Ministry Best Practices

Creativity is Messy

2010-07-26T17:29:00.002-04:00

Creativity is not neat. It is not orderly. When we are being creative we don’t know what is going to happen next. When we are being creative a great deal of what we do is wrong. When we are being creative we are not efficient.

-Eugene Peterson, Under the Unpredictable Plant, p. 163

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Have You Been Googled?

2010-07-25T16:46:00.001-04:00

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Have you ever "googled" yourself? Of course you have. And what did you find? Chances are as you may be either looking for a church/pastoral position or hiring for one, you've turned to google. But what are the challenges and potential problems for both the potential candidate and the search committee?

In the Call and Response blog from Duke Divinity school, Carol Howard Merritt discusses the issue of search committees and Google.

This experience has made me wonder: what happens if someone on a search committee Googles the name of a candidate who has been attacked by a vicious blogger? How much will that weigh on the committee’s decision? We can usually control what sort of information we put on the Internet about ourselves, but we cannot control what people say about us. We also have very little legal recourse in these situations (to dig deeper, see Daniel Solove).

How do we lead religious institutions in the Google generation? There are a few possibilities.

First, religious leaders can severely limit their web interactions. Some people have decided that it is too dangerous for one’s reputation to get in the mud of social media. If they do interact, then it’s all business. I respect this decision, but I also think that social media presents incredible opportunities for us to connect with people in authentic and creative ways. I would hate to miss out on that because I’m a pastor. In fact, it seems that I should be involved because I’m a pastor.

Second, we can encourage no-Google policies in our job searches. This is something that Daniel Solove condones, but I’m afraid it is not possible. When an employer is trying to gain as much information about a candidate’s character as possible, then I’m not sure that they can ignore such an important research tool. And even if the search committee did maintain a no-Google policy, the people in the institution or pew will be looking up the name on search engines.

Read the rest HERE

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Don't Do the "Yearly Dump"

2010-05-26T16:14:00.000-04:00

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It doesn't matter if you are in a business or a church/ministry...yearly performance reviews are the norm. But are they necessarily the best. I appreciate Phil Cooke's thoughts on it, in his latest blog post:

If you store things up and do the "yearly dump" I think it creates many more hard feelings. Employees need to be reviewed, encouraged, and corrected. But do it as the problems (or good stuff) happens. Don't wait until they've forgotten what the reprimand was about in the first place.

(read the whole post HERE)

Phil communicates what I have been thinking for a long time. It may be necessary to document performance for the employment file, but in terms of actual usefulness, it is better to receive (both for the employee and the organization) real time feedback.

What do you think?

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Still Think Social Media is a FAD?

2010-05-17T16:43:00.000-04:00

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This is an updated video from the original Social Medial Revolution.

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Making Ideas Happen

2010-05-09T23:00:00.002-04:00

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Over at Tim Schraeder's blog, he has a great review of Scott Belsky's book, Making Ideas Happen.

Here is an excerpt:

In his new book Making Ideas Happen, Scott Belsky, CEO of Behance, argues that ideas are worthless if you can’t make them happen and offers this simple equation…

Making Ideas Happen = The Idea + Organization and Execution + Forces of Community + Leadership Capability

The Idea
The era upon us is filled with problems and opportunities that require fresh innovation like never before. We need to conceive new ideas to address the problems and opportunities that surround us – and we need to defy the odds and make these ideas happen.
Ideas are in no short supply. In fact, I think most of us are plagued with too many of them! The process of innovating and creating is birthed with a single idea… a new way of doing something or a better way to do something else.

In today’s Church, we need new ideas and insights to better reach and impact our communities with the Gospel. However plentiful our ideas may be, unless we act on them we’ll still keep doing what we’ve always done and fail to innovate new ways to make a difference in people’s lives.

Organization and Execution
Creative professionals – defined as those who generate (and sometimes execute) ideas for a living – constitute what is most likely the most disorganized community on the planet. But these same individuals are ultimately responsible for the design, entertainment, literature, and new businesses that bring meaning to our lives.
If you’re at all a creative-type, like me, you probably live your life with a certain degree of chaos and disorganization. We somehow equate clutter with creativity, but this book slapped me the face to bring order to the chaos.

