The Point

I get this question with some regularity.

The detailed answer is… it depends.

Most churches reach out to me initially because they were referred to me by a Pastor friend of theirs who has done work with me. The initial purpose almost always has to do with the church looking for a loan.

Purchase, Construction, Refinance.

Where we end up is often a very different place. In order for me to help a church with what they THINK they need, I must understand what their ultimate goals are, not in the we need a 2500 seat worship center sense, but in the true mission and vision sense.

So while we start with “Jeremy, can you help me finance this project?”

We usually end up with “Our church is better positioned to minister to this community”

So for those of you still scratching your head, over the coming weeks I’ll be going through some of the things I look at when talking with a church and trying to help them be more effective at ministry. Here’s the preview of topics–

Marketing/Advertising-What are you doing to get them on campus

Sunday mornings/Worship experiences

Signage, Parking Lot, Greeters

Visitor Follow-up/Assimilation

Children’s Ministry

Offerings

Outreach/Community events

Revenue Optimization

Expense Control

Social Media–this post is already out there!

As always, most of the best posts come from ideas I get sitting in meetings with ministries or from readers who ask questions here, the more interactive the better, let’s learn from each other!

Back to what I do…really…

I help ministries ask questions they haven’t…to find answers they haven’t… to reach people that need it!

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I drive. A lot.

Sometimes I sit in silence, ok, I do that a lot.

So when Thomas Nelson offered me a free copy of the Audio New Testament on CD in exchange for writing a review I thought that seemed like a good idea.

This is an audio version of the New King James Version, not my favorite, done by a host of celebrities including Jim Caviezel as Jesus and a slew of other familiar Hollywood voices. It comes in a zippered case that makes it easy to bring into the car and each disc is around an hour of audio. The dramatization is enough to break things up and make it interesting without being too over the top. If I could change one thing it would be the translation, maybe ESV? Or how about The Message!

In summary, this is a great resource that I will continue to use often on my long drives in spite of it possibly leading me to start picturing Mary Magdalene looking a lot like Marisa Tomei. I’d recommend this to anyone who wants to spend  a little more time with a bible and finds themselves in a car!

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I have a tendency to lay out some pretty detailed strategy and then go fairly quickly into the implementation. If you don’t know me you may read some of these posts and assume that I’m trying to boil down church to a finely tuned profitable business.

That’s why I want to slow down and share a reminder today. No matter how well you do church or anything else for that matter, it doesn’t matter AT ALL unless you know the why. WHAT you do will change, often drastically. but the WHY must never change!

In fact, I’m convinced that the key reason so many ministries eventually falter and have leadership issues can be directly linked to them losing site of their WHY!

So how do you keep this from happening?

Revisit your WHY often, when you’re making decisions always do them in the context of how they support or affect your WHY. If it isn’t in alignment with and bringing you closer to your WHY, you probably shouldn’t do it!

So…what is a WHY?

It’s the reason you’re in this whole church  thing to begin with, it could sound like

“Developing fully devoted followers of Christ”

“Helping people take their next step towards God”

“Love God, Love People,Prove it”

“living, loving, serving”

Your WHY is what wakes you up in the morning and keeps you up at night…

But ultimately, as a Christian Ministry, your WHY should be very closely linked to evangelism and discipleship…if it isn’t….well maybe that’s a another post for another day!

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I visit a lot of churches.

I see a lot of good ones.

 I see a lot of bad ones.

Here are a few impressions I was left with after a visit to Healing Place Church in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

Healing Place Church was founded in the mid nineties and has one of my favorite tag lines- “A Healing Place for a Hurting World”, LOVE THAT!

They will be moving in to a new facility in the next 60 days so some of my observations won’t apply for very long!

I was surprised at the small size of the church building, but I did notice the HUGE one right behind it under construction. This is a ministry that appears regularly on lists, you know most innovative, largets, fastest growing, coolest hair, most likely to have a worship leader who wears skinny jeans, etc…

Website-Very nice, made me want to go. They have five services at the main campus as well as several other options in other areas and (allegedly) one of the best “online” campuses in existence. All the pertinent info, who, what, where, when and some additional detail too.

