Top 5 Posts of 2011 #5: Fighting the sin of becoming a boring church part-2

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Fighting the Sin of becoming a Boring Church Part-2

Broken Window Theory is the idea that your environment tells you to act. That is to say, if you live in a community with run down dilapidated buildings, with broken windows, graffiti, and trash on the streets it affects your ideas, feelings, and ultimately your behavior. In the 1980’s New York City was at the height of one the worst crime epidemics in its history. In particular perhaps one of the worst places to be, was on the New York Subway. As a result, in the mid 80’s the New York Transit Authority hired George Kelling as a consultant to help with the problem. He urged them to go about combating crime in a unique manner. Clean up the subway, literally. Get rid of the trash and the graffiti. Then they began going after fare beating, people who jumped the turnstile to sneak onto the Subway without paying. Two incredibly small, non-essential, seemingly inconsequential items when you’re talking about fighting an epidemic of crime. But guess what happened. The environment of the Subway changed and with it so did the criminal behavior on the Subway.

We all know that the environment we place people in matters. And when we’re dealing with heaven and hell and not simply selling more lattes, cars, clothes, or fast food it matters all the more. Below are four simple criteria to consider when building your environments:

Posted in Leadership

4 steps to clear church communications

Monday, December 19, 2011

One of the biggest mistakes that churches make in their communication and messaging strategies is in assuming that people care about what they have to say. In today’s competitive, cluttered, and message saturated market there is more than enough noise to keep people from noticing and listening to what you have to say. Even at church. Here are four questions that you must wrestle to the ground if you’re going to build an effective communication and messaging strategy at your church.

Posted in Creative Arts, Leadership

Hiring a pastor at a church in the phoenix east valley!

Monday, December 12, 2011

I’m excited to announce that I am working with Real Life Christian Church to help them find their new Senior Pastor.

Real Life began during the summer of 2007 with the dream to connect people to Real Life with God, a Real Life with Others, and a Real Life of Purpose. This isn’t just a meaningless mission statement or clever words on a website. This is a change in philosophy and thought that many who have grown up in the Church are not accustomed to. Weekend Worship Services are contemporary in style and are designed to expose those who do not know Christ to His teachings and inspire the Church to tangibly living out the Gospel message. Real Life believes that life change happens best in the context of relationship and as a result Life Groups are the foremost integral part of the DNA of this church. Finally they hope to become a church that if they were gone, would be missed by the community. So as a result mobilizing people to be the church in the community is highly valued.

Real Life is strategically located, currently meeting in Williams Field High School in Gilbert, AZ located just one mile south of the 202.

The Lead Pastor will serve as the primary communicator, leader, and visionary for Real Life Church. Potential candidates should hold a minimum of a Bachelor’s degree, have received biblical training from an accredited college or university, and should have a proven track record of leadership and teaching within a church setting.

Since 2007 Real Life Church has seen growth that led to a regular attendance of over 400 people. Currently Real Life is running 200 people in weekend attendance with over 75% of those involved in Life Groups that meet throughout the week in homes. They are excited about God bringing them the right Lead Pastor who will lead them forward in becoming the Church that God has dreamed up for them to be.

If you’re interested in this opportunity you can email your resume to me. All communication is strictly confidential.

Posted in Leadership, Staffing

necessary endings

Monday, December 5, 2011

New is exciting! Whether it’s a new relationship, a new job, a new purchase, or even a new project at work. And when new things begin they usually start off with all kinds of passion, energy, excitement, and great anticipation for what’s about to happen. The same is rarely said for endings in life. Yet endings are just as normal and a natural a part of life as beginnings. Unfortunately little is written about handling the endings in our lives well.

That is why I’m excited about a recent book I read by Dr. Henry Cloud entitled “Necessary Endings.” In it he does a masterful job of leading us through how to handle endings in our lives well. In fact he goes so far as to assert that in order for us to move forward in life there are, “employees, businesses, and relationships that all of us have to give up in order to move forward.” It’s definitely worth the read and will challenge you to grow and think differently about your work, your relationships, and what it means to move forward in life.

Here are some of my favorite quotes and thoughts from the book that had an impact on me:

Posted in Leadership, Staffing

living in a van down by the river

Sunday, November 20, 2011

Okay, so I admit it. Put me in the camp of, “I’m still bummed that Chris Farley is no longer with us.” He was an incredible artist and comedian, and we’re worse for him not being here. Now, for those of you who are still reading this post and haven’t gone all “Pharisaical” on me, one of my favorite Chris Farley moments was the SNL skit where a suburban dad hires him as a motivational speaker to address the dangers of drugs and other at risk behavior with his children. If you haven’t seen it recently, click here it’s worth the smile:

Now that you’ve got that out of your system and you’ve sent it to all of your friends in the office, let me bluntly say that we’ve got a motivational problem in the church today. Talk to the average churchgoer who claims to be a Christ-Follower and they know what they should do…they just have a hard time doing it. You can bring up, parenting, money, volunteering, or a whole host of spiritual disciplines or issues and the problem is consistent across the board. The problem isn’t an information problem; it’s an obedience problem (some would call that a maturity issue by the way).

While it’s easy to point the finger at people and say it’s their own fault, church leadership has a heavy burden to shoulder in this conversation. And it centers on this issue of motivation. Primarily due to the fact that we’ve done a poor job as church leaders motivating people to put faith into action and follow Jesus due to our own misunderstanding of what it takes to motivate people. Take a look at the 6 basic levels of motivation below. Which ones do you and your church naturally drift towards?

Posted in Leadership, Volunteers