5 Ways to Avoid Panic When Asked to Speak at a Moment’s Notice

by: Carey Nieuwhof

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It freaks everyone out, but at some point or another, you’re going to be called to give an impromptu talk.

Maybe it will be in front of eight people in the boardroom after the boss taps you on the shoulder and says “What do you have to say about that? Get up and tell us!”

Or maybe you’re speaking at an event and you learn the keynote speaker’s flight was canceled, and they call on you at the last minute.

Or maybe you feel like the talk you prepared isn’t the right one, and you need to take things in a whole new direction, and you’re up in five minutes.

As a full time communicator, I’ve been there…in almost every scenario you can think of.

In any scenario, cue most leader’s worst nightmare: giving a talk with zero prep time. How do you not just panic, throw up, freeze like a deer in the headlights or ramble on like someone who had their brain removed?

HERE’S HOW IT CAN HAPPEN TO YOU

I was twelve years old when I gave my first impromptu talk. I was supposed to give a five-minute talk to our church family about the camp I’d been to that summer. Someone else was cued up to speak ahead of me,  and she basically said exactly what I was going to say.

So what did that twelve-year-old kid do? According to my dad, I walked on stage, made up a bunch of new points, and no one knew the difference.

What started at 12 has happened more times than I can count since.

Here are three quick examples:

Numerous times at events, I’ve watched the previous speaker cover points I was going to make. At that moment I know I have to pivot, and I’m up next. Apparently, this doesn’t only happen to 12-year-olds.

Earlier this year I was at a conference when I learned the night before that the keynote couldn’t make it. I got asked to step in…in front of 3000 people.

A few years ago at our church, we were in a video series with Andy Stanley and the video playback died. Just died. Right in the middle of the service. I’d heard the message at the previous service, but with literally 30 seconds notice, I got pushed onto the stage. The lights came up. I explained to the congregation that the video had died so I was up with zero prep, having heard the message once before. Then I proceeded to do the best I could to recite what I remembered from Andy’s message and improvised my own take. After the 40-minute message was over, people cheered.

How do you carry yourself in moments like those?

Look, I have a huge preference for writing messages months and weeks ahead of delivery, and highly recommend that.

I outline an entire process for delivering amazing sermons and talks in my new course, The Art of Better Preaching. So 99.9% of the time, go with that.

But at some point, with zero prep, you’re going to be pushed onto a platform to speak.

Then what?

How do you simply not freeze or stumble all over your words, or just meander your way to disaster?

Here are 5 ways to handle that moment when it comes.

1. DON’T PANIC

The biggest enemy you have when you’re called on at the last moment and you panic is you.

Your emotions will threaten to hijack your brain. You’ll convince yourself that you’re not able to do a good job, that this is unfair, that you haven’t got it in you to rise to the occasion.

Start believing that, and the voices in your head will be 100% accurate.

Except they’re not. You can do a good job. And no, it’s not unfair (people want to hear from you) and you’ve got this.

The best way to deal with your natural fear is to push past it. So push past it.

After all, this is happening, and you’re more ready than you think.

2. THINK ABOUT WHAT YOUR AUDIENCE NEEDS

So where do you start?

Left unchecked, you’ll only think about you. (You’ll invent 100 new insecurities on the spot. See #1 above.)

So, shift your view for a moment and think about what your audience needs.

Who’s the room?

What are their issues?

What do you possess that might help them?

How can you empathize with what they’re going through?

Speakers who care about their audience will always have a more engaged audience.

3. FOCUS ON WHAT YOU ALREADY KNOW

Great…so you’ve thought (even momentarily) about your audience and tried to silence the panic in your head and heart.

Now what?

Your mind might naturally want to focus on what you don’t know. After all, you couldn’t prepare. No research. No carefully crafted phrases. Zero prep.

Your head will go back to this: clearly, I can’t tackle this.

Not true.

You’ve got a few decades of life under your belt, and you know something.

Focus on that.

For professional communicators (preachers, leaders), you’ve likely got a few talks under your belt that you can cherry pick from. Do it.

Pull from that sermon you preached last September or that talk you gave in June. It’s not unfair. And it’s not cheating. It’s called serving your audience well.

And if you go with what you know, you’ll be coherent.

A coherent you is better than a rambling you.

Even if you’re not in the habit of speaking, you know a lot about some things. Draw on that knowledge.

When you panic, you’ll be tempted to focus on what you don’t know. Focus on what you know instead.

You know way more than you think.

4. PRETEND YOU’RE HAVING A CONVERSATION…BECAUSE YOU ARE

In all impromptu talks, here’s a principle that simply works: pretend you’re having a conversation. Because you are.

Why does imagining you’re having a conversation work?

Because you do it every day. Think about it.

How much time do you prepare for the conversations you have every day? For the most part, unless you’re asking for a raise or having a tough intervention, the answer is “Well, I don’t.”

Exactly.

That’s the thing about conversations….you just have them.

So go have one.