Parking lot/signage-I was impressed with the cop directing traffic from the main road into and out of the church parking lot as well as the friendly parking lot attendants who made sure we were greeted before we left the car and they even had special parking for visitors.

Front door and inside-Coming through the front doors you’re greeted by more smiling faces and a very small foyer with children’s area straight ahead.  When I went to drop off the 4 year old it was very straightforward and even though he was crying like he was being sent to his death, I felt comfortable with leaving him and the workers response to him.

The worship center- is(was) a rectangular box with a fairly high, but not very deep stage, on which they had packed a lot of people! They had a small choir, full band, and some camera guys all packed on the stage, so that when the speaker came up he had very little room to maneuver.

The worship was lively, but a little less than I expected.  I’d say hillsong late 90′s, because of the choir, though the songs were good and well performed and seemed to encourage a real worship experience.

The message was pretty standard fare for this size and type of church, uplifting, not too intellectual, but left you feeling better than you did when you came in. Not sure if this is normal for them though since they did have a guest speaker from out of town.

Follow-up/Next steps-Didn’t receive anything, I filled out a new child form for my son but not a visitor card in the sanctuary.

Summary:

The good- website, parking, guest services,  children’s ministry, worship if you like small choirs and hillsong music

The bad-No real call to action–my personal preference is that I leave a service challenged to go make a difference, really didn’t get that here, but again, this was a guest speaker. Follow up.

If you find yourself in Baton Rouge on a Saturday evening or Sunday morning, check it out. All in all a good experience and a great lesson in the positive experience you can receive before you ever walk in the front doors!

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Churches call me for two reasons… Things are going so well they can’t handle it or things are going so badly they can’t handle it.

Lately I’ve been getting a lot more of the latter…

What makes bad things happen to good churches?

As I’m having dozens of conversations with ministries I’m finding some common themes among those who are experiencing challenges. There are a variety of specific causes of crisis, usually centered around exposing weakness in integrity or financial acumen but most come down to a flaw in a single area-

Leadership-nearly all of the churches I’m talking to who are struggling lack a combination of visionary/strategic leadership and the operational/tactical leadership that must support the vision.  This is a challenge with all churches, but when a church experiences a bump(like a challenging economy) any holes in the team can be quickly exposed.  Many churches have the visionary senior leader, fewer have the operational/tactician, and most don’t have both!

In fact, most of the really vibrant consistently growing churches I visit have one thing in common, they have both the strategist and the tactician.  

The challenges differ in their details but ultimately boil down to Leadership integrity, financial acumen, or both.

So now that I’ve simplified the challenge of struggling churches down to being a leadership issue…

What are common responses that hurt?  What responses help?

The worst response= No response, this seems simple but I see it WAY to much, churches ignoring a problem in hopes that it will just go away.

The longer a wound is ignored, the more likely it is to be FATAL!

A good response includes proactive communication, internally with staff, board members, and even the congregation as a whole. Then externally with interested parties and even seeking out trustworthy advisors, others have seen what you’re going through and know a way out.

The problem isn’t fixed overnight, but the only way out is through prayer, honesty, and both a strategic plan and tactical follow through.

The sooner a ministry acknowledges the wound, the faster they can get well!

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It’s snowing in New York.

All of my appointments for today have been cancelled or postponed.

I’ve got a bunch of unfinished posts.

That will all change today.

Look for a more regular schedule over the coming weeks thanks to this reprieve which will allow me to finish a few that I’ve started and create a few new ones.

Coming up tomorrow….

When bad things happen to good churches—what I’m seeing as churches are experiencing challenges

Going forward I’ll be posting on mondays, tuesdays, and thursdays. Let me know what you’d like to see and I’ll see if I can work it in…

Most popular worship songs I’m seeing in churches?

Effective small group curriculum?

How to get and retain new members?

The effects of David Hasselhoff on the North American church?

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