BillLaMorey.com

Weekly Mind Dump 3.13.11

Here we go...

•  We tried our best at Calvary to spread the word, but some people still let Daylight Savings Time get the best of them, and they didn't make it to church!
• Though a lot of our regulars were out, I got to meet a bunch of 1st-time guests today (thank you to everyone who invited them!)
• Another person gave their lives to Jesus at service today; yeah! Jesus = WINNING.
• Today I taught on Galatians 5:1-15 in a message called "Freed for Freedom" 
• Watching back your messages on video can be very helpful and difficult. Through it Chip has detected a habit I do EVERY message within the 1st minute. Now that he pointed it out, it's annoying me and I'm trying to stop.
• This past Friday we had our annual Volunteer Appreciation Dinner. We have such an awesome group of men and women that serve at Calvary and it was great to spend some time recognizing them and honoring them by serving them that night.
• Next Sunday there is no church service because our church is going out to serve the community; can't wait! (This article about the event was published in the Hartford Courant today)
• I just finish a great book yesterday that EVERY Christian should read, "Money, Greed, and God: Why Capitalism Is the Solution and Not the Problem" by Jay W. Richards (Review coming tomorrow)
• People have asked if giving up TV/movies for Lent has been challenging for me. A little, but every time I consider Jesus' sacrifice for me, mine tends to pale in comparison :)
• One disadvantage of the TV fast has been the inability to watch all of the coverage about the tragedy in Japan. Pictures are one thing, but I have been spared of all of the gruesome videos I've hear so much about. What I do know about the situation breaks my heart and keeps me praying for our friends in Japan.
• Today, my youngest daughter Ava turns 3. I can't believe how fast my girls are growing up! We're sugaring up the kids on cake and then taking them to a bounce house place to get it all out of their system. Should be a blast!

I don't want our church to grow (in the absence of these 3 things)

Today' s post is sort of a flipside companion piece to the one from a few days ago called "I unashamedly, unapolgetically want our church to grow." Yes, that is true, but not at any cost. If our church lacks the following three things, I'm not all that interested in growth:

1. Conversions

Some churches grow primarily by being the best show in town. They siphon believers from other churches, get big and call it success. Don't get me wrong, I want people that are already Christians to discover and be a part of our church too; especially those new to town or those displaced from a church home. But I want them to join us on mission to reach our community. And I don't reallty want people to leave a solid home church and come to ours.

New believers are a lot like physical kids. They don't know a lot, can't do a lot, and they require lots of time, attention, care, patience and work! However, like physical kids, new spiritual kids are a blessing; they are precious, full of life, energy and enthusiasm. Just like real kids they also help those around them grow up in return as we have to learn to become less selfish and more concerned with the needs of others. Plus there's that whole Great Commission thing!

2. Change

I don't want to be a part of a church that is a mile wide and an inch deep. I want to be a part of church that is growing not only in depth but also in breadth. We know that life-transformation really rests in God's hands, not our own, but here are some things we do to try to create an environment where change can best happen:

• We emphasize Jesus and the gospel -External obedience is no substitute for change that begins inside and works its way out. We try to help people dig underneath the surface to allow Jesus to deal with their hearts.
• We teach the Bible in depth -Yes, we do attractional series (often topical) with the seeker in mind. But we also do deepening series (often exegetical) with the believer in mind. In both cases we consider the entire audience and try to have something to teach and challenge people at various stages of spiritual growth.
• We challenge people to take next steps -Every single week we challenge people to take a next step in their journey with God. They might not even take the suggested steps, but they constantly hear the challenge, and realize that there is a next step for them that God desires them to take.
• We offer balanced spiritual nutrition -You could summarize the above two as diet and excercise. Just as physical health requires a good balance of both, so does spiritual growth. We intentionally emphasize both regularly.
• We are also offering more depth growth opportunities like our Biblical Counseling Training Class.

3. Commitment

A Christian is committed to Jesus. If you aren't committed to Jesus, you are not a Christian. Likewise, a Christian is committed to Christ's body; the church. I do not believe a person can be a growing Christian without being committed (which means more than attendance) to a local church.

We have had people leave when we have raised the heat on commitment. I am OK with that. The early church is a model of deep commitment to Christian community, and I think there are many lessons to learn from them. Here are some things we do to raise the commitment level.

• Teach on commitment regularly serving, giving, evangelism, fellowship, etc. (so people understand what is "normal" Christian living)
• Model commitment. People won't be committed if their leaders aren't...period.
• We are implementing church membership this year with the hope that it will raise awareness on the commitment required to follow Jesus and function responsibly and effectively within His body.

Note: Our staff is throwing a volunteer appreciation dinner tonight to honor all of those who serve at Calvary. I am so thrilled that we are blessed with so many who faithfully give of themselves to serve Jesus and His people at our church! When I think of each of them, it makes me confident that our church will grow and should grow, because God's kingdom would be well served with more people like these!

On the fires of judgment and career counseling

So we received this fascinating and bizarre recording on our church's voicemail: Download Memo (click once to play within site)

I have 2 thoughts about it:

1. This is why theology matters...it can quickly help us weed out weirdness.
2. Regardless of what he says, the WAY he says it is awesome; his voice is amazing! In fact I believe his career coach greatly failed him. He should be doing apocalyptic messages of doom  as voiceovers for films and metal concept albums instead of hassling churches with them

I unashademly, unapologetically want our church to grow!

The title of this post alone will be sufficient to send some into a hissy fit. How about if I up the ante and say I want to see our church outgrow our current location again, launch new church plants, and start new campuses. Uh-oh, I just sent somebody into overload. "C'mon church growth isn't important...you shouldn't be all about the numbers" Bull. Numbers represent people, and people are the reason God sent Jesus on His redemptive mission to our planet!