Pretend you’re talking to one person and just explaining your thoughts, ideas and feelings.

You’ll be amazed at how easy it is.

A conversation has a natural flow. Go with that flow. Your accumulated lifetime experience of interacting with other people will move you toward forming an introduction, a main point (or points) and an ending.

The pressure of speaking in front of a live audience will help you stay focused, sharp and concise.

So…you have conversations all the time that you never prepare for. And you’re fine in them.

This time, a bunch of people just happened to show up.

5. FINISH EARLY (IT’S OKAY…REALLY)

Of all the things communicators struggle with, this is one of the worst: we convince ourselves we don’t have enough to say to fill the time.

First, that’s almost never true. Most speakers and preachers go over time, every time. Cue the buzzer for that habit.

Second, the audience is almost always grateful when a speaker finishes on time and extra grateful when the speaker wraps up early.

If you run out of things to stay (and you might), stop. Even if you’re done early.

Worried you’re disappointing your host? Just say “It’s been a joy to share this impromptu moment with you, I think that’s all I have to say. Thank you.”

Cue the thunderous silent applause going on in every audience member’s head.

People are incredibly grateful when communicators realize they’re done.

A communicator who knows they’re done before the audience senses they’re done is a wise communicator.

So that’s it. A five-step strategy to help you nail an impromptu talk, or at least not blow it.

What are some other things you’ve learned that help you give a decent impromptu talk?

> Read more from Carey.

Tags: Carey Nieuwhof, Impromptu Talks, Off the cuff remarks, Spur of the moment talks

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Placing Volunteers Never Works, So Try This

by: Bryan Rose

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Last week on the My Ministry Breakthrough Podcast, Todd Adkins and I discussed a bit of the difference between just placing volunteers in ministry positions and truly developing leaders for ministry roles. It got me to thinking… how would a church staff person know the difference?

Here are 12 signs you’re just placing volunteers… not developing leaders:

1. The excuses of why they will miss this Sunday keep getting lamer and lamer.
2. Lots of people fill out a card, next to nobody shows up for your training.
3. Training keeps getting put off until  “things slow down”  and never happens.
4. No new ministry has been added, yet the same number of vacancies exist each year.
5. Your team comes to you for answers to every problem, even the most minute.
6. Not much gets done if you’re not around.
7. You’re banking on the worship service announcements to get you some more names.
8. You’re proud of how much busywork you’ve delegated.
9. Everyone on your team has a different definition of success.
10. You have a ministry org chart but no process for existing leaders to take on a new responsibility.
11. It’s easier to be jealous or critical of success in other ministries instead of celebrating it.
12. You find yourself dreaming of ministry somewhere else and struggle to see a better future where you are.

Tags: Bryan Rose, Church Volunteers, Leadership Development, Leadership Pipeline, Volunteers in church

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Six Strategies to Communicate Vision to Your Church

by: Rick Warren

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Your most important job as a church leader isn’t to hire and fire. It isn’t to manage a budget. It isn’t to mentor younger leaders. It’s not even to preach.

All of those tasks are important. They’re part of what you do as a church leader.

But your main job as a leader is to remind your congregation continually of your church’s vision. Everything else you can delegate. You can’t delegate vision.

Proverbs says, “Without a vision, the people perish.” You have a lot riding on the vision you communicate to your church.

Communicating vision get harder and harder—and much more important—as your church grows. I saw this firsthand at Saddleback. If you’ve heard the story of Saddleback, you know I shared a vision for the future of the church during our trial run, a week before our official launch.

At first, it was relatively easy to keep the church focused on the vision. When we were small, the only people who came were non-Christians. They had zero expectations about what church should be like. All they knew was Saddleback. We didn’t have a children’s ministry, a youth ministry, or a music ministry. The people who wanted all of those programs went somewhere else. Those who came to Saddleback largely followed the vision we set in that initial service.

But the larger we grew, the more people came from other churches. Growth alone doesn’t solve a church’s problems. It just changes them. All of those people brought their baggage with them from their old churches. I started hearing on a regular basis, “We did it like this at my old church.”

At that point, I had to become very intentional about how I communicated the vision.

Yes, you should do a vision message (or even better, a series of messages) once a year. But that shouldn’t be all your church hears about your church’s vision. If I had only communicated the church’s vision annually, we’d be a different church today. Churches need more than just a once-a-year infusion of vision. They need constant reminders about what the church is all about.

When you don’t regularly refocus your church around a shared vision, you’ll slowly find your church experiencing vision drift. You may have, at one time, shared a compelling vision with your congregation that everyone rallied around. But as other people came on board, your church incorporated other elements into the original vision. It doesn’t take long before the vision becomes unrecognizable from the original.

That’s why your number one job as a leader is to communicate the vision of your ministry. Whether you’re the senior leader who must communicate your vision to the entire church or a leader of a specific ministry who must regularly keep that ministry’s vision in front of the people, vision-casting is your most important responsibility.

