a gut wrenching experience as he shared with his church the devastating pain his family has endured over the past ten years, and the incredibly difficult future they now face. I have never met Ron, but my heart and prayers go out to him. I can’t imagine the anguish of sharing the most awful parts of your private life with 100s of friends and 1000s of strangers. This is a time when we put aside theological differences and preconceptions and pray for a man and a family wrecked by the effects of evil.

Seeing Ron expose his heart and soul to his congregation reminds me of several hard-earned lessons from a lifetime of ministry. These lessons are not about Ron Carpenter or Redemption World Outreach Center, I don’t know anything about Ron, his leadership or the structure of his church; these are the lessons of 31 years of vocational ministry. Lessons learned growing up a third generation pastor’s kid, watching 30 members of my extended family in active ministry, and interacting with hundreds of pastors and leaders across the country. I’ve organized these lessons into four “Y”s of healthy ministry.

1. Integrity: I am real

Integrity: being complete or undivided.

While all pastors stress the importance of integrity, there is a temptation in ministry to create an onstage image different from who they really are. Very few  set out to be two different people, it just happens. This is an incredibly dangerous road to go down.

I’ve seen a couple of iterations of this tendency to project an idealized leader for public consumption. In one version the leader creates a more polished image of himself. He is incredibly happy, has a well-adjusted family, and lives a super desirable lifestyle. He faces challenges and temptations, but he always overcomes in the end. The implied message is that if his followers will emulate his faith they too can live a charmed life. Social media has made this temptation into an art. The leader tweets about his “smokin’ hot wife”, his incredible kids and the constant spiritual breakthroughs he achieves. He creates a life everyone wishes they had. In reality its a life he wishes he had as well.

In the second version the leader creates a more raw version of himself. He talks about a crisis of faith he never really had. He embellishes college stories to better match those of his congregation. He exaggerates family challenges to sound more like the real life stuff his followers deal with every day. This version of the leader requires that he hide a relatively innocent youth as well as the luxuries ministry success has afforded him. He must feign humility even when he doesn’t feel humble. The message to the church is, “You can follow me because I’m just like you.”

Authentic ministry requires one version of you. You may be a little more refined in public, hopefully you don’t scratch and spit as much, but people who know you should be able to say you’re the same guy on stage as you are at the ballgame. The real you will eventually come out, so you might as well be you from the beginning.

2. Transparency: I am human

Transparency: Able to be seen through

Integrity says what you see is what you get while transparency says what you see is a normal human being. Transparent, human leaders get tired, discouraged and frustrated. They’re not always sure where to go or what to do next. They don’t have a fairy tale marriages and their kids sometimes (all the time) exasperate them. They worry about their finances, and their health and how they’re going to care for their parents when the time comes. They have been called into a position of public ministry, but they’re just an ordinary humans.

The image of a leader with the perfect hair, the perfect spouse and the perfect children isn’t realistic, sustainable or biblical. Elijah got tired, Peter got hungry, Paul got ticked off at his best friend. There isn’t a single example in the Bible of a leader who didn’t struggle with his humanity. Being transparent about our humanity means admitting we sometimes struggle in our marriage, feel clueless as parents and wrestle balancing our faith with our doubt. Transparency says the human condition is universal; I’m no exception.

3. Vulnerability: I am broken

Vulnerable: Capable of being wounded our hurt

We are creating a version of Christianity that says the true believer, if they follow the right plan or practice the right disciplines, will inch closer and closer to spiritual perfection. The goal is to be a mature believer who almost never sins, and if he does it just little things like forgetting to leave a tip or sighing out loud in line at Wal-Mart. Leading the parade is the pastor who proclaims he has overcome the sin he used to struggle with, and is now nearing heavenly nirvana. He might have been saved by grace, but he has worked his way to true holiness. Won’t you follow in his footsteps?

This in spite of all the biblical evidence to the contrary. David seduces Bathsheba and murders Uriah long after writing the 23rd Psalm. Peter succumbs to hypocrisy, refusing to eat with Gentiles, years after leading Cornelius to faith. Paul, the greatest evangelist the world has seen,  writes in Romans 7

I love God’s law with all my heart. But there is another power within me that is at war with my mind. This power makes me a slave to the sin that is still within me. 