It’s only when you are organized that you are fully prepared to effectively execute.

(read the rest over at Tim's blog)

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Social Networking Media in Congregations: Possibilities & Practicalities, July 26-29

2010-05-05T22:08:00.000-04:00

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(I will be one of the speakers/workshop leaders for this event below. If you are a pastor or ministry leader in the Southeast region, you don't want to miss this event.)

The Center for Lifelong Learning invites you to this interactive event designed to help church leaders explore, plan, launch, and maintain social networking media such as Facebook, blogs, Constant Contact, Skype, Twitter, YouStream, Flickr, and podcasts. You'll learn how to choose from the huge array of social networking options, based on what your ministry wants to accomplish.

Seminary president Steve Hayner and Georgia Institute of Technology's Susan Wyche are keynote speakers. The event includes workshops sessions for beginners and for those already familiar with various forms of social networking media, as well as panel discussions with pastors and other church leaders experienced in using social media effectively in their congregations. For details about plenary themes and workshop topics, click HERE to view the event schedule.

Click HERE for event schedule and registration, and HERE for housing registration.
Questions about registration? Contact Lifelong Learning Registrar Angela Wyatt (WyattA@CTSnet.edu).

Questions about the event?
Contact Linda Morningstar (morningstarl@ctsnet.edu or 404-687-4636).

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When Ideas Go BAD!

2010-04-20T16:03:00.001-04:00

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TV Hat, a baseball cap with an elongated peak from which hangs a “personal private theater”. It is a head-mounted blackout tent into which you drop your portable media player, wherein you can watch movies in the glare of the midday sun, or in bed next to your smiling spouse. It costs $30, and includes a 2.5x magnification screen.

Obviously someone thought this was a good idea to manufacture and market - but it doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that this is a dumb idea. First of all it looks like a feed bag, and who in their right mind would wear this in public (or private for that matter).

Like marketing the latest gadget, ministry is also filled with ideas that look good on paper, but once implemented become dismal failures. Although it is OK to risk, try and be willing to fail - it is also important to create ideas that will really work.

One way to guard against implementing awful ideas is to get other people's feedback and objective opinions - particularly people who aren't close to the issue, ministry or church.

Do you have someone outside your organization that you can go to in order to bounce your ideas off of - so that you don't fall in the trap of producing a new and fresh idea that will go terribly bad?

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Is the Era of FREE Social Media Coming to an End?

2010-04-20T10:54:00.001-04:00

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Just posted from Beth Kanter's blog:

Last week, Ning, announced a complete end to free services for its users. This includes many, many schools, community groups, and grassroots nonprofits that embraced the free service since it opened its doors in 2007 and will now be forced to pay, or relocate their communities, or say farewell. We've been seeing the end of the era of free social media applications over the past few months. Last November, Causes, a popular and free social networking fundraising application, ditched its Myspace widgets and Ideablob closed its doors.

Are churches and ministries prepared to eventually pay for what is free? And if that meant keeping their most strategic social media sites up and running (i.e. Facebook), do you think they would be willing to do so? And at what cost?

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Do Christians Have An Original Bone In Their Body?

2010-04-19T20:14:00.001-04:00

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Read this on Phil Cooke's blog a while back,

"Filmmaker Jesse Bryan, media producer at Mars Hill Church in Seattle sent me this interesting article from USA Today. The question is the $4.6 billion dollars in Christian merchandizing - most of it rip offs from the outside culture. As the paper says,"American retailers sell about $4.6 billion worth of Christian products annually, and some are spoofs or spinoffs of commercial logos or brand names. Many such goods are illegal, trademark attorneys say, but companies often are unaware their names are being copied or don't put up a fight for fear of being labeled anti-faith."

We wonder why Christians don't make more of an impact in the culture, when so little of what we do is really original and innovative. When it's easier to copy ideas from the non-believing culture, what attraction is that for them to consider our perspective on faith?"