Because organizations, churches included, naturally experience vision drift, the best leaders aren’t necessarily the most charismatic. The best leaders are the ones who keep organizations moving forward together toward the mission.

Over the past 38 years at Saddleback, I’ve leaned on some specific methods to keep the vision in front of our church family. Here are six of the most important.

1. Scripture

Your church needs to realize that its vision doesn’t come from your whims. It’s centered on what the Bible teaches about the church. Every part of your church’s vision needs to be supported by Scriptures that explain and illustrate your reason for doing it. Let people see how blessed they are to have the church, the body of Christ. Help your members to develop a high respect for the family of God—and his purposes for the church.

2. Application Steps 

Part of reminding your congregation about the church’s vision is to continually put before them the activities that will help the church achieve the vision. If part of your vision is to help people build meaningful relationships in your church, remind your people of the vision as you encourage them to get involved in small groups. If part of your vision is to be involved in local and global missions, regularly communicate opportunities for them to participate in missions.

3. Symbols

Some say 65 percent of people are visual learners. It could even be higher than that. Regardless, people need visual representations of your vision to help them grasp it. Symbols can paint powerful pictures that words alone can’t do.

At Saddleback, we’ve used a diamond shape and a series of concentric circles to describe the church’s vision and purposes. I’ve seen other churches use racetracks, mountains, rivers, and soccer fields. Each of these communicated the vision of the church within a specific context of ministry.

4. Slogans 

People will remember slogans long after they’ve forgotten your sermons. Many key events in history have hinged on a slogan: Remember the Alamo! Sink the Bismarck! I shall return! Give me liberty or give me death! History proves that a simple slogan, repeatedly shared with conviction, can motivate people to do things they would normally never do—even to give up their lives on a battlefield.

We’ve used dozens of slogans at Saddleback to help communicate the church’s vision (such as “every member is a minister” and “all leaders are learners”). Take some time to go through your vision with an eye for easy-to-communicate slogans that describe parts of your vision.

5. Stories

Jesus frequently used stories to help people relate to his vision. Stories help people personalize and dramatize your vision. I try to regularly include testimonies (delivered in person and through letters) from people who are regularly living out the vision and purposes of the church. Those illustrations help people at our church understand what it looks like to demonstrate Saddleback’s vision. It also makes heroes out of the people who do the work of the church. People tend to do whatever is rewarded. Brag on your church’s heroes. Tell their stories.

6. Specifics

Provide concrete actions that explain how you’ll achieve your vision. Plan programs around it. Hire staff around it. Remember that nothing becomes dynamic until it becomes specific. When a vision is vague, it holds no attraction. The more specific your church’s vision is, the more it will grab attention and attract commitment.

Vision drift is natural. Do nothing and your church will drift from the vision, no matter how compelling it is. If you don’t purposefully and consistently refocus your church around a singular vision, your church will become something quite different.

Lean on these six strategies to communicate your church’s vision to the congregation. Be creative. Add to these ideas. Do whatever it takes to focus your people around a shared biblical vision. That’s what true leadership is all about.

> Read more from Rick.

> Connect with an Auxano Navigator to learn more about communicating your vision.

Tags: Communicating Vision, Rick Warren, Vision

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Eight Ways to Rock Your Next Event with Social Media

by: VRcurator

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Communication today is real time, all the time. Thanks to the continuing innovations in technology and the rapid rate of adaption, events that occur around the world – or across the street – are now capable of being seen by millions of individuals. And it’s not just the “viewing” that is important – it’s what effect those views have on the individual watching them.

The social media platforms that exist today, as well as those which are being developed and will be the next big thing, can have a far-reaching impact on the ministries of your church.

Are you taking advantage of them? Or, do you feel like they take advantage of you? Is social media creating communication traction? Or is it becoming a constant distraction?

THE QUICK SUMMARY – The Art of Social Media, by Guy Kawasaki and Peg Fitzpatrick

By now it’s clear that whether you’re promoting a business, a product, or yourself, social media is near the top of what determines your success or failure. And there are countless pundits, authors, and consultants eager to advise you.

But there’s no one quite like Guy Kawasaki, the legendary former chief evangelist for Apple and one of the pioneers of business blogging, tweeting, Facebooking, Tumbling, and much, much more. Now Guy has teamed up with Peg Fitzpatrick, who he says is the best social-media person he’s ever met, to offer The Art of Social Media—the one essential guide you need to get the most bang for your time, effort, and money.

With over one hundred practical tips, tricks, and insights, Guy and Peg present a bottom-up strategy to produce a focused, thorough, and compelling presence on the most popular social-media platforms. They guide you through steps to build your foundation, amass your digital assets, optimize your profile, attract more followers, and effectively integrate social media and blogging.

For beginners overwhelmed by too many choices as well as seasoned professionals eager to improve their game, The Art of Social Media is full of tactics that have been proven to work in the real world. Or as Guy puts it, “great stuff, no fluff.”

A SIMPLE SOLUTION

In the not-too-distant past, promotion of an upcoming event focused primarily on print media – think newspaper ads, or poster, or the like. If you were lucky enough to have the resources, you might have even ventured into radio or television advertising.