Why do I want to see our church grow? Because it means that:

• More people will turn their lives over to Jesus (as long as we're not just stealing sheep from other churches; which I'm really not interested in) Depopulating Hell gets me excited! Not to mention giving people the hope, healing, meaning and purpose found in Jesus!!
• More people will grow in their faith (you cannot grow spiritually mature apart from a local body of believers)
• More people will get on mission to make a dent in serving and reaching out to the people in our community with tangible expessions of the love of Christ
• More people means more opportunities for current church members to serve and step into expanded roles of leadership (thus continuing their discipleship)

You see, I just have these crazy beliefs...

• I believe to my my core that the entire world needs Jesus desperately
• I believe that our church is a good place for people to experience God because Jesus is magnified, the Bible is taught, and God is honored
• I believe that God has assembled an amazing group of people; the staff, the volunteers, everyone! So I know that a new Christian comes into a loving, supportive environment
• I believe that church growth honors God (the Bible teaches we are to be faithful AND fruitful

Because of my beliefs I let go of my career path over a decade ago and committed to serving God fulltime. Therefore, I pour my all into what I do every single week. So OF COURSE I want to see that my family and my church family are all making a difference with what we've committed our lives to!

Some will question the motive of me or others who also want their churches to grow. "You just want bragging rights..." God knows my heart so I won't bother defending that. But can't we learn a lesson from Paul and rejoice wherever Christ is made known instead of being caught up in someone's motive?:

“It is true that some preach Christ out of envy and rivalry, but others out of goodwill. “But what does it matter?...The important thing is that in every way, whether from false motives or true, Christ is preached. And because of this I rejoice. Yes, and I will continue to rejoice, ” (Philippians 1:15, 18, NIV)

Lest I be too misunderstood, church growth has never been the measure of our success. We look to "changed lives" as the metric for whether or not we are succeeding at our mission. This places us in dependence upon God's Spirit, because we're not capable of changing anyone's life. However, the greater the number of people in your church, the greater opportunity there is for changed lives. So while church growth isn't the meaure of our success it is a goal, and something we desire and plan for without apology.

The fact that I want our church to grow does not mean I want it to grow at any cost or through any method. I'll talk about HOW I'd like to see our church grow in another post this week...

Weekly Mind Dump 3.06.11

• Even with the rain this warm weather (above 50 or even 40) is nice; after this winter I think everyone around here is ready for spring!
• I taught today on trusting God rather than ourselves in a message called "I've Got It!" (Galatians 4:21-31) [Someone told me after service that they looked up the whole Isaac & Ishmael thing on their phone and were blown away at the modern day connection. Normally I discourage surfing the web during church, but we'll let it slide... :)]
• Another person commited their life to Jesus at service today and one of the kids in our student ministry did too at a snow camp retreat this weekend. This stuff makes me thrilled!!!
• Dave, our worship leader, was out today, but Joel and the team did an awesome job. It's easy to take for granted what a nice treat this is and forget all about our video worship days of the past.
• Starting Wednesday I am giving up TV and movies for Lent. I am excited, but man it's going to be looooong 40 days! (Dr. House, I think I'll miss you most) Any book recommendations???
• I can't wait for the Drive Conference in three weeks -ready to get recharged!
• I am super excited about our Volunteer Appreciation Dinner this Friday night. We have an amazing group of volunteers that make things happen at Calvary and the staff and I can't wait to serve and honor them for all they do.
• To this day, people do not have a sufficent appreciation of papaya.

Branding ideas that never took off for our church

Not sure why these didn't work out for us...

Paid subscriptions that save our church Pt. 3 -Wufoo

The 3rd and final monthly subscription service that our church has come to depend on is Wufoo. We just recently began using Wufoo when we redid our website about a month ago. We have already come to love it!

Wufoo is a formbuilder service that allows you to create forms and integrate them into your site. With it you can easily:

• Create online event registations
• Generate automatic responses to users and automatic notifcations to event organizers
• Tether online registration payments with the actual registration process
• Make online applications available
• Seamlessly integrate all forms into your website

Here are a few samples of Wufoo in action on our site:

• Our Volunteer Application
• Our Biblical Counseling request form
• Our Biblical Counseling Class registration form

Wufoo has already been a huge help to us and we have plans to get even more usage out of it for small group sign-ups, special events, surveys, etc.! Check it out.

Paid subscriptions that save our church Pt. 2

Another paid monthly subscription that saves our church a lot of time and effort is Constant Contact. As a disclaimer I know there are a lot of great newsletter options, so my advocacy is for the idea of this service more so than the particular brand. However, since we use Constant Contact, that's the brand I'll focus on in this post.

Before we used Contact Contact I crudely sent eblasts with Outlook. This had many limitations and finally had to be eliminated because our list just got too big to manage that way. Here are some of the benefits we have enjoyed since using Constant Contact for our newsletter needs:

• The ability for people to easily opt in. In addition to submitting their info at a church service, people can easily opt in to our newsletter on almost every page of our church website
• The ability for people to easily opt out. Sometimes people move, leave your church, hate your church, etc. By having a "please remove me from your list" feature people can automatically be removed without them having to feel awkward about sending you a request
• Giving people easy options to stay informed and connected by having links for people to learn more, to register, to listen to recent messages, to give, etc.
• Statistics. It's nice to see how many people actually open up and read your e-mails (hint, it's much less than you think!)
• Aesthetics and professionalism. The driving reasons for using a service like Constant Contact is function, however it's a nice perk to have everything look so much better!

If your  church is getting started, it may be a good idea for you to implement use of an e-newsletter. If your church has more than 100 people attending regularly, it is probably a necessity.

Pt. 1.: Planning Center