We worship a God who is infinitely and wondrously creative - who created all that is in the world, with all of it's variety and beauty. Then why can't the people of God reflect that creativity rather than merely rip off, copy and make pale imitations from the culture around us?

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Growth is a Biological Metaphor

2010-04-16T07:23:00.004-04:00

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…we pay attention only to those parts of reality that we can measure with numbers.

…But we forget that growth is a biological, not an arithmetical metaphor. Growth in biology has to do with timing, passivity, waiting, proportion, maturity. There is a proper size to each thing. There are proportions to be attended to. It is an exceedingly complex and mysterious thing, this process of growth. Every congregation has proportions, symmetries, and a size proper to it. Different congregations in different places and conditions will have different proportions and sizes.

-Eugene Peterson, Under the Unpredictable Plant, p. 138."

(ht: Buzzard)

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Never Lose Infinite Hope

2010-04-14T08:11:00.001-04:00

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Ministry leader,...does your ,ministry situation look hopeless? Are you discouraged? Have hope, anticipated certainty, upon the Lord.

We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope."

Martin Luther King, Jr.

There is no love without hope, no hope without love, and neither hope nor love without faith.

Augustine of Hippo

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Hurt by the Church? - There Can Be Healing

2010-04-12T17:08:00.001-04:00

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One of the objectives of many churches is to attract people who do not participate in the life of a church. New research from The Barna Group, however, points out that most of the unchurched in America may be different than expected.

Based on past studies of those who avoid Christian churches, one of the driving forces behind such behavior is the painful experiences endured within the local church context. In fact, one Barna study among unchurched adults shows that nearly four out of every ten non-churchgoing Americans (37%) said they avoid churches because of negative past experiences in churches or with church people.

Read the whole report from Barna.org

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Facebook Fan Page Training Videos

2010-04-12T08:00:00.001-04:00

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LifeChurch has recently created a library of Facebook Training Videos so that you or your church/ministry web guru will have the tools and training necessary to pull off creating and managing a Facebook Fan page for your ministry.

Training includes videos that you can even download for your own use.

You can get some training for:

Events
Configuration
Fan Updates
Insights and Metrics
Moderation
Notes
Photos
Videos
Wall Updates

Now there is no excuse to get a Facebook Fan Page up and running and therefore increasing exponentially your ministry's communication, connection and reach.

(ht: ChurchCrunch)

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The Joy of Making Word Clouds

2010-04-09T14:12:00.001-04:00

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If you are not familiar with what a word cloud (or tag cloud) is, it's a visible depiction of a set of words and text, with the size of the words being delineated by their frequency.

These word clouds can be a great illustration tool for bible study, especially when you want to emphasize the frequency of the words within a Bible passage. Also, because they can be done in customized shapes, they also can become beautiful works of art.

There is a new tool online called Tagxedo.com, curently in beta, which is an excellent tool in accomplishing the word cloud effect.

The example of the "JOY" word cloud is one that I created. I created it by importing Philippians, chapter 1 into the editor. (since the letter of Philippians is about joy).

You can customize the shape, style, appearance and content of the cloud. This is an excellent tool, and now is the time to try it while it is still in beta and all of the features are available for free. (once it goes out of beta, it will reserve some of the features to a PRO paid edition - but it says that much of the functionality of the program will still be available for free).

For another example of creating word clouds, visit my blog, ProvocativeChurch.

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6 Reasons Why You Should Avoid Social Media

2010-04-09T11:01:00.000-04:00

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If you have been an avid reader of Ministry Best Practices, you know that I am a big social media advocate...but for some of you, social media may not be for you. If you don't have the proper expectations and the issues thought through, then you should avoid social media at all costs.

You should avoid social media if...

1. You like control - Social Medial is messy. With Social Media you are inviting participation and collaboration. If you like to control the message and the medium, then stay far away from it. (see Related Post)

2. You have no clear purpose or goals in doing it - Getting involved with Social Media, just because "everybody is doing it", won't keep your church and ministry engaged with it for the long haul. After the newness wears off, you will need to have clear goals and measurable outcomes to keep your ministry persevering with it.