Why those methods are still in use – and might be very beneficial for some of your activities – there is another, more powerful, and certainly more timely method – social media platforms.

You have something critically important to your ministry happening every weekend – your worship experiences. Maybe you have an annual event that attracts thousands of people to your campus.

How are you taking advantage of social media platforms to not just promote the event prior to its actual happening, but connect real-time with participants in the room – or “participants” around the world?

Most organizations do not use social media to increase the visibility and value of events. Instead, they focus on pre-event promotions and do little, if anything, with social media at the event itself. 

Here are several ways you can rock an event with social media.

Pick a short, evergreen hashtag – the goal is to choose a hashtag that’s trending and constantly in people’s faces.

Integrate the hashtag into everything – use the hashtag the moment you start promoting the event. That means it’s on your website, in all your advertising, and in your e-mail signature. All print materials and video slides should include the hashtag. Every team member, speaker, vendor, and guest should know what the hashtag is.

Ask everyone to use it – it’s not enough to tell people the hashtag; you also need to ask them to use it.

Reach beyond the event – the audience for an event is anyone in the world who’s interested in your organization, not only the people at the event.

Dedicate a person – to truly socialize an event, at least one person should focus exclusively on social media activities. The person will have plenty to do:

• Before: share promotional posts to drive awareness and attendance.
• During: Tweet what’s happening and take pictures of speakers and guests. Upload these pictures during breaks and reshare other people’s posts.
• After: Share articles about the event, as well as more pictures and videos. Encourage attendees to share their pictures.

Stream live coverage – don’t obsess about the possibility of reducing event attendance.

Provide real-time updates – If you can’t do live streaming video, use Twitter and Instagram to provide in-the-moment updates.

Put your leaders to work – make sure your leaders are available for and encouraging to pose for photos with attendees. Encourage them to post photos with the hashtag.

Guy Kawasaki and Peg Fitzpatrick, The Art of Social Media

A NEXT STEP

Pick a future event that you want to raise the quality of experience around – before, during, and after – via social media platforms. With your leadership team, brainstorm what kinds of actions need to take place to make that happen.

Pull together an action team composed of individuals representing the event and individuals responsible for social media. Outline to the team what your leadership team has discussed, and ask them to review the initial brainstorm list, add to and/or revise, and then implement. Work with the team to create an evergreen hashtag, as the authors above describe.

Ask this team to also develop sharing measures for each of the three stages – before, during, and after – so that you will be able to gauge the effectiveness of sharing. Provide resources to this team so they will be able to carry through with their plans.

At the conclusion of the event, ask this team to report to your leadership team the results of the experiment. Decide what was effective, and plan to implement with future events. If something worked but needs revision, ask the team to develop plans for that. If something clearly didn’t work, and can’t be revised, scrap it.

After you have used the sharing plan for four events, make additional revisions as needed, and then implement for all events as needed.

Excerpt taken from SUMS Remix 78-3, released October 2017.

This is part of a weekly series posting excerpts from one of the most innovative content sources in the church world: SUMS Remix book excerpts for church leaders.

SUMS Remix takes a practical problem in the church and looks at it with three solutions; each solution is taken from a different book. Additionally, a practical action step is included with each solution.

As a church leader you get to scan relevant books based on practical tools and solutions to real ministry problems, not just by the cover of the book. Each post will have the edition number which shows the year and what number it is in the overall sequence. (SUMS Remix provides 26 issues per year, delivered every other week to your inbox). 

>> Subscribe to SUMS Remix <<

Tags: Guy Kawasaki, Peg Fitzpatrick, SUMS Remix, Social Media, The Art of Social Media

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What to Do When Your Faith Goes Stale

by: Michael Kelley

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We never had the problem of stale chips and crackers when I was a kid. But that’s because I grew up in a part of the country where there was humidity about 3 days out of the year. But here in middle Tennessee, it’s a different story.

These days of summer are not just hot – they are thick. It can feel sometimes like walking around in a bowl of soup with a wool sweater wrapped around your face. And the chips and crackers in the house are one of the casualties.

You know that feeling? Of biting into something that’s supposed to satisfyingly crunch, and instead coming away with a mouthful of gummy mush? Here’s another question – does faith ever feel like that? It certainly does to me.

In an ideal world, our faith should have some edge to it. Some emotion. Some excitement. Some vital tingling that comes from knowing we have been rescued from the gravest danger imaginable with the best news possible. And to know that we live in perpetual safety because the grip of the Savior who holds us is mighty, mighty strong.

But there are days… even seasons… when what should be so joy-producing just seems stale. Soft. Punchy.

