BillLaMorey.com

Can we reschedule?

One of the things that has really helped me, my family and our church over the past 4 years has been the changes made in my work schedule. Here are the versions of my schedule I have had over the past few years:

1st year -No day off most weeks. I worked a full-time job and was in church start-up mode and so I rarely had a day off. This may have been necessary in the beginning (debatable), but it took a heavy toll on my family.

2nd year -I took Mondays off. At first I liked this, because it definitely beat no days off! Plus, I am usually wiped out after Sundays, so it felt like this was a good time to recharge. However 2 factors eventually became clear to make this less than ideal: 1) I was giving my family my leftovers on my only day off and 2) There was so much follow-up to do from Sunday that it was an internal battle to not focus on work that day (that I often lost).

3rd year - I switched from Mondays to Fridays off. This was a MAJOR improvement! In my Monday "funk", I could still focus on follow up and admin tasks, as long as I didn't have to focus on anything too creative. By Fridays I felt fresh and ready to unwind with my family with one major exception...I had the pressure of the Sunday message to finish the next day!

4th year -(With the addition of staff; thank you, Jesus!) I was able to take a 2nd day off. Friday became my sabbath or "dark" day and Tuesday was just an off day (I still might check e-mails or take a few calls, but I was not at the office). I loved the extra day off, but this schedule still had its challenges such as the constant pressure to finish the message on Saturday, 2 disconnected days off with no "weekend" feel, and Emily rapidly approaching elementary school (which would mean that I never get to see her if I work all weekend).

Into the 5th year (recent modification) -I maintain Friday as my dark day, but I've made Saturday my new flex day (I do spend several hours Saturday night reviewing the message for Sunday AM. Here are the new advantages:

1. Two days off in a row (sort of) which has made all the difference to my wife.
2. I can still spend time with my daughters as they go into grade school.
3. The Sunday message is completely done by Thursday night! (This has made life amazing for me and our staff who had been waiting on me to finish the message so they could finalize other service elements).

I know that this post has a very narrow scope of interest and application. I write this to encourage and challenge other pastors/ministers (though it could easily apply largely to small business owners & entrepreneurs). Here are some questions you should consider:

1. Have you reviewed your schedule lately?
2. Is it still working for you?
3. What changes can you make to improve things for you, your family, your staff, your church?
4. If you can't practically make the changes now, what goals can you set to do so in the future?
5. Are you taking at least one day off? Don't follow my early example and sin by not taking a Sabbath!

Conclusion: Work hard, but also be smart and strategic. Your schedule may need to change as your stage of life, family situation, and church stage all change. And never sacrifice your family in the name of ministry or anything else!

Calvary Fellowship hosts 0-60:

 Pumped that Calvary gets to host this leadership training event for church leaders next week!

If you are a church leader, sign up and come out!
If you are a part of Calvary, we can use a few more volunteers that day to take good care of our guests as they are equipped to further the Kingdom even more effectively!

C3 in Boston

On Monday I went to the C3 mini-conference in Boston. As usual, Ed Young didn't disappoint! I first went to a C3 conference at Fellowship Church's main campus in 2003. That was an amazing, and ground-breaking time for me.

This time the value was in hearing a lot of the things I have been thinking through for our church being confirmed by the things Ed shared. To be sure, I was challenged in a few areas, but I felt affirmed in many as well. The luncheon with Ed & his family for pastors and their wives was also very cool and encouraging.

What really made the brief trip special was that my wife Rebecca was able to accompany me. Since someone was kind enough to care for our children, we were able to go up the night before and have a great time milling around Boston (which is a great city despite the Red Sox).

Grow up, pastors!

"Growing churches are lead by growing leaders." -Nelson Searcy

I believe that is absolutely true. A leader that isn't committed to personal  AND professional growth can bottleneck the entire organization he/she leads. Thus  earlier this year I signed up to  for  a pastors' coaching network with Nelson Searcy, founder of Church Leader Insights and lead pastor of the Journey Church in Manhattan. It was a tremendous time of stretching and growing for me that has benefited me and our entire church (whether they know it or not). My only regret is that I had to miss the last session last Friday due to my recent foot injury.

