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National Outreach Convention “LIVE”

2009-11-08T15:05:15Z

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5 Cycles of Generosity

2009-11-03T04:14:57Z

Last time we talked, Casey Graham from my sponsorship partner The Change Group shared some common financial mistakes he sees in churches. This time around, I asked him to highlight some opportunities churches have to encourage financial health. The result is this list of the five cycles of generosity Casey has observed in healthy churches.

The Change Group will be hosting two FREE conference calls for lead pastors and ministry leaders on Wednesday, November 11 at 2:00 pm EST and Thursday, November 12 at 3:30 pm EST that will equip your church to take advantage of each cycle next year. If you are interested in participating, sign up online by Friday, November 6.

Here’s Casey’s overview of the 5 Cycles of Generosity:

Most church leaders we work with don’t ever think about the cycles that effect people’s giving. This will help you with a general understanding of the cycles.

Holiday Cycle – People are very generous near the year-end. Creating an intentional strategy for year-end giving is worth the time and effort. I did a post that outlines a simple strategy for you.
New Year Cycle – People are creating priorities for their finances for the next year; why not help them see that the Kingdom of God should be on the list? At the beginning of the year, focusing on vision, personal finances, and people’s financial priorities can bring great benefit to your people and your church. On the call we will develop a very simple New Year plan that will add tremendous value quickly.
Pre-Summer Cycle – People and pocketbooks are notorious for leaving in the summer months. Pre-Summer Cycle is a great time to help people move their gifts to online giving to help minimize the summer giving slump. Join our call to discover a simple strategy for increasing giving in summer.
Summer Cycle – The summer is a great time to connect with people relationally! We are going to discover how you can use the summer months to develop higher levels of trust with your key ministry and giving leaders. This trust will lead to greater generosity.
Fall Cycle – Attendance is up and morale is usually really high! This is a great time to make some sort of financial ask that allows people to fund the mission and vision of your church.

Again, you’ll have a chance to make a connection and learn more about these cycles in on of the conference calls. Take advantage of the free opportunity by registering today.

Marcus Buckingham and I Talk About Women

2009-11-02T20:49:44Z

Earlier this week, I had the opportunity to talk with Marcus Buckingham in a telephone interview. For those of you not familiar with Buckingham, he’s an author and a speaker who is primarily focused on helping individuals discover and capitalize on their personal strengths. His previous books include First, Break All the Rules (co-authored with Curt Coffman) and Now, Discover Your Strengths (co-authored with Donald Clifton, 2001).

In our conversation, we talked about women. Driving the conversation is research revealed by numerous studies indicating a drastic decline in female happiness over the last 40 years. Buckingham has recently released a new book, Find Your Strongest Life: What the Happiest and Most Successful Women Do Differently, offering strategies for reversing this trend.

Marcus Buckingham interview

If you’re interested, you may purchase Find Your Strongest Life using my Amazon link. As Marcus suggested in the interview, you may also access additional resources related to this topic on his company’s website.

Management Rewired

2009-10-31T20:04:36Z

On my most recent trip, I wrapped up Management Rewired by Charles S. Jacobs. Jacobs takes a look at recent brain research to address some myths of leading people that leaders may have erroneously embraced in the past. As examples, he talks about emotions versus logic in decision-making. He addresses the failure of positive or negative reinforcement to improve performance. He addresses the lack of long-term effectivenes of the authoritarian-style of leadership, instead suggesting that leaders cast a compelling vision through the use of communication and stories to empower self-managed teams.

Here are some of the highlights that challenged my thinking:

“Using stories to change behavior is more effective than logical declarations.”
“Leadership isn’t about forcing people to do our bidding, but about telling a story so that they want to do what we need.”
“The study reviewed pay-for-performance programs, which are a fixture of most corporations, and found no linkage between pay and performance.”
“Leaders who inspire outperform any other kind.”
“The more experiential the vision is, the more powerful it will be, so the achievement of the vision should be made as tangible as possible.”
“People are going to embrace a story to make sense of their experience.”
“It’s important for the leader to let the followers feel the competitive pressure, but not to the extent that it makes them insecure.”
“Given the failure of reward and punishment and other extrinsic ways of motivating behavior, managers have no choice but to consistently put the responsibility for performance back on their people.”
“In a mental world, it is ideas that shape behavior, and it is the transformational leader’s job to package the right kind of ideas into a story and to effectively communicate it to the organization.”
“The kind of leadership that works is more humble and therefore more empathetic.”
“Our decisions, no matter what we think to the contrary, are made as much by our emotions as our logic.”
“It’s the role of the transformational leader to create the story that identifies the kind of change needed and to present it in a way that is meaningful and moving. It should align the needs of the individual with those of the organization, so that people see the necessary changes as a way to meet their desire to be part of something bigger than themselves and realize their fullest potential.”
“The best leaders are emotionally expressive.”
“The strongest are often the ones who come across as the most humble, for, given the potential for relationship effects, leaders must step down from their pedestals so that followers don’t become overly dependent.”
“It’s so quick and so easy to tell people what to do or to tell them how badly they’re doing it. It takes longer to come up with questions to help them decide what to do or realize that their performance isn’t cutting it, but the questions produce a better result. Questions build commitment and overcome the resistance to being controlled.”
“When we tap into the stories others are telling themselves, we gain a clearer understanding of who they are and why they do what they do.”
“Stories are the most useful tool we have in the mental world. They have a unique power to sneak up on people and change the way they think and behave.”