You bite into God’s Word, or prayer, or fellowship with the saints, and you feel… not very much. And you know deep inside of you that this is wrong, and you want it to be different. So what do you say to yourself during those times when your faith feels stale? Here are three things:

1. God’s affection for me has not grown stale.

One of my favorite gospel images comes in Jesus’ story of two prodigal sons. While the older son stayed at home under the guise of faithful service to the father, the younger son sought adventure and satisfaction elsewhere. Taking his inheritance early, the younger son abandoned the family and went to life his best life now in the far country. Eventually he came to awakening of everything he had sacrificed and began the long journey home. And when he finally gets within eyesight of his childhood home, his father meets him on the road, and that’s when we get the image.

The Bible says the Father, literally, “fell upon the neck” of the son. Despite his arrogance, despite his abandonment, despite his stale heart, the father’s affection had not grown cold. He still burned with love for his boy. What an image. And here we find ourselves. True enough, perhaps we haven’t exactly spent time in the far country. We may have actually been more like the older son, going through the motions of service all the while feeling less and less joy and more and more bitterness. But the affection of the father for both his sons is near palpable.

What an amazing thing to know – not just feel, but know – that God’s affection for you is rooted in the sure foundation of the gospel, not how much emotion you can gin up for Him. So when you feel your faith growing stale, stoke the fire a bit with the confidence that God is still ready to fall upon your neck.

2. Beware the lure of substitute joy.

The human heart is made to seek joy. We are crafted for enjoyment. But in our sin, we have sought that joy and fulfillment in false sources. As the prophet said, “For my people have committed a double evil: They have abandoned me, the fountain of living water, and dug cisterns for themselves—cracked cisterns that cannot hold water” (Jer. 2:13). When we feel our faith growing stale, we often wish it was different. We long for the seasons when the feelings were stronger and the joy seemed greater. But we should also be aware – these days of staleness are precisely the moments when the lure of sin will be great.

Thirsty for joy, we will look to broken cisterns instead of to the fountain of living water. Speak it to your soul, Christian, and urge yourself to be on your guard because sin will find a foothold.

3. It will not always be this way.

And then there’s this. This wonderful news. When our faith seems to grow stale, we can remind ourselves that it will not always be this way.

Here’s a portion of John’s glorious revelation about the day when everything bad and wrong will be undone:

“Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. I also saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared like a bride adorned for her husband. Then I heard a loud voice from the throne: Look, God’s dwelling is with humanity, and he will live with them. They will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them and will be their God” (Rev. 21:1-3).

This is the new day. When all things are made new. And “all things” include our elusive emotional lives. In the present day, we are fickle and rebellious. We know the right we should do, and we know the right we should feel. But we don’t. Far too often, we don’t feel as we should. But our glorification in Christ will include the setting in proper order of our emotions. We will value what is truly valuable. We will be satisfied by what is truly satisfying. We will feel what we ought to have been feeling all along. And this is good news.

A stale faith, if you recognize the error in it, is an opportunity to long for heaven when it’s not going to be this way any more.

So don’t give up, friend. Don’t give up if it feels a bit stale. Trust in what you know to be true – and in whom you know to be the source of truth, and keep going.

> Read more from Michael.

Tags: Discipleship, Faith, Michael Kelley

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How to Eat on Purpose (for the Gospel)

by: Jeff Vanderstelt

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If you and others around you are going to grow in gospel fluency, you need consistent immersion in a gospel-speaking community. This needs to be much more than a weekly gathering of the church where the gospel is preached (though it should include this). It also should be more than a weekly Bible study, small-group gathering,  or missional-community meeting (though I also recommend these). Growth in gospel fluency requires regularly being with others who know and love Jesus, speak about him often, and commit together to regularly remind one another of the gospel when they forget. 

Remember

From the very beginning of the story, the act of eating has played a very significant role in the worship and remembrance of who God is, what he has done, and who we are. God provided a great place for Adam and Eve to live, with all the food they needed. They regularly had the opportunity to remember God, his word, and his work, as well as who they were and what they were called to do. For them, every meal was a time to remember God’s abundant provision and express their worship of him alone. 

When we eat, we see that our food looks good. Some meals look like a painting by Monet, others look like a Picasso, but they are all works of art. We can smell our food. Just think of all the wonderful aromas of the best meals you’ve had. Don’t you love them! And as you put your food in your mouth, there’s an explosion of sensations—sweet, sour, bitter, salty. It’s like a party in your mouth! And you don’t just taste your food, you feel it as well. There are so many textures to experience. And then you hear it as it crunches, or sloshes or slurps its way into your body (some people are annoyed at this part of eating). Through all of this, you are nourished and replenished, strengthened and rebuilt. God wants us to eat and remember—enjoy and worship him—and, at the same time, have our needs met by him. 

Our Needs Are Met

Remember what he said to Adam and Eve: “Eat from any tree in the garden except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. If you eat of that tree, you will surely die” (see Gen. 2:16–17). Every meal was an opportunity to remember, trust, and obey. Every meal was meant to be an act of remembrance and worship. But they didn’t remember, trust, and obey. They ate unto themselves. God designed them to trust in his ability to provide for them. Something outside of them was meant to take care of a deep need inside of them—and he would provide that something. They were not to look outside of his provision.