The healthy leader says with integrity that there is only one version of me, with transparency that I am only human and with vulnerability that I have broken parts in my life. I am growing spiritually, but like  you, I struggle with sin every day.

4. Accountability: I am under authority

Accountable: Responsible, answerable

I have not seen a leader fail or crumble who has a small circle of friends to whom he is accountable. Friends who know his family, his background, his sins and his failures. Friends who call him out on his stuff and have permission to remove him from his position of leadership if necessary. This only works if the leader is honest with his circle. If he isn’s real, transparent and vulnerable with this group they are of little value. If, however, this is a group of peers he trusts with his life they will likely catch him before his world comes crashing down.

A danger here is the illusion of accountability. A pastor will point to a board of overseers, deacons or elders; or he might say denominational oversight provides this safeguard. Normally, however, the accountability at this level is surface. The pastor rarely shares his intimate challenges and sins with an appointed board. They have the power to discipline or remove, but they don’t live in the daily details. Board accountability is like floodgates on a dam; it is the last line of defense. True accountability happens in a smaller circle at a deeper level.

Living it out

A final note on living out the Four “Y”s; everything is not appropriate to share at every level. It is as unhealthy to dump your garbage on your neighbor’s lawn as it is to hide it in your basement. While a healthy leader has integrity, transparency, vulnerability and accountability at every level, he also understands what should be revealed at every level of leadership. Below is a pyramid that illustrates this concept:

The leader’s small circle of friends have open access to his life. Nothing is off limits. They also help him determine what is appropriate to share at the other levels. The overseers have access to the general outline, but not necessarily the details. The staff has a clear picture of the leader’s life without information that could hurt or embarrass others. (i.e. the staff leadership team would know the pastor is struggling at home, but doesn’t need to know the specific challenge). The congregation knows enough to understand the overall picture of the pastor’s life. If a pastor has been real with the congregation and his son is arrested for drugs the attenders won’t be shocked. They know the pastor has been struggling with a family issue, they just didn’t know which family member or the specific issue.

This post is not aimed at any pastor nor is it not a blueprint for growing a church. You might be able to lead a church by projecting an image that isn’t true to you or the life you live. You might convince people to follow an illusion. I’m sure there are successful (and unsuccessful) pastors who are able to make this work. But the illusion will crumble and the facade will fail and you will be left naked and ashamed.

This is a guide for healthy ministry that reminds people that your role, your only role, is to point followers to Jesus.

Read more from Geoff here.

Tags: Geoff Surratt, Healthy Staff, Staff Development

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The Beautiful Mess of a Successful Leader’s Leaving

by: Tim Stevens

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My friend, Rob Wegner, announced to our church in September that he is leaving.

Nineteen years ago when I joined the staff at Granger, a new church meeting in a movie theater and averaging less than 300 each weekend, there were only five people on staff. And Rob was one of them.

For the entire time I’ve been at Granger, Rob has been a rock star. He’s been foundational to our movement and at the core of our vision. He’s lived a life of integrity every step along the way. His beautiful wife, Michelle, has been by his side leading and supporting through every mountaintop and valley experience. I will be forever grateful for being able to live and work in Rob’s shadow for nearly two decades.

I will talk more about Rob on another day. But today, let’s think about how a church should respond when a respected and honorable leader chooses to go somewhere else. And why is it that so many churches get this wrong?