If you are interested in reading more, you can purchase Management Rewired using my Amazon link.

How do we encourage busy people to serve?

2009-10-29T22:19:30Z

Last week I started a series of posts on engaging volunteers in ministry. Let me conclude that series by offering this interview with Mark Waltz, the Pastor of Connections at Granger Community Church. Mark, among other things, champions ministry connections at Granger. What’s amazing about the ministry culture at Granger is that there are over 5,000 people attending the church and more than 45% of the church (including kids) is in a serving role. I was curious to learn more about how that has happened, so here’s the interview.

TONY: Tell me about your role at Granger Community Church.

MARK: My role is about people. I’m ultimately responsible for environments that facilitate relationships and growth. Those environments include guest services, groups, classes, volunteer teams, and care ministries. Some call it assimilation. I personally hate that word. No one wants to be assimilated. People are interested in meeting others; people want to make a contribution; people do care about personal growth; people really want to belong. My team and our volunteers are about just that – helping people belong.

TONY: Over 45% of the people who attend Granger, serve in a volunteer role. That’s very high compared to other churches. In your opinion, what’s driving that?

MARK: Ultimately, volunteering is perceived as “normal.” The expectation that ministry is accomplished by people – not merely pastors – is part of our culture. That started nearly 24 years ago when Mark Beeson planted the church. That started with vision: a vision that the people are the church, they own the ministry.

There is also a compelling vision that calls people to something. Something worth giving their lives to… worth their very lives. Again, people want to make a significant contribution; they want their lives to count. Creating clear and accessible onramps allows people to do what they want to do. Schedules that are varied, roles that are “chunked” and values that respect people make for an engaging team culture.

TONY: As Granger has experienced growth, has your strategy for moving people into serving roles changed?

MARK: Our goal has always been the same: make it normal and easy to volunteer. But, yes, our specific strategies have shifted and evolved over the years. We’ve tried connecting people via the weekend program (bulletin). We’ve hosted “ministry fairs” and “volunteer expos.” We’ve used the web.

A year or so ago we borrowed an idea from Fellowship Church, got creative with our own label, and now host periodic “VolunTOUR” opportunities. Guests and members can tour the campus, getting a “behind the scenes” view of the many “first serve” volunteer roles at Granger. We’ve seen the best results with this strategy. It won’t be our last though. I’m sure it’ll change again.

TONY: How would you challenge both staff and volunteer leaders to improve how they build volunteer teams?

MARK: While there’s a clear task to be performed, keep your focus on people. When the focus tilts heavily to “task,” people catch it. You have quotas to fill, a job to do, recruitment to accomplish. No one wants to be assimilated. When you focus on people, you invite. You cast vision for what can be. You invite people to that vision.

I’ve also watched people – staff and volunteers – lose their own passion and enthusiasm for the very thing they’re inviting people to join. This happens because the task becomes the end-all. It also happens because people forget the “why.” We do what we do because people matter to God, because God’s invited us to his agenda of redemption in the world. Forget that, you forget people. Forget people, you’re left with a task you no longer understand.

Finally, invite people to ownership. Invite them to leverage their own gifts, personality and passion to accomplish together what the leader could never do alone.

TONY: What trends do you see in culture that might impact the number of people serving in our churches?

MARK: Don’t miss this: people are already busy before they encounter our menu of church choices. Their choices – their “menus” – are filled with appointments, work, kid’s practices, and a host of volunteer options in the community. Two trends emerge from this reality.

First of all, people have full schedules. The vision will have to be crystal clear and dead-on compelling to cause people to re-evaluate and reprioritize their schedules to volunteer in and around the ministry of the church.

