News Item | Modern Ekklesia

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

August 21, 2009 in news item 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.

Hope For the Non-Genius

May 3, 2009 in leadership,news item with 4 Comments

Wish you were a genius? There’s always hope. This, according to a recent article by NY Times columnist David Brooks.

He says that the people that most have considered genius’ throughout time (think Mozart, Einstein, even Tiger Woods) did not end up where they are because they had some innate “spark” of genius that set them apart, but a distinct ability to focus for long periods of time, and to practice a particular skill set over a long period of time.

Apparently Mozart’s early works were not that impressive, but over time, as he practiced his craft more, he developed the necessary acumen to be considered a genius in his field.

In summary, it’s not about genius, but about practice and discipline.

Though I do think that Brooks oversimplifies what true genius is all about, I do believe he has a point that research does prove. This is the same principle that Malcolm Gladwell wrote about in his book The Outliers. In this book Gladwell researches people that are top performers in their field and finds that much of these people have arrived where they are because they have put in at least 10,000 hours of practice in their given field.

So that’s about it. Put in the time, and you may develop a particular specialty. Perhaps you’ll even be called a genius in your field.

So what does that mean for us in the ministry realm?

Would you like to become a better preacher? Spend time studying sermons and preaching.

Would you like to become a better counselor? Spend time counseling people.

Would you like to become a better leader? Study leaders and practice leading yourself.

Most people consider Rick Warren to be a very good communicator, and just throw their hands in the air thinking I’ll never be as good a preacher. But most also don’t realize that before he planted Saddleback Church he had already preached thousands of sermons as a youth speaker and evangelist. Many consider Andy Stanley one of the great communicators in his generation, but most don’t realize that he got lots of “practice” by being the son of one of the great preachers in his father’s generation (Dr. Charles Stanley).

I, for one, find great hope in this study. I don’t consider myself a genius on any scale. But as a minister and communicator of the Gospel I want to do what I do with excellence.

So in the words of Bruce Lee, “I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times.”

So kick away people. Kick away!

What You Can Learn From Infomercials

March 19, 2009 in blogging,news item with 2 Comments

They usually come on late at night. You’ve probably seen them, those infomercials. It seems like the latest craze is that blanket that you wear called the Snuggie. Time magazine did a piece on it a few months ago where they quoted a young man sarcastically saying about the Snuggie, “It’s a bathrobe. That is really long. That you wear backwards.” I remember when I first saw the commercial I thought it was a spoof on cults because it looked so ridiculous and I couldn’t imagine anyone being that happy while wearing that thing at some sporting event.

But the great takeaway for me comes from the quote by A.J. Khubani on the success of such products in infomercials-”They’re typically inexpensive, solve a common problem, and they’re fun.”

I don’t have any answers here, but I wonder what would happen if a church embraced this concept and asked themselves, “is there an inexpensive way that I could solve a common problem in my town/neighborhood in a fun way?” Imagine if churches across this country lifted back the curtains in their neighborhoods and began to look at really common problems to help solve? I read about a church that would invite the many homeless people in their community to come in while volunteers would soak, scrub, and bring healing to their feet, which would end up staving off infections and more serious foot problems.

What would happen? I think many people in the community would look at it like some silly product, but a lot more people would call the 1800 number to get more information.

7 Days of Servolution

February 27, 2009 in news item with 5 Comments

I just got word of this myself and wanted to pass it along to those that are subscribed. It’s been shown time and time again that servant evangelism is one of the best ways to reach people. Well, a new website has been setup to serve as a hub for doing servant evangelism. Specifically, this is a joint effort between partnering churches across the nation to use the 7 days leading up to easter to do servant evangelism projects.

So visit www.servolution.org to register your church, ministry, or group (it’s free). You will be given access to printed materials like posters and fliers, web graphics, promotion plans and other resources. And it’s all free.

So what will you do? Were you already planning on doing some servant evangelism before easter? If you are doing something, be sure to let us know here so we can learn together about it.

Do Christmas Programs Still Work?

December 29, 2008 in Evangelism,missional,news item with 2 Comments

The answer seems to be yes.

In the latest Time magazine article, the author explores the popularity of such programs saying, “Christmas Eve services — with their pageantry and familiar traditions — became just one part of the celebration, after the family dinner and before the opening of presents.
That schedule of Christmas events is now the default tradition for most Americans.”

Most church leaders have known for sometime that most people who call themselves “Christians” are CEO (Christmas and Easter Only) Christians. These are people who are not normal church-goers, but will attend on one or both of those dates. That’s why most church put most of their financial resources towards big programs on these two dates.

But what I thought was most interesting about this article, was the suggestion that what most people seem to expect in a Christmas service is that they will be able to sing some of the traditional Christmas songs, light some candles, and greet each other with “Merry Christmas.”

I think there’s a refreshing simplicity in that.

What kind of Christmas program does your church use? What do you expect and enjoy most in a Christmas program?