Archive - nelson searcy RSS Feed

What Are You Doing for Easter?

March 3, 2010 in easter,nelson searcy,shawn wood with 1 Comment

So we’re now officially about one month to go before we arrive at the biggest church-going day of the year: easter. Which naturally begs the question, “what are you doing?” There’s lots of different things that many churches do, but I thought I’d share on a few resources that have come up so that you can sharpen your planning.

1. One resource is called PlanningEaster.com. It’s put together by Shawn Wood of Seacoast Church and they want to use that site as a resource to share what’s been working for easter programs.

From the site:

“Instead of live feeds at scheduled times, over the next four weeks, we’ll have different blog, video, and picture posts constantly being uploaded.  We will be hearing from leaders from different churches around the country on how they are creatively planning Easter weekend events.  Got an idea?  Submit it on the “Share” page.”

Of note, they’ve also started using the hashtag of #planningeaster on Twitter, so you could easily do a search with that hashtag and see some blurbs of what people are planning. I have to say that I really commend the spirit of such sites. Everyone realizes that it’s a big day, so why hold the most effective methods to yourself? Share it!

(more…)

Zero To Sixty: Book Review

September 13, 2009 in bob franquiz,book review,books,nelson searcy,zero to sixty with 0 Comments

A few days ago I finished reading Zero to Sixty, the latest book by Pastor Bob Franquiz. The subtitle tells what the book is about: 60 principles and practices for leading a growing church.

This book is above all, practical. It has sixty bite-sized chapters that are usually about two pages in length. This is useful because you can quickly jump in and out and get something out of it.

He divides the book into four main sections:

I. Leadership Strategies
II. Staffing Strategies
III. Ministry Strategies
IV. Personal Development Strategies

The most useful section for me was the leadership strategies section. I thought the other chapters had useful information, but I felt as if it’s information that I’ve heard before in other areas. It’s greatest usefulness is that it puts all these principles together in one book. If you’re familiar with Nelson Searcy and his books and resources, you’ll notice some similarities. That didn’t come as a surprise, though. Bob Franquiz has been a coaching student of Nelson Searcy. If you’re not familiar with Nelson Searcy, than this is a good primer for putting all these principles together and walking you through how to implement them.

Overall, I thought it was a useful read on dealing with the practical sides of ministry.

How to Lead An Effective Debriefing Meeting

September 3, 2009 in bob franquiz,book review,books,nelson searcy,zero to sixty with 2 Comments

I just started reading a new book called Zero to Sixty, which I’m really enjoying. It’s written by Bob Franquiz, lead pastor at Calvary Fellowship in Miami (a fast growing church running about 1,000 in attendance).

Here’s why I’m liking the book so much: it doesn’t assume that you know how to do something. Most leadership-type books out there assume way too much. They give lots of general principles of things that you should be doing, but they don’t teach you specific ways on how to do them. That’s a really important distinction.
In chapter 5, for example, he gives some questions they use to debrief after a church service, but that I think can just as easily apply to any kind of event.
1. What went right?
2. What went wrong?
3. What was missing?
4. What was confusing?
He says,
“We praise God for what went right. We send thank-you cards to show appreciation to volunteers who went beyond the call of duty. We encourage one another for a message well preached, a song well sung, or a video produced. We all need encouragement. This created an opportunity to build up staff and servants who are working very hard. Then we discuss the other three questions at the same time. This allows us to be specific about problems that took place on Sunday and how they can be remedied. Lastly, we assign the task of fixing the problem to a specific staff member. The solution may be as simple as buying duct tape…or cutting ten minutes off a future message…” (p. 38).

I think there’s two important factors here that we shouldn’t miss. For one, they’re willing to do the painful work of a thorough debriefing. I’m sure this isn’t always the most comfortable thing to do, especially if you’ve messed up in something. But it’s important to learn from it so that the mistake doesn’t happen again. Secondly, they do this every single week on monday. Everything is still fresh on their minds from how the worship experience went. I know most churches (mine included) do not currently debrief this often. But I think it’s the best way, and I will be transitioning to do this very soon.
What about you? Do you currently debrief after an event? How does your team debrief?

Five Foundations For Building a Healthy and Growing Worship Team: Free Webinar

August 21, 2009 in nelson searcy,webinar,worship teams with 0 Comments

On Wednesday August 26, from 1:00pm-2:15pm, a free webinar on growing your worship team will be offered.