3. You have no clear owner - Your Social Media outposts (i.e. Facebook, Twitter) don't run themselves. If you don't have a clear owner(s) over it, it will never happen and your Social Media outlets will look like unused wastelands.

4. You think that it going to be the answer to all your problems - Social Media will enhance your engagement with your church or ministry, but it doesn't solve all your ministry's problems.

5. You think that it will happen quickly - Nope, just like real relationships, Social Media requires time and investment. It will take time to develop your Social Media presence, it won't happen over night.

6. You don't think about the content - If you don't have any meaningful content to offer, then save your energy. Content is king!

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11 Epic Fails Involving Ministry Idolatry

2010-04-08T07:02:00.001-04:00

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David Powlison observes “Idolatry is by far the most frequently discussed problem in the Scriptures.”

In the video on the Resurgence site —Mark Driscoll looks at idolatry and applies it especially (though not exclusively) to those in ministry. He defines idols as good things turned into God things—which is a bad thing. (or as I have heard Tim Keller say, idols are turning 'good things' into 'ultimate things')

Driscoll shows that idols lie to us by presenting themselves as Saviors and mediators who can give us identity and make us righteous. But in reality they dishonor God and destroy people.

Driscoll asks 11 questions about ministry idolatry in particular:

Attendance idolatry: Does your joy change when your attendance does?
Gift idolatry: Do you feel that God needs you and uses you because you are so skilled?
Truth idolatry: Do you consider yourself more righteous than more simple Christians?
Fruit idolatry: Do you point to your success as evidence of God’s approval of you?
Method idolatry: Do you worship your method as your mediator?
Tradition idolatry: What traditions are you upholding that are thwarting the forward progress of the gospel?
Office idolatry: Are you motivated primarily by God’s glory or your title?
Success idolatry: Is winning what motivates you at the deepest level?
Ministry idolatry: Do you use the pressure of ministry to make you walk with God?
Innovative idolatry: Does it matter to you that your ministry be considered unique?
Leader idolatry: Who, other than Christ, are you imaging?

Here are the resources from my sister blog, Provocative Church, which would be most helpful in thinking through what the Bible says about idols and how to destroy them:

Identifying Our Idols

Idols of our Heart

(ht: Justin)

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The Church of Facebook

2010-04-07T18:00:00.001-04:00

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Ok, so a church has a Facebook page - now that is no big deal...but a church that is entirely or exclusively found on Facebook...well that is different.

See this CNN report where a church is putting an exclusive presence just on Facebook.

Like the critic, Jon Acuff, who is interviewed for the piece, I have serious concerns believing that an online church can serve as a serogate for a "spacial" church. Church is ultimately an "incarnational" encounter and experience, and therefore believing that it can be merely a virtual experience found in the virtual world, undercuts it's vibrancy and power.

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Make a Splash With Your Facebook Page

2010-03-31T20:56:00.009-04:00

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Most churches are ministries have ventured into Facebook, and have created a Facebook Fan Page. But the question is, are you leveraging the full power of your Facebook page? I want to show you how to create one feature that will allow your Facebook page to stand out from the rest.

How would you like visitors to your Fan page to see a special welcome? How would you like your Fan page to stand out from the rest, and how would you like to properly brand it to the rest of your ministry?

It can be done, and it is not too hard to do. I did it for the ministry that I currently direct, CMDA Atlanta. And I will give you the step by step instructions on how I created it.

The key to getting started is to add the Static FBML App. The app is located here. If you’re logged into Facebook, you can add it to your Page. It is essentially a blank canvas where you can add whatever content you want, including custom graphics and links via standard HTML.

The next step is to set up your tab. Once you’ve added the Static FBML app, click “Edit Page” below your ministry's profile image. This will bring up all your settings and apps. Look for the FBML app and click the “Application Settings” link.

This app can function in two ways: As a set of boxes, or as one dedicated profile tab. But because we are building a welcome splash page, you’ll want to use it as a tab, so go ahead and make sure that the “Box” setting is removed, and the “Tab” setting is added.