All of this was meant to point us toward God’s ultimate provision in Jesus. Eventually, Jesus came to be God’s ultimate provision for us. He is the bread of life that meets our deepest needs and satisfies our greatest longings. Every meal is meant to cause us to remember and worship Jesus.

What if you took time at every meal—even very simple ones—to give thanks to God, praying not just at the beginning, but throughout the meal? Our family is trying to use our evening mealtimes more intentionally. We are presently rehearsing the Ten Commandments and going through the gospel with each one of them. We also have given each night a theme to guide what we do together at the meal.

On Mission Monday, we remember together our family’s mission to glorify God and fulfill his purposes in saving us… Teaching Tuesday is when one of the children takes responsibility for our learning from God’s word at the meal… With-Family Wednesday is the night we eat with our missional community… Thanks- giving Thursday is when we take time to give thanks for all God has done… On Fun Friday, we go out to eat, or we eat together and then go to a movie, have a game night, or take a special outing… Serving Saturday often means we are with others for a meal or serving some people… And Sunday is when we remember Jesus through taking communion together at our church’s gathering.

Consider our normal, everyday meals: what if your friends, your family, your small group, or your missional community made it a point to make every single meal a remembrance and worship experience? What if you slowed down enough to remember Jesus at every meal? What if you savored every moment as an opportunity to praise God? 

(Taken from Gospel Fluency Handbook by Jeff Vanderstelt, ©2017)

> Read more from Jeff.

Tags: Gospel, Gospel Fluency, Jeff Vanderstelt

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The Importance of Developing Leaders with Todd Adkins

by: Bryan Rose

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Breakthrough Ideas with Todd Adkins: 

• There is a difference between just placing leaders in a role and actually developing leaders for ministry.
• Great leaders are not just intuitive, they are highly intentional as well.
• Systems, process, and structure are critical but the relationship moves people.
• We can do leadership gatherings better by leveraging both technology and collaboration.
• Stop training for the lowest common denominator in the room… raise the bar.

Breakthrough Resources in this Episode:

Systems Thinking

Building a Story Brand

The Power of Moments

When – The Art of Perfect Timing

Tim Ferris podcast w/ Daniel Pink

NewChurches.com

LifeWay Leadership Pipeline Conference

5 Leadership Questions Podcast

Tags: Developing People, Leadership Development, Todd Adkins

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5 Takeaways for Communicating With Generation Z

by: James Emery White

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The New York Times recently reported how the newest students – translation, Generation Z – are transforming the way schools serve and educate them. Bottom line? They are “super connected, but on their terms.” It’s proving frustrating and challenging. Or, as the dean of students at Purdue University confessed, “I do get discouraged.”

They do not tend to read books. They rarely read emails. They are a generation that “breathes through social media… sending presidents and deans to Instagram and Twitter.” Further, students today want to navigate campus life on their own, getting food or help “when it is convenient for them. And, yes, on their mobile devices or phones.” As the associate director of learning programs at Ohio State University noted, “It’s not really technology to them.” He’s right. With the iPhone coming out when most were in grade school, it’s just the natural way to do life. So now, schools such as Ohio State issue iPads, have courses marked “iPad required,” and are building an app that “in addition to maps and bus routes, has a course planner, grades, schedules and a ‘Get Involved’ feature displaying student organizations.” More customization is coming. Soon, when students open the app, it will know “which campus they are enrolled at, their major and which student groups they belong to.”

But it’s not simply a communication revolution. They are forcing course makeovers, “pushing academics to be more hands-on and job-relevant.” Millennials may have wanted climbing walls and en suite kitchens—but Generation Z wants all things career development. It’s even changing office hours. One journalism professor not only takes attendance via Twitter and posts assignments on Slack, but holds office hours at 10 p.m. via the video conference site Zoom “because that is when they have questions.” The only role email plays is instruction, as a business skill, on how to write a proper one.

Another dynamic new to mainstream academia is how individualistic they are and how individualistic they expect to be treated. They have been raised in a world of “tailored analytics” that instantly customizes their online experience. This leads them to expect that everything put in front of them has been customized. They do not like to learn in groups. They “like to think about information, then be walked through it to be certain they have it right.” They want a model, and then they want to practice it.

And while they very much favor videos over static content (a Pearson report found that YouTube was their most preferred learning method) they still want visual, face-to-face communication over texting. They are not always good at live social interaction but they crave it. “They want authenticity and transparency,” says Corey Seemiller, professor at Wright State University. “They like the idea of human beings being behind things.”

Many reading this might be on overload in terms of response and application for the life of their church or company, classroom or team.  So here’s five simple but important takeaways:

1.   Embrace social media and the technology that facilitates it, and then use it as much as you can to communicate, inform and serve.

2.   Customize what you offer to people as much as you can.

3.   Be practical in your content, whatever that content might be.

4.   Adjust to changing schedules, which means the schedule of the person you are trying to serve.

5.   Get visual in every way you can, particularly using video, but facilitate and debrief in person.

Now, how you engage any of these five is up to you and will necessarily be distinct depending on your organization and the desired learning at hand. But make no mistake—these changes must be made and the reason is critical to understand.

