Archive - January, 2009

The Difference Your Form of Advertising Makes

January 28, 2009 in Evangelism,leadership with 0 Comments


A few days ago a church member handed me a folded up piece of newspaper.

“Look, there are most of the churches in our community, but ours is not advertised in there,” she said in a stern voice , implying that it was my responsibility to make sure it was.
As I examined the newspaper, I realized that it was an edition that went out to an area completely populated by retirement communities. In fact, this area (which I will allow to remain nameless) is billed as “America’s premier retirement community.”
“Well, I think we could probably advertise online,” I responded, hoping that she’d give up her crusade. But that’s when she made a very telling statement-”But none of us are online!”
If you advertise in mediums that retirement age people use frequently, guess what kind of people you’ll get? If you advertise in mediums that younger people use…well, you guessed it.
So here’s the principle: how you advertise determines the kind of people you reach.

I know this sounds very obvious, but in that moment, this principle took on new life to me. If I were to advertise in that newspaper, it would be very clear the kind of demographic I would be reaching. We all need the gospel, but churches need to focus on who they can best reach in their own area.
If someone is looking for a church to attend, and happens to be in a younger demographic, Google is generally the first place that will be checked. Ten years ago, the first place someone would check would be the yellow pages or the newspaper. I think the last time I actually opened one of those bulky yellow pages was at least two years ago. So instead of advertising in that newspaper, I decided to jump on the Google Adwords bandwagon and give it a whirl. Here’s a great podcast that describes in detail how to advertise using Google Adwords. The podcast is called “God Bless Google.”
We’ve been using it for two weeks now, so allow me to share with you some of our preliminary findings:
Look: This is what the advertisement ends up looking like. When someone does a search for churches in tampa, they will see our ad on the right side of the page. **If you do a search for our church please don’t click on the ad. Every time you click on the ad it takes money out of our account. I want to reserve those ads for people that are truly making original searches. Thanks!
Cost: How much it costs depends on you. We currently put in $25 a month into the system. The more money you put in, the higher your ad will be on the page, and the more it will be shown throughout the day when someone makes a search.
Result: After two weeks of being on there, it’s been shown 1,912 times. Of those, 27 people actually clicked on our site, costing us a total $9.88. This puts us at .37 cents per click. 
We’ve found Google Adwords to be very relevant, inexpensive, and interactive. What more could you ask for?
Have you tried Google Adwords? What results have you seen? How else are you advertising?

Why US Businesses (and Churches) Should Embrace Generation G

January 25, 2009 in missional with 4 Comments


Reinier Evers of Trendwatching.com just released a very insightful article on Generation G. What is Generation G about?

Here’s an excellent quote that sums it up:
“Generation G captures the growing importance of ‘generosity’ as a leading societal and business mindset. As consumers are disgusted with greed and its current dire consequences for the economy—and while that same upheaval has them longing more than ever for institutions that care—the need for more generosity beautifully coincides with the ongoing (and pre-recession) emergence of an online-fueled culture of individuals who share, give, engage, create and collaborate in large numbers.

In fact, for many, sharing a passion and receiving recognition have replaced ‘taking’ as the new status symbol. Businesses should follow this societal/behavioral shift, however much it may oppose their decades-old devotion to me, myself and I.”

People are rejecting and distancing themselves from companies and organization that exhibit greed, and are coming to companies that are “more willing and able to give, to share, to collaborate; to be more ‘generous’ in many ways.”

He points to the success of generous/collaborative companies like Wikipedia, YouTube, Flickr, and others to prove his point.

So what do we do with this information? Joseph Michelli, author of The Starbucks Experience, points to this culture of generosity (values-driven business model) in the company as a reason for the extreme loyalty of so many Starbucks customers. He gives examples of Starbucks having unannounced free coffee and ice-cream days and going (way) out of the way to surprise and delight customers.

What can a church do to connect to the high value of generosity? Nelson Searcy, pastor of the Journey Church has tried several things. First-time guests get a free book, as well as a gift that’s mailed to them a few days later. During a recent series on biblical finance, he gave away hundreds of free copies of The Total Money Makeover (a $15) book to those that attended.
They also give away lots of free resources and DVD’s, not to mention having a vision to connect with one million people through servant evangelism in the city of NY.

One would think that this kind of generosity will just make a company or church go broke, but those that have implemented systems of generosity have noticed the exact opposite. Instead of cultivating a mentality in the people of consumerism, they people are taught a valuable lesson on sacrificial giving and biblical generosity, which they learn and return on.