Here is a typical cycle…

1. John, a leader at First Church, has served faithfully for a number of years.
2. He decides he wants to do something else, and might even say, “God is calling me to do something else.”
3. The pastors and leaders get their feelings hurt that he is leaving. It feels like, “John doesn’t want to play on our team any more. He took his ball and his bat, and now he’s going to play on a different team.” It feels very personal.
4. Emotions run very high. Words get said. Insinuations are made. People are reactive. Focus goes toward what John doesn’t like or why John isn’t staying.
5. Others in the church take sides. “Yeah, we agree with John!”
6. All the right words are said publicly, but in the hallways of the church, a cloud has developed over John’s departure. Some of John’s work over the years begins to be discounted. His motives are questioned.
7. John leaves feeling like he got kicked in the gut. He was trying to do the right thing but feels like he’s abandoning the people he loves and damaging relationships he cherishes.
8. The remaining leaders feel like they got kicked in the gut. Their associate for so many years is going off to do something else and is beginning to talk about what why he wants to do something different. It stings.
9. For months, every time John’s name is brought up, there is a tinge of pain and discomfort.
10. John leaves feeling like he not only walked away from a ministry where he gave a part of his life—but he also lost some dear friends.

Ugh. Why does it have to be this way?

The truth is, it doesn’t. But the alternative takes really hard work. I talked about this more at the Innovate Conference last month. Here are a few quick thoughts:

To the church…

• It’s okay to be sad.
• You have to sequence your communication carefully.
• You will be emotional, but rise above it when you are making decisions.
• Err on the side of grace. Even though you are sad they are leaving, do everything you can to bless them.
• Focus on the years they have served at the church—not the days or weeks after they said they are leaving.

To the individual leaving…

• Don’t convince yourself you are more righteous than the people you are leaving.
• Be humble and gracious.
• Say “thank you” in every conversation.
• Don’t try to fix the church in your closing conversations. If you couldn’t fix it as a staff member, you are definitely not going to be able to fix it on your way out.

There is so much more to be talked about, which I will do next month. But for now, just let me say that if you want to see someone who gets this and is leaving well—watch Rob Wegner. He has walked with care and love and a high regard for his family and church every step of the way.

These situations are going to be messy. A “good leave” is not defined by lack of mess. It is defined by how both sides respond to the mess and work through it with love and grace.

Have you watched some bad departures? Seen any good ones? I’d love to hear your story.

Read more from Tim here.

Tags: Staff, Staff Transitions, Tim Stevens

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Vibrant Community: The Secret DNA of Every Church

by: Steve Caton

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Brands like Apple, Zappos, and Southwest Airlines understand that the thing that makes an organization great is the vibrant and passionate community it creates. It doesn’t just happen. It is intentionally cultivated. Apple didn’t get lucky because one day people decided to wait for days to buy the new iPhone. Southwest’s founder, Herb Kellerher, realized that creating a vibrant culture is something his organization had to focus on every day.

The good news for church leaders is you have the opportunity to create the same type of vibrant culture these organizations have created, if not a stronger one. But as every church leader knows, it’s not that easy.

Vibrant community: The secret DNA of every church

A few weeks ago, Church Community Builder had the opportunity to host Aaron Fortner, an expert in city planning and community building, as part of our webinar series. During the webinar, Aaron explained the fundamental principles of vibrant communities and how churches can go about creating them

If you want to build the type of vibrant community in your church that creates a multiplying effect outside the walls, here are seven things you need to know:

• Community is a verb. Most churches think of community as a noun. They think that just because they plug people into a small group, there’s community. However, community is a dynamic movement. It doesn’t just happen because your church builds a place for it. It takes intentionality to lead people into community through action.

• Vibrant church communities connect people to people, not just to the church itself. When the church is ineffective, it is a crowd of people meeting together on a regular basis. When effective, it is a tribe of believers that is connected to a vision that is bigger than themselves.

• Vibrant communities have a singular focus with widespread reach. The vision and goal of vibrant communities should always simple and easy to understand. At the same time, the focus needs to resonate with a lot of people in order for the community to grow.
• If you want your church to become a vibrant community, you must be fiercely consistent and pleasantly surprising. Consistency builds trust in your community. Your members can believe that you’re going to do the things you say you’re going to do. At the same time, consistency can become boring. That’s why it’s equally important always look for ways to challenge the status quo and surprise your community.
• If you don’t get your community strategy right, the things you’re doing won’t last. your community-building efforts should always invite people into something that’s bigger than themselves. That’s the end goal. If you don’t focus on that, the things you’re doing won’t last.