I decided not to sign up for another 6 months yet, but rather to use this next season to implement and apply all of my learnings, and then probably sign up again the next cycle. However, I just got an e-mail from Nelson indicating they had 4 spots left for this next round.

If you are a pastor, let me strongly encourage you to consider participating. If you think you need help, you're probably right. And if you don't think you need help, you really need help. You may not agree with everything, but I promise you will learn enough and grow enough to make the commitment worthwhile to you and your church. Check it out.

Raw dough, half-baked or fully cooked?

Have you ever had anyone give you an idea and thought, "If they had just thought before they spoke or wrote that e-mail, they NEVER would have presented that!"? Sometimes we refer to an idea like that as half-baked. It's not even that; it's what I now call raw dough. There hasn't been any disciplined thought; an idea simply popped into someone's mind and popped out just as fast. Half-baked is when someone really has taken the time to consider something but they present it for more input. And of course, fully baked would be an idea that has been well thought through and is presented without much need for additional preparation.

Thinking further on this I've concluded that all of these 3 stages are good and all of these are bad depending upon the context in which they're presented. Let me explain:

In an environment of preparation (for example brainstorming): raw dough is very good; just let the ideas rip! Half-baked is OK. Fully-baked is not good in that it could cause inflexibility and suppression of new competing ideas that may actually be better.

In an environment of participation (for example a  strategic team meeting): half-baked ideas are very good, fully-baked is OK and raw dough isn't very helpful because it slows everyone down to filter out poor and dumb ideas (yes, there are many of them).

In an environment of presentation (you've already made your way through the last 2 environments and you now want to pitch a client, or present a vision to your church): Fully cooked is the only way to go!  Half baked ideas won't taste very good and people will knead your raw dough for you.

Application question: Is this post raw dough, half-baked or fully cooked? I'd vote for the 2nd...

Nelson in New York

I love New York! I always get energized whenever I go there (it is convenient being only 2 hours away), and yesterday was no exception! In fact, yesterday was glorious because it was nearly 60 degrees in December...so forget taxis and subways...it was definitely a walking day.

The occasion for my visit was a FREE church-planter's round-table discussion by Nelson Searcy and Kerrick Thomas from The Journey. Having attended a couple of their seminars, and listened to many of their resources, I knew what a great opportunity it would be. As usual, they didn't disappoint!

These guys really have a heart to help church planters and leaders be successful, and if you are one of these, I am certain that you would benefit from their resources. So let me encourage you to check some of these out:

• Church planters can get codes for free downloads on certain resources that include confirming your call, launching large, raising funds, etc. by clicking here
• You can check out live events in Manhattan or purchase recorded sessions here.
• They are hosting a FREE conference in January called "Launch: Starting a Church from Scratch"
• If NYC in January is too cold for you, then you can catch Nelson speak at the Momentum Conference in March in Miami
• Nelson & Kerrick have a new book about launching churches that I wish I had before we started our church

How is that for an unpaid testimonial commercial? I wonder what will ultimately help Nelson sell more books...this post or Rick Warren's forward to his book? It'll be very close...

Developing Leaders

There is a challenge every church planter faces, especially when he parachutes in and launches a church in an area in which he does not know many people. That is how do you identify and appoint (not to mention train and equip) leaders to come alongside of you to help you carry out the vision God has given to you.

I believe (just 16 months into our church) that it is too soon to lay hands on church elders and deacons, however, I believe there is value for the church in building a team of people who care about and for the church, and who are involved in church decisions even in a loose fashion (we don't vote). What I have done is to identify men who have leadership potential, who have a desire to be involved deeply in the church, and/or who are committing to greater levels of service.

I meet with these guys (known as the leadership Team for lack of a better term) and we talk about the successes, challenges, opportunities, strategies, etc. of things happening in our church. We process what has happened and is happening, and plan for what is ahead. In many ways this helps me constantly cast vision, but it also provides valuable feedback for me so that I do not make decisions in a vacuum.

We also (to grow together) read through a book together that we discuss briefly at the beginning of each meeting (we are finishing "Courageous Leadership" by Hybels tonight and starting "An Unstoppable Force" by McManus next. One of the best things we did for leadership development is to attend the Catalyst conference together recently (the conversation and the ripple effects are still strong from that).