How are you modeling generosity? What has worked for you?

What You’re Rarely Told About Leadership

January 23, 2009 in leadership with 3 Comments

Most people are fascinated by leadership. Especially the kind of leadership that is advertised as:

  • casting the big vision
  • cheer-leading the people
  • speaking in eloquent melodies that make people go “ahh”
  • being the person who walks down the hall and says the right thing to encourage a member of the team
  • being a person of influence (whatever that means)

This painting of leadership is usually attractive to most people. This is the part of leadership that is most often talked about by leadership gurus. This is also the part of leadership that has come quite easily to me.

What you’re usually never told about the subject is that leadership without effective management is dead. It’s easy to rally the troops, give them the pep talk, point them in the direction, and then fire the gun. What’s more difficult is to follow up with the troops. To set specific goals with them. To see how the progress is going, keep them motivated along the way, and be able to hold them accountable if they don’t reach the goals.

Leadership sets the direction. Management makes sure that you get there. You can be a great speaker and motivator, but if you are not a good manager, ultimately things will not get done.

After three years of being a leader and painfully realizing how much has slipped through my fingers, this lesson has finally sunk in.

So here’s the biggest recommendation I can make to myself and other leaders:

A system must be set up to ensure the timely progress and development of projects. I’m not talking about a personal productivity system like GTD, but a corporate system, if it exists.

When something is decided, who will take on the project? How much time will they have to complete it? What should the finished product look like? How will you followup with the team member to ensure that it’s being completed?

I’ve found that this slow-methodical-unglamorous march of management is just as important, if not more, than the quick-sprint, rally-from-the-back, sparkle-from-the-front, glamorous kind of leadership.

What have you found?
[image by abrinsky]

What Your Organization Can Learn From Barack Obama

January 21, 2009 in leadership with 4 Comments

The new president has yet to sign an executive order (that I know of), yet he has already positioned himself to be a very effective president. This past week, before the celebration of Martin Luther King, Jr holiday, Barack Obama sent out a video message calling people to celebrate that special holiday through service.

Calling a nation to service is not new. Many past presidents have done so with vigor. But what is different about Barack Obama is how he does it:

1. Use of technology: When he releases his weekly addresses, they are through YouTube. Through this medium he is vastly expanding his reach and audience.

2. Through offering immediate opportunities for action: A new website has has been created called USA Service through which immediate action may be taken. You plug in your zip code and how far you’re willing to drive, and you’ll be rewarded with a list of opportunities and more information to serve.

Through offering practical and immediate opportunities for service, based upon a level of commitment, was how he won so many primaries and eventually the presidency. You could either make a phone call from your home, drive to a center and make calls as a group, you could volunteer to knock on some doors, or host a party!

What about you? What are you doing in your church or organization to offer immediate action opportunities? When you call people to service do you have a list of places handy where they can serve? When you call people to be witnesses do you also provide immediate opportunities in which someone can witness?
If you’re not offering immediate opportunities for action, then you’re wasting the people’s time. They will end up zoning you out in any future calls, and you will have done yourself a disservice.

Coming up on the 14th of February is Valentine’s day. For the first time in a while it will be on a Saturday. What if churches took that day to teach on love and outreach, and then gave people an immediate opportunity that afternoon to serve and love their community? We’re planning on handing out roses and candies. For more ideas click here and here.

A New Look For Modern Ekklesia!

January 20, 2009 in blogging with 0 Comments

Modern Ekklesia now has a new look that should make it a little easier to read.
The most obvious change is the new header. It’s simple, but looks a little better (I think), than the plain header I had before.
The column is also wider now. This makes it easier to read so that you don’t have to scroll down as much to read a post.

I found the header here. A special big thanks to Song from Style Discovery. She helped me work out some kinks in getting the header to fit right through some email help and an excellent blog post you can read here. 

Thanks again!

Go Big: Lead Your Church to Explosive Growth- Book Review

January 18, 2009 in book review with 4 Comments

Is there a reason why 90% of churches have less than 200 people attending? Most of us are painfully aware of this figure. The question is, “what can we do about it?” According to Bill Easum and Bil Cornelius, authors of the above titled book, there is much that we can do.

Here are ten action steps that I distilled from my reading of the book:

1. Examine my leadership: “Lead pastor, if your church is not growing, you are the stopping point. If your church is growing, you are the catalyst. It’s that simple” (9).

