Halloweenie Handout

Tonight (Halloween Night), dozens of people from Church of the Suncoast will be holding a free cookout in their front driveways and yards. Why? Because I told them to!

The idea was simple. We had these posters made and handed them out this past Sunday for people to put up in their neighborhoods. Then tonight as floods of people pass by our homes we will have free hot dogs, cokes, snacks and invite cards for our new series "Battle of the Sexes".

Instead of battling over whether or not we should participate in this holiday we decided to leverage it for God's kingdom and expand our influence as a church in the community.

Execute (Part 2)

Last week I started a post about execution. At Church of the Suncoast we have come to the conclusion all we can do is execute. We can't make anyone do anything, and we can't even get people in the doors. All of that is up to God.

Execution allows the management team to look back over a weekend and see if we did all that we can do. The things we CAN control. Here is a list of our key areas and their items of execution:

Lead Pastor:
Did I pray for God’s blessing on the service
Did we get set up on time
Did I discuss any special transitions in the service
Did we rehearse the service on time
Did we start the service on time
Did I end the message & prayer under 35 minutes
Did my prayer, ann. and welcome make sense
Did I meet someone new
Did I encourage a volunteer

Worship Leader:
Did I pray for God’s blessing on the service
Did band practice end on time
Did we have the key musicians we needed
Were the songs executed (rhythm, tempo, right order)
Were the transitions & prayer smooth and seamless
Was the sound quality
Did the equipment work (lights, sound, projection)
Did I thank each band member
Did I meet someone new

Volunteer Care:
Did I pray for God’s blessing on the service
Did I get the volunteer central area set up on time
Did I go around and make sure the volunteers were OK
Did I get ushers and give them instructions
Did I meet someone new
Did I encourage a volunteer

Children's Director:
Did I pray for God’s blessing on the service
Did the Beach and Mangrove rooms get set up
Did the sign in kiosk get set up
Were the teams ready 15 minutes before the service
Did the teams have everything they needed
Were there at least two volunteers in each room
Did I encourage one of my teams

Sunday Administration:
Did I pray for God’s blessing on the service
Did someone help me set up
Did the hospitality, bathrooms, and info areas get set up
Was there food, coffee, and supplies
Did we have all the greeters & parking we needed
Were they in place 15 minutes before the service
Did we keep one full empty row in the back at all times
Did I encourage a volunteer

We meet every other week to look back over these areas. If it happened two weeks in a row then that makes a trend and you need to address that.

Original or Nothing...

One time a guy walked into Rick Warren's office ready to start a new church and he told Rick, "I am going to be all original or nothing!" Rick later tells he accomplished both...

Great article from a good friend of mine up in GA:

http://yckg.wordpress.com/2007/10/26/original/

Simplify

If you have been around the church world long then you know there is this natural pull towards complexity. Its pull is felt from communication to theology and from church calendars to philosophy of ministry. It other words the longer we go at this thing we call church the more complex we try to make it.

In the early days of a church plant things are simple, or at least they should be! You do Sunday mornings and maybe after six to eight months you start some small groups. You don't have the time, staff, or budget for anything else. But, as time goes by people will come to you with ministry idea after ministry idea. We should start a woman's and men's ministry. We should start a divorce care ministry. We should have a sports ministry. We should start having Bible studies... The list is endless. All good ideas... all good needs within your growing church.

BUT, here is my question: Name for me one person, or organization, that has truly changed the world and impacted lives that has done more than one or two things with excellence... I'll give you a moment... Times up! You could not do it could you? Billy Graham only did one thing and he changed the world. Campus Crusade for Christ changed the world because Bill Bright focused on the thing they could do well. We just got a 5 Guys Burgers and Fries and they have been voted the best burger for six years because they have a VERY simple menu. They focus on the one or two things they can do well.

"Now wait a minute are you saying the church should not try to meet every ones needs???" Let me be clear - YES!

The truth is many of our churches have been weakened because we invested too much time and money and man-power into things we could not do well! For the church to thrive in the next generations we have to get rid of the things that are good for the sake of what we can do the best.

In the book 7 Practices of Effective Ministry Reggie Joiner writes:
"The shift toward complexity is usually subtle, and it's rarely intentional. Passionate leaders introduce innovations; persistent members promote their agendas; new programs are established; traditions are born; new ideas are added to old programs. And over time the ministry begins to lose it focus, and the church becomes paralyzed by its inability to purge itself." (Page 101)

The conclusion: it is always dangerous to confuse activity with results!

The church that I lead, Church of the Suncoast, is only 18 months old and we have grown at a manageable rate from 9 people in my living room to over 130 people who call the Suncoast their home church. Even in this modest growth and young age we have already faced the pressure to start adding ministries and programs to meet needs. So it can happen fast!

Here is the bottom line. Be simple! Be simple! Ask yourself what are the one or two things you can do the best! Just because there is a need in your church DOESN'T MEAN YOU HAVE TO MEET IT. When you try to meet every one's needs in only feeds into a culture of "neediness" that will turn your church inward and away from the primary call of any church to seek and save the lost. Programs will always change but the vision remains the same.

You have to face the facts. To do more in life, you have to do less...

Tell me your story with complexity and simplicity:

Execute (Part 1)

At Church of the Suncoast our management team is constantly evaluating what we do on Sunday mornings. From the beginning we have been asking ourselves is this a relevant environment:

Was the context appealing?
Was the content helpful?
Was the presentation engaging?

Recently we have refined things to clarifying the win. A win for us WAS:

"If people feel comfortable inviting their friends and if those guests take a step with God"

It sounds great. It's simple! It lets us know if we are winning or losing. Or, does it???

After some interesting conversations with other church planters and a growing feeling that there might be something better to measure a win on Sundays we have come to one simple, but powerful conclusion:

We cannot control anything within our statement of what a win was! We can't control what people do. We can't control numbers. We can't control salvations. We can't control people taking their next steps with God... Only God can! So what can we do???

We can execute. We can make sure we did those things that we do have control over. Things like sound, lights, greeters, service start times... This fits better with our strategy of "creating relevant environments in which God can work".

Next time I will share more about what execution is and give you a sample of our Sunday list.

Tell me what you think??? Leave a comment.