Once you’re in tab mode, go back to your settings and click the “Edit” link under the Static FBML app. This opens a standard text field where you can add your HTML content.

There will be a default name of your tab, so you’ll want to change it to something appropriate, like I did calling it CMDA or perhaps call it simply “Welcome,”. It all depends on how you plan to use your new splash Page.

The main text field is where your content goes, and you can add standard HTML to the page as you would any website, including images, text, links, and other formatting. All I did was upload a splash page image into Photobucket (you can use any image hosting site), and I copied the HTML code and added it.

So now your tab is complete, the next step is merely to make it your default landing page that your visitors will see when they visit.

Now you'll want to head back over to your page settings and edit your “Wall Settings.” There is an option for “Default Landing Tab for Everyone Else.” From that menu, select your new tab.

From now on, it will be the first thing visitors see when they arrive to your Fan Page.

Go to my ministry's Fan Page at http://www.facebook.com/CMDAatlanta and see the final product.

When you have created this for your ministry or church, you'll need to make sure you are not logged into Facebook so that your visit registers as a first time guest and therefore you'll be able to see if you've created what you've set out to do.

(thank you to Mashable for the screen captures and for some of the instructions)

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Catholic Church and Social Media

2010-03-30T18:38:00.001-04:00

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A shameless plug. I was quoted for a recent Orlando Sentinel article on the Catholic Church and Social Media. You can read the article online HERE. Read the whole article, but make sure to go to page 2 to see my quotes.

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Who Said That?

2010-03-12T14:28:00.000-05:00

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If you are retooling your church to fit the Starbucks model, try reading Ephesians instead. Surely we can do better than faux community and the illusion of social superiority.

-Kevin DeYoung, read the whole post here

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Make Your Sermon Count

2010-03-11T10:54:00.021-05:00

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Ever feel as if your congregation doesn't remember on Monday what you preached about on Sunday?

It is important for those of us who hear the preaching of the Word, to meditate on it and apply it into our lives. And if the church can provide tools and resources to further that goal, we should make every effort to do so.

That is why I like what College Park Church is providing. They are making available on their website a 'Sunday Package'. In the package is the sermon to listen to again, a manuscript of the sermon, a study guide, as well as the weekly church bulletin and news and opportunities.

I think this is an awesome idea, and as far as I can see, it isn't very difficult to implement.

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10 Insane but True Facts About Porn

2010-03-10T22:33:00.001-05:00

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In Tim Chester's forthcoming book, Captured By a Better Vision: Living Pom-Free, he describes the spread of pornography as an epidemic. Here are some statistics that back up his claim …

Every second, 28,258 Internet users are viewing pomography and $3,075.64 is being spent on pornography
The pornography industry is larger than the revenues of the top technology companies combined: Microsoft, Google, Amazon, eBay, Yahoo!, Apple, Netflix and EarthLink
There are 4.2 million pornographic websites, which is 12% of all the websites on the internet
Every day there are 68 million (25% of the total) search engine requests for pornographic terms
42.7% of internet users view pom
The average age of first exposure to pornography is 11 years old and 80% of 15-17 year olds have had multiple hard-core exposure
The 35-49 age group is the largest consumer of internet pornography
47% of Christians say that pornography is a major problem in the home
17% of women struggle with pornography addiction and 70% of women keep their cyber activities secret
The USA produces 89% of all pornographic web pages (Germany are the next biggest producer, producing 4% of all pomographic web pages)

The fact that pornography is an enormous problem probably comes at no surprise to you. But this isn't just a problem that is merely out there, outside of the church - it's prevalent inside the church as well. Christians struggle! Pastors struggle!

Therefore it's a surprise to how relatively silent the church is about this issue. Perhaps we've developed a "don't ask...don't tell" mindset, I won't challenge and ask you about this issue, just as long as you won't ask me.

But as ministry leaders, we must,with grace and truth, be addressing this with our youth, our men and yes, even our women. We cannot any longer be passive and timid about this issue - we must be as aggressive toward pornography, as pornography has been aggressive in coming into our homes and putting people into bondage.