Everything your church does, from discipleship to outreach, depends on the vitality of the community among your members. If you want a deeper look into how your church can create the type of vibrant community that your neighborhood or city notices, we’ve recorded the entire webinar here.

What is your church doing to create a vibrant community that transcends even the most popular brands?

Read more from Steve Caton here.

Tags: Church Community Builder, Community, Connect, Steve Caton

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Five Steps to Get Beyond the Sacred Cows in Your Church

by: Thom Rainer

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Many years ago I was serving as pastor of a church where I was an avid supporter of door-to-door outreach. But I struggled with leading people to be involved in the ministry. We kept decent records, so I got the old “outreach cards” for the previous year. My brief research shocked me.

I estimated that we had invested nearly 1,500 hours of our members’ time in this ministry during the past year. The apparent result of our ministry had resulted in, at best, two Christian families joining our church. If you assume a workday of eight hours, our members had worked 187 full days with no evangelistic fruit.

The Encounter

When I presented my research to a leader in the church and suggested we look at other alternatives, he raised his voice almost to a scream: “But we have always done it that way. And ten years ago we saw dozens of people become Christians through this ministry every year. We’re not about to change!” When I asked what we should do about the 1,500 hours of apparently fruitless ministry, he said we should try to increase the number to 3,000 hours.

The Memory

Don’t get me wrong. Your church may have great success in door-to-door outreach. My purpose in writing this article is not to pass judgment on a methodology. My purpose is to ask the question: Are organizational memories, commonly known as sacred cows, hindering our effectiveness for the gospel?

In my church there were great memories of this method of outreach. The thought of looking to other more effective alternatives almost seemed to violate some sacred principle. Interestingly, some of the most vociferous opponents of change were those who no longer participated in the ministry.

The Honesty

Fortunately, we were able to get beyond the emotions to have an honest and frank discussion about the ministry. I brought together leaders from both sides of the issue. We discovered two main reasons our ministry was running into roadblocks that it did not have ten years earlier. First, many of the neighborhoods had transitioned from Deep South transplants to Northern transplants. The latter group was not culturally acclimated to people “just dropping by.” Second, about one-third of the residents were in gated communities, a significant increase from ten years earlier.

We came away from that meeting with a few changes that kept us outwardly focused without the frustration of the old methodology. The critics did not disappear immediately, but we were able to deal with them without major disruption.

The Principles

Organizational memory in our church had the potential of hindering our gospel effectiveness. The initial frustrated response to the problem was to double our ineffective efforts from 1,500 hours a year to 3,000 hours. But we did move beyond this issue. The changes were not without pain though. Here are the five steps we took to move beyond organizational memory.

1. We involved key leaders on both sides of the issue. Several people had emotional ties to our ministry. It was good for those on each side of this issue to hear the other perspective.
2. We asked if we could accomplish our goals with more effective means. Even some of the greatest detractors recognized that the means had become an end. We concluded that our true goal was not to maintain a program, but to share the gospel and our church with our neighbors.
3. We paired leaders from opposite sides for an hour to present possible alternatives. This exercise was immensely valuable. It got all of us thinking about the true goal rather than the preservation of an ineffective program.
4. We left with an intentional decision to move forward with two pilot ministries. We declared neither new ministry to be sacrosanct, but decided to test them for a predetermined period of six months. We also agreed to return as a group in six months to evaluate our progress or lack of progress.
5. We recognized as a group that we would still have critics for eliminating the old ministry. Our goal was not to eliminate criticism, but to minimize it and to deal with the critics in a Christ-like manner.

On the one hand, I would evaluate our process as a success. We were able to deal effectively with the sacred cow that was hindering our progress. On the other hand, our replacement ministries were only slightly more effective than their predecessor ministry. At the end of six months, some were wondering if we made a mistake by doing away with the old ministry.

Leading a church to change is rarely a smooth road. It is often three steps forward and two steps backward. But the process we took became very helpful in my leadership in future churches and other organizations.

How do you deal with sacred cows in your church? What have been some of your victories? What have been some of your struggles?

Read more from Thom here.

