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My Next Stops

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I’ve been working on my calendar today. Here’s where I’m going to be heading over the next several months:

I may be able to squeeze in one or two more stops between now and the end of May. The summer schedule is starting to fill up as well, so now is the time to connect if I can serve you and your church. Let me know if you’d like to talk.

Hiring an Executive and Children’s Pastor

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I’m really excited to announce two leadership openings at a church here in the Atlanta region. Mountain Lake Church in Cumming, Georgia is hiring both an executive pastor and a children’s pastor. Mountain Lake was planted by its lead pastor, Shawn Lovejoy. The church is about ten years old. It meets in a brand new facility and currently runs about 2,500 people in attendance.

If you are interested in either role, please email William Vanderbloemen, my teammate at FaithSearch Partners, with questions or to submit your resume. All correspondence is kept in strict confidence. If you want to chat with me about either role and see Mountain Lake Church, then attend the ChurchPlanters.com conference, Velocity, in two weeks.

On another note, we have been able to secure ten free tickets to the Velocity Conference. We have decided to give those away to the first ten children’s pastors who contact us. Just send William your email address and a contact phone number. He and I will announce the winners in a couple of days. See you at Velocity!

Slides from Burkina Faso Trip

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Here are some pictures from my recent trip to Burkina Faso. I’ll post more about my experience in the coming days, but the pictures capture more than I could ever communicate in writing. Click on the button to turn on the background music if you’d prefer.

Will Social Media Impact Delayed Messages?

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As more and more churches embrace multi-site, one of the first issues that ministries have to wrestle with is whether to invest in technology to deliver messages live or to consider the cheaper (and sometimes more reliable) option of just using a DVD of the message. For those churches that choose the latter and don’t have a Saturday evening service for recording the message, that often means they’re operating on a week-delay at their remote campuses.

Before folks began to embrace social media, the option of week-delay was very viable. In fact, in many respects it could be preferable because you have much more flexibility with the timing of the services and the length of the service elements leading up to the message.

Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on how you view it), social media changes the game. Now folks are sharing thoughts and reactions about their experiences as the services are taking place. People are using Facebook and Twitter to let their friends know what’s happening as the service unfolds. Then it’s not uncommon for someone, possibly even the teaching pastor, to summarize the highlights of the service including the message. That potentially creates a challenge for campuses who won’t be viewing that message for another week.

Ironically, the television networks are wrestling with this same issue. In years past, events like award shows were delayed on the west coast to make sure the programming took place in prime time. With the increase in social media, though, folks on the west coast were seeing the results before the programs were televised. As a result, viewers declined. Christina Warren, a blogger for Mashable, recently wrote:

Social media has only made the need for live programming even more clear. In the old days, web forums or IM chats or liveblogs could give people the play-by-play, but people had to know where to look. Now, live events immediately take over Twitter and Facebook streams. If you don’t want the surprise to be spoiled, you pretty much have to stay off any social network during the live telecast.

So the question is will this same dynamic impact churches? Will the increasing use of social media make week-delayed messages a thing of the past? For those of you who are engaged in multi-site and multi-service settings, have you noticed any negative reaction?

Hiring a “Chief Launch Officer”

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West Ridge Church is working with other ministries to plant new churches across the world. In the coming months, we will be launching a new network to identify future church planters, train them through our school of church planting and provide financial resources to help them get started. This network will also engage existing churches to leverage the synergy of our combined experiences and to provide an ongoing relationship for church planters.

Before we can do that, though, we need to find a special person. We’re trying to find the leader who will work with us and our partner churches. This person will help us make it all happen. You might label this role the “executive director” or the “chief launch officer,” but, regardless of the title, this is a big role for a big leader. Here’s an example of what we’re looking for:

  • Leader – You know how to lead and empower a diverse group of people.
  • Connector – You desire to network with people and ministries and understand the power of “we.”
  • Evangelist – You are a gifted storyteller and know how to spread that story through personal and online engagement.
  • Strategic Thinker – You envision the steps that it takes to get from here to there.
  • Character – You’ve demonstrated integrity over the years in your words, relationships and actions.
  • Likability – You are someone others (especially me) loves to be around.
  • Experience – You’ve helped plant healthy, growing churches…but not necessarily as the senior pastor.

Ultimately, this person will be employed by the network. Initially, West Ridge Church will be picking up the tab. Ultimately, you will be working for the team of pastors that will make up the new network board. Initially, you will be working directly with Brian, a couple other pastors and me to get the beta version of this network shipped.