2. Seek to evaluate church’s leadership structure: “The rule of thumb we see in the thriving churches today is the less democracy in the church, the more authentic and effective church can be in advancing the kingdom of God…the Bible is void of any reference to Representative Democracy or Congregational rule and the pastors of these thriving churches are hamstrung by boards or committees that micromanage the day-to-day ministries of the church” (21).

3. Seek to clearly define role of staff vs. members: “In most dying or plateauing congregations the laity make most of the decisions, both missional and tactical” (29).

4. Prepare for the people God wants to send: “It is not good to ask God to double your attendance without preparing for the inflow of people. You have to expect it and prepare for it…If you’re not prepared for God to respond, why are you asking God to provide?” (43).

5. Do “Big Days”: Churches talk a lot about evangelism and reaching people but seldom make any big, outlandish push. What you need to do is focus all your efforts on one big, single day—you’ll see your church make jumps of 20-80 percent on Sunday because you focused everything you were doing on one day” (51).

6. Understand the relationship between the weekend worship service and small groups: “Most people think that small groups will help their church grow. That’s not usually the case. Small groups help to retain the people who are already coming to your church. For that reason you should never focus primarily on small groups and forget on reaching out to the community” (51).

7. Do “Big Days” on special days: “The best special days are secular holidays, like September 11, Fourth of July, or Super Bowl Sunday, Christmas, and Easter” (55).

8. Staff wisely: “In studying many thriving churches we’ve noticed there is a logical progression in adding staff. The first paid staff person to hire is a worship leader. Failure at this point usually results in a small congregation” (61).

9. Use your time where it will yield greatest results: “Sometimes pastors are so busy writing messages that they have no energy or time left to focus on strategic pursuits like adding a service or staff member or advertising or getting out among the public. Instead of spending so much time in the office, we recommend buying another pastor’s sermon series, whoever’s teaching you happen to like, and teach his or her series for a month” (70).

10. Emphasize the importance of service within the “service”: “Great service allows guests to feel at home and comfortable in their surroundings, and that enables them to pay attention to your message. We don’t need to change our content. God’s word doesn’t need improving. The problem is the people who are supposed to hear the good news aren’t there because the week before no one said “hi” to them when they visited, the child care stunk or wasn’t even provided, the music was terrible, and the place looked like a wreck” (94).

The Power of Leaderless Churches

January 13, 2009 in book review,leadership with 2 Comments

I recently read the book The Starfish and the Spider, and thought it provided some interesting lessons on leadership in organizations.

The concept of the book is based upon a simple observation:
If you cut off the leg of a spider, you will slow it down. It you cut its head, it will quickly die. Certain starfish are completely different. If you cut off the leg, that leg can grow itself into a new starfish. If you cut it into eight pieces, eight starfish can grow from the stumps.
This is the main metaphor that the authors use to compare different kinds of organizations. 
Highly structured top-down companies like GE and MGM are compared to the spiders, where as companies like wikipedia, youtube, and grokster are compared to the starfish. 
Concerning how this applies to church work, there are varied opinions. Lane Douglas feels that the best application of this principle means that decision-making should be a decentralized process. The pastor should have less power, and more decisions should be made on the ground level. Tod Bolsinger sees the spider as being large churches, where as “organic” house-churches are the starfish. 
I’d like to point out a slightly different application that I see concerning small groups. I think the truest incarnation of the starfish model is the rise of cell-based holistic groups around the world. All of the top churches in the world are cell churches. They multiply rather quickly, are extremely decentralized, and could very easily survive the loss of many levels of leadership. Outside of the U.S., this is the predominant model that is thriving. 
Within North America, though, this model has not caught much traction. There are several cell churches here in the U.S., but by far, the largest churches here seem to be using a system of affinity groups. These are groups that can be based on any number of different “affinities” or “interests” such as basket-weaving, studying biblical finances, dog-training, or football. 
The genius of this method is that it truly decentralizes not only the structure, but also the topic and information. Cell groups only decentralize the structure, but the overall information is largely quite centralized, with many churches giving the outlines of what should be studied during the week. Whereas in an affinity-group based churches, people develop different kinds of small groups based upon their gifts, interests, and outreach opportunities.
At our church, we’ve currently been reading through a book by Nelson Searcy called Activate.
We haven’t yet implemented the affinity-based model, but I believe we will be transitioning to that in a few months. We’ve tried the cell-group model, and it just didn’t seem like the most effective way to reach people and to meet the needs of people across the faith spectrum.
What have you tried concerning small groups? What’s working for you? What’s not working?
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