This isn’t merely “preference” for them,

… it’s simply who they are.

James Emery White

Sources

Laura Pappano, “The iGen Shift: Colleges Are Changing to Reach the Next Generation,” The New York Times, August 2, 2018, read online.

Corey Seemiller, Generation Z Goes to College.

“Beyond Millennials: The Next Generation of Learners,” Pearson: Global Research and Insights, August 2018, read online.

> Read more from James Emery White.

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Ministry Breakthrough Stories are New Podcast’s Focus

by: Bryan Rose

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MURFREESBORO, Tenn. (BP) — In Philippians 4:8, Paul tells the church to dwell on what’s commendable and praiseworthy. With a new podcast, Christians can now apply Paul’s advice during their daily commute.

Hosted by Bryan Rose, “My Ministry Breakthrough” is dedicated to telling the stories of churches experiencing key moments of vision clarity and alignment.

“Many of our guests may not make conference stages with their stories or be featured in big magazines, but that’s the beauty of the podcasting medium,” said Rose, lead navigator for Auxano, the on-site consulting arm of LifeWay Christian Resources. “You can tell stories with ordinary leaders in a way that’s encouraging and challenging.”

The inspiration for Rose’s podcast comes from National Public Radio’s “How I Built This,” a broadcast featuring entrepreneurs behind some of the world’s best-known companies. But instead of speaking to website designers and real estate moguls, Rose calls upon pastors and high-capacity volunteers to tell their stories of how “God build this.”

“It’s easy for churches to copy-and-paste vision from other churches,” Rose said. “But every church is called to be unique and to tap into its own DNA. God has a plan for every church that’s rooted in its context.”

Rose believes ministry breakthrough happens when churches embrace their cultural and geographic context and align people and resources to a vision that helps them make disciples.

“Pastors are visionaries,” he said. “The problem is many tend to rely on a general sense of where they’re going. This always leads to misalignment and competing pictures of what the future looks like.”

In the inaugural episode of “My Ministry Breakthrough,” Rose interviewed Will Mancini, founder of Auxano, about what breakthrough looks like for churches. Mancini said such a definition is hard to put into words but described the following traits of churches that go through such an experience:

— Church members and leaders begin to see ministry routines in a new, exciting way.

— An idea brings a quantum jump of energy to a church.

— A deep sense of satisfaction forms in knowing, “This is exactly what we’re called to do.”

— New confidence is created as the future of the ministry becomes clearer.

— Persistent tension in a church suddenly becomes resolved.

“For me, the most important part of breakthrough is there’s a trajectory change for the rest of your life,” Mancini said. “You know it when you see it.”

By telling breakthrough stories, Rose is committed to helping others learns what a breakthrough might look like for their own ministries.

“There are lot of pastors out there who feel isolated, who feel like they’re going through things no one else is,” Rose said. “The goal of this podcast is to provide an instructive listen for anyone who’s involved in leadership in the church, whether it be in a lay role or a staff role.”

Future episodes of “My Ministry Breakthrough” will include:

— Barrett Bowden, senior pastor at Island Community Church in Memphis, Tenn., which began in a living room but has blossomed into a large ministry heavily populated by Millennials and medical students living in urban areas of Memphis.

— Chris Freeland and Justin Atkins, senior pastor and executive pastor of McKinney Church in Fort Worth, Texas. Freeland and Adkins will discuss what it looks like to lead an established church through a name change.

— Chris Driver, pastor of Fifth Street Baptist Church in Levelland, Texas, a church with a membership of less than 100 that plans to launch house churches in small farming towns nearby.

“You don’t have to be a big church with big resources to have a big vision of what God is calling you to,” Rose said.

New episodes of “My Ministry Breakthrough” are made available every other week and can be downloaded at MyMinistryBreakthrough.com or wherever podcasts are available.

Auxano is the on-site ministry consulting arm of LifeWay that fuses vision clarity with five critical needs in churches: resourcing, leadership, execution, communication and discipleship.

The original story can be found at: http://www.baptistpress.com/51801/ministry-breakthrough-stories-are-new-podcasts-focus

Reprinted from Baptist Press (www.baptistpress.com), news service of the Southern Baptist Convention.

by Aaron Wilson

Tags: Breakthrough Clarity, Bryan Rose, My Ministry Breakthrough, auxano

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Disciplemaking Leaders: Pursue a C.L.O.S.E.R. Walk with God

by: VRcurator

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Discipleship is a process that begins after conversion and continues throughout a believer’s life. Discipleship calls for our undivided attention and commitment to follow the commands of our Lord. Discipleship is not an option for any church or believer. Christ mandated it in the Great Commission. To disciple others is to obey our Lord’s command; to do otherwise is to disobey Him.

