Tag Archive - sun valley

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The Art of Execution

August kicks off a new ministry year at Sun Valley, the church I have the privilege of serving at, and that means it’s time to get the team in the room and talk about the new year. Through out the ministry year we get the entire staff team from all campuses together once a month to worship together, celebrate wins, communicate stuff that everyone needs to know and provide leadership training. This month Chad Moore, who serves as the Lead Pastor at Sun Valley, shared about bridging the gap between vision and reality. The art of execution. Here are some of the best highlights.

  • Leadership is one of the most talked about and least understood spiritual gifts in the Bible.
  • David submitted to the vision God had for his life not the vision he had for his life (the calling on David’s life wasn’t to build the temple, but to defeat the enemies of God).
  • Solomon didn’t dream up the idea he executed the idea and the idea wasn’t general or generic it was VERY VERY VERY specific.
  • Vision isn’t mystical it’s specific, it’s a dream with a deadline “build the temple.”
  • Define reality, Dream a preferred future, and Design a pathway to get there.
  • Any time you are serving God it is going to involve serving people.
  • Inspiration and motivation don’t actually make anything happen, discipline does.
  • People who actually do the least get celebrated the most (public figures).
  • You make touchdowns yard by yard, down by down as you move down the field.
  • Discipline is the missing art of leadership.
  • The only way to hike the Grand Canyon is to go do the bleachers again, and again, and again.
  • You don’t follow Jesus in the spotlight but in the everyday mundane stuff that nobody sees.
  • The more specific the plan the better the plan.
  • The “science side” of the plan = what is written down, budget, etc.
  • You have to “embrace the stupid” if you’re going to learn and grow…i.e. “I don’t want to look stupid to do something new I’ve never done or learned before.”
  • Effort = “Work as hard as we can”
  • Excellence = “Work as well as we can”

Posted in Leadership

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How to get Guests to Come Back to your Church

Quick, name the top 5 churches you know that do a great job with guest services. Not so easy? Now try this, name the top 5 companies or organizations you know that do a great job with guest services. A little easier huh?

Why is it that the one organization on the planet that should care the most about people, the church, seems to get a bad rap for the way it treats people?

The other day I had the opportunity to spend a half-day with the staff at Sun Valley Community Church (the church I have the privilege of serving at) learning from the good folks over at Marriott about building a great guest service experience. If you want to be great at something you need to learn from people who do great things. Too bad there wasn’t church providing world-class service in this area we could learn from. Here’s a couple of take aways from our time together.

Nothing makes a guest feel more stupid than using internal language and jargon.

In other words stop using insider language. The most obvious way to tell if a church is insider focused or outsider focused is the language that they choose to use. It either says that the church is “inclusive” or “exclusive.” And it’s important because words build worlds. There are all kinds of ways this goes wrong in churches. Preaching as though everyone already knows Jesus and comes to the room with basic Bible knowledge, coming up with cool names and brands for ministries that mean nothing to people outside the church, and mentioning people from stage by name without explaining who they are just a couple of them. Two big principles to keep in mind when it comes to the language you choose to use in your church are: clear always trumps cute or cool and you’re always better off just calling things what they are. No one outside of your church understands what CR, Awana, FPU, or Re-Engage, means…sorry for the rant.

G.U.E.S.T.
G.reet the Guest

Be well kept, make eye contact, wear a smile, and have an open welcoming posture. A simple, “Welcome, we’re glad you’re here with us today,” will do. Don’t ask how people are doing unless you have time to stop and hear how they’re actually doing. Don’t ask unless you actually care to know. And by all means make sure your guest services volunteers are not huddled around talking with each other, instead ensure that they’re prepared and attentive to guests.

U.se the Guests Name

When possible use the guests name. It’s not as difficult as you may think to acquire a guest’s name at church. If they’re checking in their children for the first time, you’re obviously going to get their name. And you can always introduce yourself and ask their name…then use it. A name is the most important thing a person owns.

E.stablish the Guests Needs

Take time to understand what the guest needs. Are they looking around like they’ve never been there before? Are they looking for a restroom? Are they having a difficult time getting all of their kids into church? Don’t ask guests if they need help (men will always turn you down). Instead ask, “What can I help you find?” or “Let me help you.”

S.how Interest in the Guest

Think about how you can build a connection with a guest. Are they wearing sports paraphernalia? Is a child coming from a soccer game (wearing their uniform)? If it’s their first time attending, are they new to the area? Engage them in personal, yet unobtrusive, conversation.