Secondly, when volunteering is done selflessly, from a motive to honor Christ and honor people, it’s no greater service performed in the local church than it is in a community school or civic organization. I’m not suggesting that every community organization is tied into the eternal, kingdom work that the church embraces. However, a cup of cold water offered in Jesus’ name is a cup of cold water – whether it’s at Grace Chapel or the local Red Cross.

Both of these trends – pace and place – will impact the number of people serving in the local church. Perhaps our challenge is to redefine the face and scope of the local church in our community and world. Maybe, just maybe, the church really is people. And when those people serve in local schools, the Red Cross, the soup kitchen and the Job Corps, it really is the work of the “church.”

To hear more about Mark has to offer about connecting people in ministry and helping them belong, I encourage you to pick up his most recent book, Lasting Impressions.

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Story 09: Donald Miller

2009-10-28T22:34:07Z

5:57 PM tonymorganlive - as you might guess, donald is opening his talk with a story.
5:59 PM tonymorganlive - “a story is a character that wants something and overcomes conflict to get it.”
6:01 PM tonymorganlive - “what’s meaningful in a story is meaningful because it’s meaningful in life.”
6:01 PM tonymorganlive - “story has unbelievable power to engage the human brain.”
6:05 PM tonymorganlive - “we sit down with the text and ask, ‘what’s in it for me?’ what if it’s just about God?”
6:12 PM tonymorganlive - “a character in story is only what they actually do.”
6:19 PM tonymorganlive - “conflict is in fact very, very beautiful. a story cannot be meaningful unless it includes conflict.”
6:21 PM tonymorganlive - “you were designed to be the person who walks around naked and doesn’t know it. no offense, but i don’t want you to be the person God designed you to be.”
6:23 PM tonymorganlive - “conflict is the only way a character changes in a story. the only way a person becomes better is through pain.”
6:23 PM tonymorganlive - “pain changes us.”
6:24 PM tonymorganlive - “conflict lends value to that which we want to attain.”
6:28 PM tonymorganlive - “conflict has to take place in your life in order for life to have meaning.”
6:29 PM tonymorganlive - “your conversion experience is not the climax of the story. the conflict continues.”
6:33 PM tonymorganlive - “the number one way you and i consume stories is through each other.”

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Story 09: Nancy Beach

2009-10-28T19:18:07Z

3:04 PM tonymorganlive - “i have always treasured a good story.”
3:07 PM tonymorganlive - nancy is sharing quotes from a book. sorry. didn’t catch name of it or author.
3:09 PM tonymorganlive - “i wish Jesus had stayed in the grave for about a week, because it would have made it easier for us artists.” (talking about programming for Good Friday and Easter Sunday services)
3:12 PM tonymorganlive - “there’s never been an age that hasn’t produced fairy tales.”
3:14 PM tonymorganlive - “there’s a child lurking in everyone of us.”
3:17 PM tonymorganlive - now hearing holly laurent read a story.

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Story 09: John Ortberg

2009-10-28T19:00:08Z

2:45 PM tonymorganlive - (listening to john ortberg here…one of my favorite communicators.)
2:48 PM tonymorganlive - “am i willing to hear the story of this world?”
2:49 PM tonymorganlive - “it’s so easy to get focused on me and my story.”
2:52 PM tonymorganlive - (fyi… my friends from monvee.com were across the hall from my lunch session where john ortberg was also speaking. the smart people chose ortberg over me for lunch.)
2:53 PM tonymorganlive - “shalom means ‘the way God wants things to be.’”
2:57 PM tonymorganlive - “God, your Kingdom come. Your will be done.”
2:58 PM tonymorganlive - “die to your old story and become part of a bigger story.”

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Story 09: Chris Seay

2009-10-28T17:00:43Z

12:34 PM tonymorganlive - “words only point us someplace.”
12:34 PM tonymorganlive - “tell the creation story rather than fighting how long a ‘day’ is.”
12:39 PM tonymorganlive - “teach the narrative of Scripture rather than reducing it to propositions.”
12:39 PM tonymorganlive - “i love Chicago. i hate the Cubs.”
12:40 PM tonymorganlive - “the world should have more one-armed truck drivers.”
12:46 PM tonymorganlive - “the Bible is not your sword to pick up and hit people with.”
12:50 PM tonymorganlive - “we need not propositionalize everything.”
12:51 PM tonymorganlive - “we’re not tired because we’re doing too much. we’re tired because we’re doing the wrong things.”
12:58 PM tonymorganlive - “there’s no one more inclusive than Jesus.”
12:59 PM tonymorganlive - “we must call sin ’sin.’ but we can’t say, “deal with this first, and then we’ll deal with you.’”

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