It becomes easy for every church’s disciple-making mission to get cluttered with lots of things to do. And most church leaders are very good at doing things. As a result, administration of programs replaces actual disciple making practices. As you look ahead to the next year, slow down and refresh your conviction for disciplemaking by looking to the Master himself.

How does a Jesus-centric disciplemaking conviction rescue you from a “program management” culture? Have you resigned to herding people through classes and events? Are you relying too much on better preaching? Or do you have a robust, disciple-making strategy built around life-on-life investment, like Jesus?

THE QUICK SUMMARY – Growing Up, by Robby Gallaty

Growing Up is a manual for making disciples.

It will answer the what, why, where, and how of discipleship. Underline it, write in the margins, interact with it, and meditate on it.

You are not learning this information for yourself only, although you will definitely benefit from it. You are learning for all the people you will disciple in the future. The gospel came to you because it was heading to someone else.

A SIMPLE SOLUTION

Like any journey, the discipleship journey requires you to take steps. Discipleship only occurs as you take the next steps of dependence on and obedience to Jesus.

Also like any journey, the discipleship journey requires you to take the first step in order to continue the journey.

Robby Gallaty outlines a walk with Jesus – discipleship – with a series of steps described below. They may seem simple – but keep in mind that even the longest, most complex journey you can imagine starts with a simple first step.

The six practices discussed below (C.L.O.S.E.R.) have proven to be irreplaceable in spiritual development. When these disciplines are pursued, the desire for going even deeper with God will be birthed in your soul.

Communicate – Knocking on Heaven’s Door

Instead of merely asking God to address your checklist of requests, have you focused on praying for things you have discerned that truly matter to him? God reveals more of Himself to you as you pray for the things that matter most to Him?

Learn – Mining for Gold

Our task when we open our Bibles is to arrive at the meaning God intended for the passage we are reading. Every genuine believer receives a wonderful Gift at the time of salvation – the Holy Spirit comes into us and dwells within our bodies. With the help of the Spirit, we can – without human intervention – understand the Bible for ourselves.

Obey – Follow the Leader

How do you make disciples? By teaching them to obey His commands. In order to do so, you must first know his Words yourself. You must get into the Word until the Word gets into you.

Store – An Eternal Investment Strategy

For the believer who truly desires to be a full-fledged follower of Christ, simply reading the Bible daily will not be enough. As a disciple, your goal is not merely to get into the Word, but to get the Word into you.

Evangelize – Show and Tell

Many people misunderstand our Christ-given responsibility in evangelism, thinking that success is determined by how many people we personally win to Christ. This is not the teaching of Scripture. Success in evangelism is in the sharing, not in the saving.

Renew – Hearing from God

A heart that obeys God is a heart that has first come to love Him. Our love for God grows as we know him. The better we know God, the more we love Him. The primary way God has revealed Himself to us is through his Word. A heart that knows God is a heart that has been transformed by the renewing of the mind through the study and application of good works.

Rob Gallaty, Growing Up

A NEXT STEP

How are you walking C.L.O.S.E.R. with God?

Communication

• On a scale of one to ten, with ten being the highest, how would you rate your prayer life?
• List three people who are far from God for whom you can pray over for the next three weeks. Follow up by meeting them over coffee or a meal to talk about their spiritual condition.

Learn

• Have you ever had a difficult time understanding God’s Word to the point it wanted to make you quit reading it?

Obey

• How does Jesus’ prayer in John 17 affect your life as a believer?
• What are some areas of your life that need to be submitted to the Lordship of Christ?

Store

• How is your life saturated with the Word of God?
• List barriers that have prevented you from memorizing Scripture in the past. How will you overcome these barriers?

Evangelize

• Think about you daily and weekly routine. “As you are going,” who can you share the gospel with?
• List three friends, family members, or acquaintances who are unsaved. Commit to praying for God to open their hearts to hear the gospel. Then commit to sharing it with them.

Renew

• How do you view the Word as spiritual nourishment to your soul?
• Describe your pattern for reading the Bible over the last month.

Gather your leadership team and review the above questions together. Discuss your answers to each. Encourage open and honest conversation as it is highly likely that few if any of them have seen discipleship modeled well. After talking about your personal experiences, now reflect on where the average attender at your church may be. How does this experience in your personal and the team’s journey impact your design for discipleship congregation-wide? Using a large flip chart tablet, outline some ways to engage more people in this important discipleship conversation.

Excerpt taken from SUMS Remix 77-3, issued October 2017.

This is part of a weekly series posting excerpts from one of the most innovative content sources in the church world: SUMS Remix book excerpts for church leaders.

SUMS Remix takes a practical problem in the church and looks at it with three solutions; each solution is taken from a different book. Additionally, a practical action step is included with each solution.

As a church leader you get to scan relevant books based on practical tools and solutions to real ministry problems, not just by the cover of the book. Each post will have the edition number which shows the year and what number it is in the overall sequence. (SUMS Remix provides 26 issues per year, delivered every other week to your inbox). 

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Tags: Robby Gallaty, SUMS Remix, disciple making

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