I believe that as a Lead Pastor you need to be a leader and as a leader, you need to lead (i.e. building consensus is not spiritual leadership). I also believe that no great thing has been accomplished for the Lord without a team of people committed to the cause and participating in the process (i.e. spiritual leadership is not tyranny). Thus between our infancy stages and the time where we are more mature and have staff and elders and deacons...we have a Leadership Team (from which future staff, elders and deacons may emerge).

Maybe you know a better way...I'd love to hear it!

Addendum: We do have a Board of Directors (as required by law) comprised of pastors and church leaders in Florida who vote on big picture items such as budget, properties, staffing etc. This post was meant to explore means of developing local leaders that will eventually take on greater roles and potentially one day replace the out-of-state leaders.

Catalytic Travels

Tomorrow, I leave with a group of 8 emerging lay-leaders from our church to head to Atlanta for the Catalyst Conference this week. We are extremely pumped to see what God will do in our lives through this event. I attended in 2004 (and have listened to the CDs every year) , and it was then that God really began laying the vision for Calvary Fellowship on my heart. I can't wait to see what God will do in me and in our team as we embark on this adventure anticipating that God will speak to us.

After the conference, I'll stay in Atlanta a few extra days to visit my Mom and some friends and, of course, catch a service at Northpoint. Then I head down to Fort Lauderdale for 2 key events that comprise the second leg of my trip:

First I have a meeting  with our church's Board of Directors where a couple very important decisions will be made.

Then I am doing an update presentation to share what God is doing in our church with a group of  past, present and (God-willing) future supporters.

I better get packing!!!

I want to be Jim Mellado when I grow up...

For those of you who don't know, Jim Mellado is the president of the Willow Creek Association. Though I doubt he remembers it, I had a meeting with him that I will never forget.

A couple years ago, a friend of mine and I came up with an ingenious idea (that still hasn't been pulled off). We were convinced that as we flew around and spoke to some influential church leaders that it was only a matter of time before our idea was going to take off heavy-duty-BIGTIME!

We managed to line up several appointments with some key leaders and then began preparing for our first interview in the Leadership Journal (which we KNEW was inevitable).

Before I get back to Mellado, I have to tell you about our meeting with another church leader who knocked the wind out of our sails. As we sat in his office, he led us through a series of questions, taking feverish notes as we replied. Only at the end of our conversation (after he extracted as much info as possible from us) did he reveal that his group was looking to do exactly what we were so he wasn't interested... We left discouraged and demoralized.

Yet, we got back on the horse and geared up for our meeting with Mellado. As we arrived at Willow, we couldn't help but be intimidated. We were led past a series of high-security "vaults" and into the inner chamber of the senior level big-shots...all we only had to "Just Walk Across the Room" to get to Hybels' office. As we were led into Jim's office we looked at all of his credentials (not the least of which his Harvard MBA) and realized how out of place we were. But immediately our meeting turned out differently than our prior one. He instantly helped us to feel both welcomed and relaxed; even after our slick-looking presentation folder literally fell apart in his hands. We gave our best pitch as calmly and confidently as we could, and stated clearly and compellingly why Willow needed to be involved in this project...Jim said "no." But he did more than that. Before he let us go too far, he shared upfront that they were considering a similar idea. He then went on to share some of their insights and strategies with us. He also looked at our idea, and seemed genuinely interested in helping us succeed; giving us suggestions of how we might successfully pull off such a feat. It was very clear to me why Hybels' has this guy leading so many important things.

We left the office knowing that Jim's "no" response was pretty much going to be the last nail in the coffin of this dream; but I as I told my partner, I have never felt so good about being rejected in all my life! Oddly enough we felt built up after the letdown. We were clearly way out of our league and didn't have the influence to pull of our grand idea, and Jim knew that, but he wasn't condescending or even bothered by us taking up his time. He declined the invitation to be a part of our venture, but then helped us think of ways to win. The bottom line, as busy as he is, Jim took the time to care! I hope that no matter how high or how low God brings me, I will never forget to treat people like people. You can reject an opportunity without rejecting a person. Thanks Jim!