Tags: Recapturing Vision, Recasting Vision, Thom Rainer

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Making Sense of the Census: Do You Really Know Your Neighbor?

by: Timmy Brister

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And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Acts 17:26-27

Last week, I talked to you my efforts this year to build a neighborhood in my city through Next Door. This is a heavy burden I have, one that I have not steward very well in the past. The verses above speak about God’s providence, namely that God determines our dwelling places. Have you thought much about that? Yes, you thought you live where you do because of the great deal on the house, the school district, the proximity to work, etc. But in and through all of these secondary causes, there’s a primary cause that you live where you do: God put you there.

And God’s providence is not without God’s purpose.

God’s purpose in Acts 17 is “that they should seek God…and find him.” So let’s put this together. God placed me in this particular plot on planet earth for the purpose that people should seek God and find Him.

And God’s purposes should become the passion of our lives.

If God’s purpose of providentially placing me in the city where I live so that people would seek God and find him, then it ought to be my passion to accomplish that purpose. God has a design. He’s being intentional and purposeful. When I embrace that intentional design, my response should be a passionate embrace and acceptance of the mission.

Simply put: I live where I live so that those without God can find life in Him. What difference would this make if my life really looked like that?

This gets to the heart of loving my neighbors as Christ loved me. When the eternal Son of God took on flesh, He tabernacled among us. He entered into our neighborhood so that we could know God through Him. Christ loved us by coming to where we are and providing salvation for us. If I am going to love my neighbors as Christ loved me, I must seek to enter into their lives, seeking to love, serve, and sacrifice, that they may know God and be saved by His grace.

Making Sense of the Census

In order to make what I just said real to me, I decided to do a little research on my new neighborhood called Burnt Embers. At USA.com, you can view the 2010 Census by city, by tract, by block groups, and by blocks. It’s really impressive – and free. According to the website, Burnt Embers is almost exactly one square mile in size, and after spending a few hours on it, here’s what I came away with.

Burnt Embers has a population of 1,316 with ethnic breakdown of 68% white, 25% hispanic, and 7% black. There are 423 households but 540 housing units, meaning 117 houses are empty. Of the 423 households, 334 are family households, 55 are single-person households, and 22 are seasonal households (snowbirds).  There are 442 children in the neighborhood (under age of 19), and 120 seniors (over age of 65). 84 households speaking Spanish. As for the adults, there’s a total of 721 with 192 never been married, 442 currently married, and 87 divorced.

Burnt Embers is lower-middle class, with a per capita income 40% lower than the national average.  22 families live below the poverty level, and 23% of households live on less than $20,000 a year. There aren’t a lot of deep pockets either, as only 2% of households live on $100,000 or more each year. The majority of the families have a combined income of roughly $47,000 a year, with families having both husband and wife working.

Now, you might be asking, “Why did you do all this? What’s the point in all these numbers?”

The census give us a whole lot of concrete data about our community. It also tells us where and how it is changing. For instance, almost all of 540 homes built-in me neighborhood were constructed after the year 2000, and within a decade, 117 (21%) of them are empty. That begins to tell some of the story about the foreclosure impact on our community. My neighborhood is largely blue-collar and multi-ethnic. One out of five households speak Spanish. If I am going to connect with them, this says something about my need to understand their culture and language.

There’s 442 children in my neighborhood. How can my kids get involved with them? How can I help create safe places for these kids to play and hang out? How many of them have single parents? How many could use tutoring? How are we keeping them safe from crime?

» Of the 84 Hispanic families, how many of them need help learning English? Getting a job?

» Of the 22 snowbirding families, how many of them could use help around the yard? Taking care of property while they are gone?

» Of the 122 senior citizens, how many are alone? Do any need transportation help? What about assisted care for their health? Their home and yard?

» Given that most families have both sets of parents working, how are the kids being taken care of? Is child care needed? Babysitters?

» Of the 22 families who live below the poverty line, how can the neighborhood contribute to help them with basic needs? Do the adults need to acquire skills or training for better employment?

