We've learned a lot about direct mail over the last few years at Calvary Fellowship.  We used to spend a fortune on direct mail and get minimal results. Then we learned the "secrets" to effective direct mail and now we see incredible results at a fraction of the cost.  

For that reason, I'm going to be leading a Tele-seminar on December 3rd from 1PM-3PM called, "The 7 Deadly Sins of Direct Mail".  

Here's what I'm going to cover in this 2-hour tele-seminar: 

- How to stop spending a fortune on direct mail AND increase your response

- How to get your direct mail read

- How to avoid the 7 biggest mistakes churches make when they do direct mail

- How to get real data to know if your direct mail is working

- How to speak the language of those you're trying to reach

- How to set up a system for effective direct mail

- Plus, answers to the most common questions about direct mail!

If you're planning on doing direct mail for Christmas eve, a January series or February kick-off, do yourself a favor and be part of this tele-seminar.  

I'll even go this far and make this guarantee: if you attend the tele-seminar and don't feel like you got anything, I'll refund your investment. That's how strongly I feel about this topic! 

Churches are throwing away thousands of dollars because they aren't being strategic about how they use direct mail. Learn the secrets to effective direct mail and start getting amazing results!  

Here's the link to register for the tele-seminar. (FYI - I have a limited number of lines available for this tele-seminar, so register sooner than later). 

- Great Sunday!

- I taught from Proverbs 21 on the subject of "How to be Wise with your Finances"

- I spent about 10 minutes talking about tithing and 45 people decide to take the tithe challenge. 

- I believe over 200 people have taken the tithe challenge this year at Calvary Fellowship! 

- My favorite part is hearing the stories of how God "opens the windows of heaven"

- I have always said that the key to an effective tithe challenge is in the follow up process you have

- If you want to know what our follow up process it, it's here

- Band sounded great today. We are blessed with an amazing bunch of musicians!

- Looking forward to teaching on parenting next week. I will speak as a fellows struggler, not an expert :) 

- People are really excited about the new Miramar Campus! I can't wait!

- We just started our Christmas offering 2 weeks ago and we're 60% of the way to our goal! Calvary is an incredibly generous church.  

- I am blown away by the impact of this Proverbs series. God is growing us in wisdom. 

- Got to meet a bunch of new people. It's great to hear about what God is doing in the lives of new believers. 

- I am so excited about a tele-seminar I'm leading on Dec. 3rd. I'm talking about how to get great results from direct mail. I think it's going to help a lot of churches that want to do a Christmas Eve outreach, a January series push, or a February kick off. You can get the info here. 

- I'm reading a great book right now, which is great because I've a bunch of duds recently.  

- I'm talking about the thing you have to before you do direct mail in the www.church-strategies.com newsletter. Plus, I'm reviewing a great book that I read this week. You can subscribe here for free. 

- Looking forward to spending time with my coaching network on Thursday! Amazing group of guys that are seeing awesome things happen in their churches. I'm blessed to invest in them! 

- Got home from church and spent the afternoon with my wife and kids. I love my life! I'm grateful to the Lord for blessing me as much as He has. I'm humbled by God's grace in my life. 

- Have a great week! 

Here's a great review of Zero to Sixty by Louie Marsh...

"Zero to Sixty is a very practical and powerful book by pastor Bob Franquiz.  As the title implies it contains 60 short chapters which are organized into four areas of concern: Leadership Strategies, Staffing  Strategies, Ministry Strategies and Personal Development Strategies.

Each chapter is short and punchy, and gets to the point quickly! In this day and age that’s a good thing. Bob successfully avoids one of the worst sins in modern Christian publishing, telling long, boring, repetitive stories that simply repeat the points that the author has already made several times!  It just filler, plain and simple, and you won’t find any of that here!

Thanks Bob!

Beyond that what you will find are some very practical and pointed advice in this book. Based in Scripture, common sense, and his own Pastoral experience, Bob Franquiz lays down some good to great advice for the reader.

So who’s this book for?  Pastors obviously.  Beyond that any person in a leadership position in a church could benefit from large parts of this book. You might find every chapter helpful or relevant to you (like the chapter on how to treat your wife – I admit I skipped it!).  But you will find good stuff which will teach you, or reinforce what you already know, as well as challenge you to get off your duff and do better!