Does your church publicly address pornography with it's members? If so, how? Please share in the comments section.

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The ONE Rule to Create WOW Presentations!

2010-03-10T11:11:00.001-05:00

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Guy Kawasaki, in one of his classic posts, put together a set of guidelines for using PowerPoint within presentations. His rule, if followed, would keep presentations focused, interesting and make them effective.

Here is Guy’s rule:

A PowerPoint presentation should have ten slides, last no more than twenty minutes, and contain no font smaller than thirty points.

Here is Guy's rule unpacked from his original post....

Ten slides. Ten is the optimal number of slides in a PowerPoint presentation because a normal human being cannot comprehend more than ten concepts in a meeting

Twenty minutes. You should give your ten slides in twenty minutes. Sure, you have an hour time slot, but you’re using a Windows laptop, so it will take forty minutes to make it work with the projector. Even if setup goes perfectly, people will arrive late and have to leave early. In a perfect world, you give your pitch in twenty minutes, and you have forty minutes left for discussion.

Thirty-point font. The majority of the presentations that I see have text in a ten point font. As much text as possible is jammed into the slide, and then the presenter reads it. However, as soon as the audience figures out that you’re reading the text, it reads ahead of you because it can read faster than you can speak. The result is that you and the audience are out of synch.

The reason people use a small font is twofold: first, that they don’t know their material well enough; second, they think that more text is more convincing. Total bozosity. Force yourself to use no font smaller than thirty points. I guarantee it will make your presentations better because it requires you to find the most salient points and to know how to explain them well. If “thirty points,” is too dogmatic, the I offer you an algorithm: find out the age of the oldest person in your audience and divide it by two. That’s your optimal font size.

Read the rest of Guy's 10/20/30 rule here

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Run Your Meetings Like Google

2010-03-09T23:24:00.002-05:00

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Say the word "meeting" and most people break out in hives.
When it comes to boring and unproductive meetings, churches and ministry are often the worst offenders.

Certainly every organization must have meetings in order to plan, strategize and communicate. So the question is how does the world's most productive and innovative companies tackle the problem of badly managed meetings? Or in other words, let's ask the question, "What Would Google Do?"

Google’s Marissa Mayer was recently interviewed by Business Week. In the interview, she described her own methodology for dealing with the 70+ meetings she needs to attend each week.

Here are Mayer’s six key principles for running productive meetings:

1. Set a firm agenda. Mayer believes agendas provide focus and help participants find routes towards achieving a particular goal.

2. Assign a note-taker. Mayer’s meetings tend to use multiple displays to project presentation slides, a live transcript of the meeting and a ticking stopwatch! Each element provide focus, and crucially a record, enabling non-attendees to stay informed.

3. Carve out micro-meetings. Mayer routinely divides larger meetings into smaller 5-10 minute blocks to highlight particular subject areas. This enables agendas to remain flexible, but disciplined, and also allows wide-ranging discussions to occur.

4. Hold office hours. Each day, for 90 minutes at 4PM, Mayer holds court with colleagues in her own office. Coworkers can choose a slot on a first-come-first-serve basis. Incredibly, she’s able to get through up to fifteen meetings in these periods.

5. Discourage politics, use data. To avoid showing favoritism and to minimise office politics, Mayer insists all decisions are driven by performance-based metrics and analytics. (This approach has caused some controversies, as related by former design director Douglas Bowman.)

6. Stick to the clock. The “ticking clock” mentioned earlier might sound draconian, but is apparently a source of levity at meetings, exerting a subtle motivation, but also underlining a precious commodity in a busy organization.

What are some of your tips and best practices for leading meetings?

(ht: WebWorkerDaily)

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200 Million Non-churched in America

2010-03-09T16:27:00.000-05:00

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There are about 200 million non-churched people in America, making America one of the four largest ‘unchurched’ nations in the world.

-John Piper, in a January 31 sermon, “I will build My Church”

(ht: Justin)

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