» Of the 117 empty houses in our neighborhood (that’s A LOT if you think about it), what can we do to help them sell? How can we address the neglected foreclosed homes? Does the high level of empty homes open the door for increased crime?

These are the kinds of questions that surfaced because of a couple of hours of research. I was not asking these questions two weeks ago because I was ignorant of my neighborhood. It was only generic houses with faceless, nameless people living in them. I still don’t know all their names and faces, but I know a lot more about them now than I did then.

I can begin to see the challenges they are facing–socially, relationally, financially, educationally, etc. I can begin to understand the narrative of my neighborhood–where there’s brokenness, where there’s need, where there’s hope and ambition, etc.–and how bridges can be established to intersect the story of the gospel into the story of my neighborhood. I can begin to know how to pray specifically for my neighborhood–for the children, families, elderly, poor, and so on.

This all goes back to what I began with.

God put me in this neighborhood by His sovereign plan. That plan comes with a purpose–that the 1,316 people here might seek and find God. And that purpose should be the passion of my life. Therefore, I should endeavor in every way possible to commend Christ to them in word and deed. They need presented to them the good news of Jesus by one of His re-presentatives. And having the gospel presented to them by a representative of Christ means that I must be present. And my presence becomes a present (gift) to the neighborhood because it is through the means of the Gospel being shared and shown to them they might seek and find God.

My hope is that I will start to take greater ownerships of my own square mile. This is a start, but I have a long way to go.

How about you? Have you taken ownership of your own square mile or neighborhood? Are you patterning your life after the providential and purposeful plan of God? Are you passionate about that? Enough to do some homework, ask personally engaging questions, and enter in?

I’d love to learn from you. Let’s do deep into our “world” and make disciples of Jesus where we live, because after all, we’re not here by accident.

Tags: Kingdom Concept, Local Predicament, Timmy Brister

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5 Questions to Discern Ministry Idolatry

by: Eric Geiger

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Local church ministry can be thrilling, even addictive. Seeing the Lord transform lives and bring people into a relationship with Himself provides a buzz that nothing in this world can provide. And because we are prone to replace God on the throne of our lives with something else, something lesser, ministry can easily become the god of a church leader.

There is a temptation to love ministry more than God, a tendency to rejoice more in the ministry God has given us than in God Himself. I know. I know because I have been the idolatrous church leader. I have been the leader who craves ministry influence more than God, the leader who rejoices more loudly for ministry impact than the simple truth that I am His.

Jesus knew the temptation to commit ministry idolatry would be very real to us. After He sent out His disciples to minister to people in towns, they returned filled with joy. They were stoked because they had experienced the great joy of God working through them. “Even the demons submit to us in Your name,” they declared (Luke 10:17). Jesus affirmed the authority He had given them but also gave them a caution: “Don’t rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven” (v. 20). In other words, be careful what ultimately causes you to rejoice.

If we only rejoice in God because of what He is doing through us and not because of what He has already done in us, we cherish our ministry more than Him. If our awe for what He is doing through us surpasses our awe for what He has done for us, we have made ministry our god.

The renowned pastor Martyn Lloyd-Jones was diagnosed with cancer and struggling with his health in his final months. His biographer, Iain Murray, asked him how he was coping with his shrinking influence, the inability to be used by God to minister to the thousands that he had previously been serving. Martyn Lloyd-Jones responded: “Don’t rejoice that spirits submit to you. Rejoice that your name is written in heaven.” I am perfectly content.

How can you tell if you are prone to committing ministry idolatry? Here are five questions I have been considering:

1. How much of my contentment is connected to the tide of my ministry influence?
2. Do my prayers reflect that I am more thankful for the salvation He has provided for me or for the ministry He has given me?
3. If I had to choose, which would I prefer: a closer walk with Jesus or a more “effective ministry”?
4. If my ministry were suddenly taken from me, would I still rejoice as Lloyd-Jones did?
5. Do I seek God only for His blessing and direction or do I also seek God for Him?

We too can be perfectly content if we rejoice most in the reality that Jesus has separated our sins from us, as far as the east is from the west.

Tags: Eric Geiger, Idolatry, Leadership Engine

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