In Short:  Get this book and devour it if you are in church leadership!"

I've gotten this question a few times from Pastors who are interested in joining my coaching network that starts in February. 

The model that I work from in my coaching network is what I call an "Inside out" approach to leadership. 

We start with the Leader (Senior Pastor) and work our way out to developing a plan to reach the community. 

Modern evangelism models say we must build the church outside-in and when it comes to growing the church, that's true.  

But when you're looking to develop yourself and other leaders, the place to start inside and work your way out. 

That's why my coaching network is organized as follows: 

Session One: The Personal Development of the Senior Pastor

Session Two: Church Structure/ Follow up Systems 

Session Three: Building a Healthy and Effective Staff 

Session Four: Creating a Volunteer system that builds leaders

Session Five: Preaching/ Creating an Evangelistic Culture  

Session Six: Advanced Outreach Strategies 

You can learn more about my new coaching network that begins in February by clicking here for an application. 

(Please note: my coaching networks are limited to 12 Pastors, so don't delay!)

If you're going to help servants grow in their leadership, you need to decide what roles are of higher priority than others. For example, here is how this model plays out with our greeters: 

Single A volunteer - person greeting on Sunday

Double A volunteer - person overseeing that team of greeters that morning

Triple A volunteer - person who oversees the greeter ministry 

Major Leagues - Staff member who oversees our entire hospitality area

The key is to move people as you see the potential in them flourish. I talk about this model in my book Zero to Sixty: 60 principles and practices for leading a growing church. There's nothing worse than a faithful volunteer with huge potential staying at a single A spot. 

(FYI - just don't move them until you've seen a level of faithfulness in them that you feel comfortable moving them to the next level). Because the only thing worse than not promoting a faithful volunteer with the potential to do move is to promote an unfaithful volunteer who has not been faithful with his/her God-given gifts. 

If you want to increase your volunteer base and know how we equip volunteers, check out our resource "Serving Strategies" by clicking here (If you want the MP3 version, it's here)

I've been thinking about volunteers a lot lately for a couple of reasons: 

1. It's my topic for my coaching network next month

2. We asked 50 people to commit to serve and make a move to our new Miramar campus and we had over 60 step up in the 1st week! 

3. Churches are volunteer-intensive organizations and the day we stop leading volunteers into greater steps of commitment and growth, we're in trouble (and they get stalled in their spiritual and leadership development)

So here's what I suggest: looking at your church like a baseball team. A baseball team isn't just the 25 guys that make up the Major League team. There's also a farm system that's funneling young players to the big leagues. 

I believe every position in your church needs to have a designation of: 

Single A - entry level position 

Double A - Overseeing a team within a ministry

Triple A - High capacity leader overseeing a ministry

Major Leagues - Staff Member with responsibility for that ministry

Next time I'll talk about how we delineate between a single, double and triple A position and what each position needs. 

To increase your volunteer base and know how we invest in our volunteers, check out our "Serving Strategies" resource by clicking here. (If you want the mp3 download version, it's here)

I've gotten this question in several different forms, but it's usually something like this: "How can I make my meetings more effective?" 

Most meetings are: 

1. Too long

2. Too dull

3. Too scattered

That being the case, my philosophy for effective meetings is to make meetings: 

1. Shorter (90 minutes at most)

2. More exciting (Make sure the content is relevant to everyone in the meeting)

3. More focused - you don't have to discuss every issue. If a discussion is going to derail the meeting, have a separate meeting to deal with that issue and only have the necessary parties there. 

I talk about meetings in greater detail in the Zero to Sixty Seminar which you can pick up by clicking here. 

This is a great question I got recently: "Bob, what does commitment mean at Calvary? It seems like my definition and my leaders have two different definitions. How do I change that?" 

Awesome question! I have found that there's only one way to change that mindset - you have to define what commitment means according to the Bible. I've found the best vehicle for that is instituting a membership class. 

When you have a solid membership system, you set the baseline of commitment for the church. If being committed to your church means believers should be attending, serving, giving and growing, then your membership class should outline that.  

If you don't establish a baseline of commitment, everyone will decide what they think commitment means.  Trust me, you don't want to be there :) 

If you want a resource that will help you establish a solid membership system in your church, pick up our resource, "The Complete Membership System" by clicking here.