Here’s a choice quote that give a little more info:

This webinar will help you build the framework for a thriving worship ministry. It’s free and the best part is, you don’t even have to leave your office to get these powerful lessons that I’ve taught to hundreds of worship leaders in last 3 years (including most recently to a standing room only group of Worship Leaders at the Willow Creek Arts Conference in June 2009).

Click here to get more info and to sign up.

The Impact of Incentives in Your Organization or Society

July 26, 2009 in freakonomics,incentives,nelson searcy with 0 Comments

I recently had the opportunity to guest blog on ChurchCrunch.com on the topic of incentives and why people do the things they do. The ideas were based upon a few chapters in the book Freakonomics by Steven Levitt.
Here’s a quote from the beginning:

“I’ve been thinking a lot about the concept of incentives recently. Steven Levitt, the renowned economist from the University of Chicago devotes a chapter to the topic in his book Freakonomics. The chapter is called “What do Schoolteachers and Sumo Wrestlers Have in Common?”

So here’s the gist of the issue: People will cheat if the incentive is big enough and the associated risk is small enough.

We’re all used to the idea of students cheating to do better on tests. After all, if you don’t pass some tests, you may not pass the class. Once, when I was in high school geometry, I entered some answers into my TI-89 calculator. I passed the test. Another time in AP English class I carefully…well, let’s move on.

What we’re not so used to hearing, though, is about teachers cheating.

I always looked up to teachers as castles of moral integrity and as civil missionaries. Those that seemingly don’t make a lot of money but still choose to work with hormonal/moody/hyper kids were surely saints on earth. But in the book Levitt details what happened when the state of California introduced $25,000 bonuses “for teachers who produced big test scores.” Many cheated.”


For the full post and to find out why this matters click here.

Church Systems Checkup

July 14, 2009 in church systems,natural church development,nelson searcy with 0 Comments

In case you haven’t read it, here’s a copy of the new Church Systems report by Nelson Searcy. In this ebook Searcy presents some of the foundational “systems” that must be in place for a church to be healthy and to grow. If you’re familiar with Natural Church Development it’s somewhat similar, but Searcy actually gives you the details that you need to implement them. I’ve been able to implement a few of his systems into my church and I’ve noticed the difference. If you’re in church leadership work, you need to invest the time and give this a go. It will be worth it.

Why Do People Leave Church?

February 26, 2009 in backsliding,leaving church,nelson searcy with 25 Comments

I’ll admit it. People have left my church. Attendance has been down a little lately. That’s why I was interested in a talk that Nelson Searcy gave recently at a coaching event describing why some people leave church.

He mentioned that one of the major reasons why people leave the church is because of sin in their life. Most people don’t mention this when they leave, of course. If asked, they will usually speak about superficial things like music or the children’s ministry. But they leave because he says, “it’s impossible for people to live too long without congruence between belief and behavior.”

For example, there may be someone that is struggling with a sin that they have overcome, but later on fall back into. For many, this lack of congruence between their belief and behavior causes them to split.

So what suggestions does he offer?

We need to teach that we’re churches of grace. We need to be “welcome back” churches. When we haven’t seen someone for awhile, instead of making them feel bad for not having been there, we need to welcome them back like the father of the prodigal son.

So how good are you at noticing people that have left and welcoming them back when they arrive?

I have to admit that with two churches, I often can’t even tell if someone hasn’t been there! Sometimes I may go a month or two before noticing and remembering that I haven’t seen someone in a while. So I do my best to try to remember, and give those that I haven’t seen a call or a note.
There was a family that I hadn’t seen in a year and a half. They attended for about 6 months, and then fell off the side of the earth. I never saw them again. I would call, and leave messages. I wanted to see them, but, it seems, they did not want to be seen. Finally one day I caught them on the phone and I told them I wanted to see them because I missed them. When I stepped into their home and, after speaking to them for a little while, I could tell that they had fallen back into some sins that they were not proud of. To make matters worse, their house had gone into foreclosure, and they were now living somewhere else. Emotionally, they felt defeated, and in the words of the wife, “would not be of any good to anyone at church.” It really pained me to hear her say that because it means that I had not made it clear enough that the church is a hospital for people that are sick and messed up. So I took a moment to pour out my soul and give them the true picture of what a church really is–a bunch of messed up people that are on a journey together, following Christ.
Hopefully when they do show back up, we can surround them, celebrate with a hug, and welcome them back as if they’ve never been gone.

What about you? What have you noticed about why people are leaving churches? What are you doing to follow up with those that have left? How are you welcoming them back?

Page 1 of 212»