T.hank the Guest

When people leave after service simply be polite, and thank them for being with you that weekend. Instead of spamming people a simple thank you email and invitation to their next step if they’re ready to take it is kind. Drop them a personal handwritten note thanking them for attending.


Posted in Leadership

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A Large Multisite Church in Phoenix is Hiring a Small Group Pastor

I’m pleased to announce a new Staff Search. Sun Valley Community Church, the church I have the honor of serving at, is beginning a national search for a Small Group Pastor to serve on our Tempe Campus. Sun Valley began as a church plant in 1990 in Chandler, Arizona. Over the years Sun Valley has grown into a large mult-site church in the Phoenix area. Currently there are four campuses located in Casa Grande, East Mesa, Gilbert, and Tempe and with a fifth campus opening in the fall of 2016 in Queen Creek. Together nearly 7,000 people attend a Sun Valley Campus each weekend. The Tempe campus was the result of a merger in the Fall of 2011 with Bethany Community Church. In the merger, Sun Valley acquired a 16-acre, 8-building campus with over 100,000 sq. ft. under roof. At present, the campus attendance averages more than 1,200 people a week, but when fully utilized, the campus capacity will accommodate more than 6,000 people. Sun Valley has been featured in a book by Leadership Network about church mergers: Better Together: Making Church Mergers Work, and has been named by Outreach Magazine as one of the 100 fastest growing churches in the nation. To learn more about that story click here Part-1 and Part-2.

Interested in learning more? Continue reading below: Continue Reading…


Posted in Leadership, Spiritual Formation, Staffing

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4 Steps to Building a Strong Organizational Culture

Vision Arizona is a church planting network located in Arizona that boasts a 90% success rate. At a recent network gathering Chad Moore who serves as the Lead Pastor at Sun Valley Community Church, the church I have the pleasure of serving at, shared some background on a church that merged with Sun Valley to become a Sun Valley campus. During the talk he shared some clear steps that pastors can take to intentionally build a great culture in their churches. Here are some of my notes and thoughts from the talk.

  • “Culture eats strategy for breakfast” Peter Drucker
  • A merger is very different than a multisite.
  • A multisite is when you take a couple hundred of your people and your culture and go 20 minutes away or so and start a new campus. A merger is like adopting a rebellious teenager or a rebellious grandparent.
  • In a culture of decline you’re not playing offense you’re playing defense. The value is to survive.
  • Transitioning culture requires loving first, leading second, but always doing both.
  • Culture is transferred or changed through people.
  • People, not strategy, change culture.
  • Mergers require humility on both sides (on the side of the lead church & the follow church).
  • Your church already has a culture.
  • Culture is more on the art side of leadership.
  • Two big questions to help you to begin to identify your culture:
    • What in your church (staff), when you see it, it energizes and excites you?
    • What in your church (staff), when you see it, it makes you cringe?
  • The world is not the enemy they’re the goal.
  • It takes about 3-5 years for the church/staff to become who you are.
  • If you’ve been at your church 3 years or more and there’s things about it you don’t like…look in the mirror on that one.

How to Build Culture:

#1 Preach: Inspiration & motivation. This is all about language. Use the same language over and over and over again.
#2 Teach: Application. How do I do it?
#3 Model: Illustration. Testimonies, personal life…”join me”
#4 Celebrate: Celebration. Have everybody clap for it. What you celebrate gets repeated.


Posted in Leadership

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A Large Multisite Church in Phoenix is Hiring a Children’s Pastor

I’m pleased to announce a new Staff Search. Sun Valley Community Church, the church I have the honor of serving at, is beginning a national search for a Children’s Pastor to serve on our Tempe Campus. Sun Valley began as a church plant in 1990 in Chandler, Arizona. Over the years Sun Valley has grown into a large multi-site church in the Phoenix area. Currently there are three campuses located in Casa Grande, Gilbert, and Tempe with a total weekend attendance of nearly 6,000 people and in recent years was named by Outreach Magazine as one of the top 10 fastest growing churches in America. The Tempe Campus was the result of a merger in October 2011 with Bethany Community Church. In the merger Sun Valley acquired a 16-acre, 8-building campus with over 100,000 sq. ft. under roof. At present, the campus attendance is 1,200 people but when fully utilized, the campus capacity will accommodate more than 6,000 people. Sun Valley was recently featured in a new book by Leadership Network about church mergers: Better Together: Making Church Mergers Work. To learn more about that story click here Part-1 and Part-2.

Interested in learning more? Continue reading below…

Continue Reading…


Posted in Staffing
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