Leadership

Book of the Week: StrengthsFinder 2.0

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This week’s book of the week is Tom Rath’s StrengthsFinder 2.0.  This book was given to me as a gift.  Within each book is a code that allows the reader to take an online survey which determines the 5 top strengths of the reader.  You then can read more concerning your personal strengths. The premise …

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Lift Schedule

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Details are coming together for Lift, and our team is getting more and more excited by the day!  People from Greenwood to Summerville or planning on making the trek for this Saturday worship training session, and we could not be more humbled to partner with others to lead churches in worship.

I wanted to provide you with the schedule so you can make your plans.  It’s a funnel type schedule focusing on music, tech, and host teams that work in worship settings.  We start large, go to medium size, smaller groups, and then back all together.

This workshop is for seasoned worship team members and also for those who are just curious if they have the skills needed to join.  It’s free lessons, so nothing to lose!  Not only will we have a lot of information, we are going to have a lot of fun!

Here is our promise: we are teaching principles, not models.  We don’t want you to copy what we are doing, we are going to teach principles that we have been learning that can be applied into any context.  Please list any questions you might have.  You can register here.

See below for details:

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Why God Might Be Out to Get Your Church

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Your church bears the name of Christ.  Most likely, your church was founded for his glory, was organized the way it is for his glory, but churches can get off track.

Our assumption is that God is for every church.  The very fact that it is called a church automatically receives God’s blessing, right?

What if I told you that God was actually against certain churches?  What if I told you that the most powerful being in the world actively opposed certain bodies?

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Book of the Week: The Multi-Site Church Revolution

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This week’s book of the week is The Multi-Site Church Revolution by Geoff Surratt, Greg Ligon, and Warren Bird.  Multi-site churches are growing by the day.  That term means a whole lot of different things, but fundamentally, it means being one church in many locations. Some of these congregations show videos of their preacher in …

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Your Church’s Best Days Are Not Behind You

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I was talking with a friend the other day concerning the future of his church.  As a pastor in another state, he is working with a congregation that has seen some incredible moments in their history.  The problem is – that’s all they think about.

“Remember when pastor so-and-so did this…remember that revival years ago…remember when all those young families started coming…”

His dilemma was that they had seen God move in the past, and all they wanted to do was to tell of the glory days.

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Overcompensation with My Ankle (And Your Church)

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I am still in crippled status.  After 2 weeks in a hard cast, my ankle is still broken from the infamous basketball game.  I am in the boot for 4 weeks gradually applying some pressure on it.  Still on crutches.  Obie said this morning, “Daddy, your crunches go squeak, squeak like a mouse.”

They sure do.

As you look at this picture above, I will ask you, by the look of it, which ankle is hurt?  Of course you would say, the ankle on the left of the picture is the one hurting.

And you would be wrong.

The ankle in the boot feels fine.  No pain, no real discomfort, it’s just annoying to have it confined to a boot.  The ankle that is hurting more is the ankle on the right side of the picture.  I have experienced a real pain deep inside that ankle not confined to the boot.  When talking to my buddy who is a doctor, he said what I’m experiencing is called overcompensation.  Having to put more weight and pressure on the uninjured ankle oftentimes causes more long term damage than the injured ankle.

I firmly believe the principle of overcompensation is happening in your church right now.  You’ve heard of the 80/20 rule.  20% of the people do 80% of the work.  You look at the other 80% of people as if they are broke and so you start putting more pressure on the 20% that isn’t broke.  The problem?  Overtime, you can cause more damage on the 20% if you burn them out.  From the outside, you still can identify those that are not working in the Body of Christ.  Spotting them is as easy as spotting a broken ankle in a cast.

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Do Buffet-Styled Churches Honor God?

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For years, I have bought into the church growth principle that the more choices you give people in a church, the more successful the church will be.

To agree with that principle, you must gauge a church’s success by the number of people who stay at that church.  But is that true success?

Here are the courses that the American church is serving up:

  • Worship – traditional, contemporary, blended, cutting edge, emergent, ancient future, classic, golden, choir, band, hard rock, country western, southern gospel, chandeliers, go-bos, expensive organ, expensive guitar, etc.
  • Discipleship – Sunday school, community groups, small groups, Bible fellowship classes, on-campus, in-homes, co-ed, single, married, guys only, girls only, by hobby-interest, by age, by life situations, etc.
  • Preaching – coat and tie, jeans and t-shirt, podium, table, old, young, hip, wise, screen, video, sermon, message, talk
  • Family Ministries – discipleship times, creative programs, glorified babysitting, “community” sports programs with a side of Christ, men’s ministry, women’s ministry, single, divorced, newlywed, with kids, with small kids, with fussy kids, for fussy kids, puppets, Awanas, GAs, RAs, children’s choir

And the list could go on.

  1. Is God honored when we explain what church we belong to by describing the type of music we like?
  2. Is God honored when we defend our group’s methods within the church rather than celebrating the diversity of the whole church?
  3. Is God honored when we try to woo members from other churches because this program is better than that program?

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John Piper’s #1 Leadership Tip

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The only problem with Passion 2011 was that there was way too much to process and apply.  I’m still going through lessons and trying to implement them into my life.

One of they keynote speakers at Passion was John Piper who recently took a 7-month sabbatical and came back into the public scene the week of Passion.   His message, “Getting to the Bottom of Your Joy” was huge.  Massive implications, but that wasn’t the best part of his involvment.

The next morning, he spoke to the leaders’ group.  He had planned one talk, but then decided at 6:30 that morning to change directions.

That morning, he shared with us his #1 leadership principle he has learned.

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I Am Not the Best on the Team

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I struggle with pride when I work with others.

Since my mind is constantly evaluating how to improve areas in any level of ministry in which I am even remotely involved, I often lack patience for long meetings with people deliberating over certain options.  My prideful heart wants to inform people that I have a solution that is so grand that no one should even question my ideas.

I know, I have issues.

While I do not verbalize these thoughts, I can easily become frustrated in meetings that I view as time wasters and mentally disengage myself from others.  Even if the improbable chance of my ideas always being the best were true, my attitude needs to be one of service and selflessness (Phil 2:3-5).

As of late, here’s what I am learning:

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Felton Burton: A Life Well Lived

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A dear friend and brother-in-Christ, Felton Burton, died on December 30th and will have funeral services conducted today at North Side.  The above picture is of Felton and his wife, Doris, attending a Date Night at our church 2 years ago.  They were standing as the couple married the longest in a group of hundreds of couples that night.  I remember thinking that night that they were such an example of dedication and faithfulness.

Felton has been an icon in Greenwood.  I could go on to list his accomplishments, but you can read about those in his obituary provided by his family.

I want to focus on one element in particular about Felton that I loved the most: his commitment to making his life count.

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