Read Seth Godin’s new book. (That’s my Amazon affiliate link.) We’re looking for a “linchpin.” This is going to be the dream role for the right “artist” with the right passions to see hundreds of new churches launched in the coming years. We want to see life change. We want communities to be transformed.

Selfishly, I’m looking for a ministry friend and partner. The two of us are going to be doing life together. If that scares you, please don’t apply. If this post makes your mind race, you may be our person. If you’re interested, shoot me a note and let’s begin the conversation.

Guerrilla Lovers

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Vince Antonucci is touring the blog world today to let people know about his new book, Guerrilla Lovers: Changing the World with Revolutionary Compassion.  I’m excited to be a part of it and get to ask Vince about his book.

TONY: So Vince, I appreciate you challenging people to become guerrilla lovers, but I guess what I’m wondering is if it really makes a difference in people’s lives…

VINCE: That’s the question, isn’t it?  Here’s part of my answer:

There’s a twelve-year-old named Jacob who has been coming to the church I started in Virginia Beach most of his young life. One chilly November morning Jacob left his house to walk to the bus stop. As he walked up something stopped him. It was a rock. The kids at the bus stop were throwing rocks at him. They were also shouting. “You’re fat.” “Go home you faggot!” “Don’t cry, you fat faggot!” Jacob ran home, blinded with rage and shame, tasting the salt of his tears. His mother was surprised to see him, but after learning what happened, told Jacob she would drive him to school. Jacob knew the same bullies would be at school and begged to stay home, but his mother insisted he go.

That night the rest of his family heard about what happened. His older brother said, “Tomorrow morning we’re gonna go there together and beat those kids up.” His parents discussed calling the bully’s parents.

But Jacob had a different idea.

He explained that he wanted to invite the kid who had been most abusive to sleep over on Saturday night and go with the family to church on Sunday. His parents were flabbergasted. They asked, “Jacob, why would you want to do that? I mean, after what he did to you?”

You know why? Jacob had learned about being a guerrilla lover. Jacob was a guerrilla lover.

And the next day Jacob invited his attacker to sleep over and come to church with his family. Surprisingly, he said yes. That Saturday night he slept over, that Sunday he came to church, and he’s been going to church with Jacob every Sunday since.
That’s guerrilla.

Thanks Vince! You may order Vince’s book using my Amazon link.   There’s also all kinds of free resources for pastors, guerrilla assignments, and more at www.guerrillalovers.com.

Children at Compassion International School

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I’ll try to load more video when I have more time and a faster connection. Here’s a brief video of the children we saw at a Compassion International school in Burkina Faso.

Killing Cockroaches Tour Stop in Seattle

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My next FREE leadership training event will be in Seattle on Saturday, February 27 at The Rock Church. Join me for a morning of teaching and conversation on leadership and ministry strategy. The event will feature stories and learnings from my recent book, Killing Cockroaches: and Other Scattered Musings on Leadership.

This event is designed for both staff and volunteer church leaders. Though the event is free, you’ll need to register here so that we can plan appropriately. Here are the specific details:

Schedule

9:00 am     Check-in

9:30 am     Session 1: Building Teams and Empowering Leaders (Volunteer/Staffing Strategy)

10:15 am   Q&A

10:45 am   Break

11:15 am   Session 2: Finding Your Focus (Outreach/Discipleship/Communications Strategy)

12:00 pm   Q&A

12:30 pm   Event Concludes

Host Church

Seattle (February 27) at The Rock Church in Monroe, WA – get directions

Whatever you do, don’t come to the event alone! I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard leaders say, “I wish my staff and volunteer leaders could have been here to hear what you had to say.” Just ask my friends who were at the recent event in Houston. I promise to keep the talks simple and practical.

Hope to see you in Seattle. Tell your friends!

Made it to Burkina Faso

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Our team of eight made it to Burkina Faso in Africa yesterday evening. We also traveled with Chris and Connie Feild and their five kids. Chris and Connie are from West Ridge, and their family is going to be staying in Burkina for the next couple of years to serve at our new guest house at the school that I mentioned in my previous post.

Here are a few highlights from the last 48 hours:

  • We flew through Paris, but we only had a two-hour layover. That means I traveled all the way to Paris for the first time and only saw the airport.
  • There were cows roaming around the airport in Niger when we stopped there for a brief layover. That’s something you don’t see at ATL.
  • We’ve been welcomed by our friends in Burkina. They made us feel at home yesterday evening. Our first meal was pizza and Coke.
  • This morning for breakfast we had fresh bread and Starbucks. Thanks to Via, we have Starbucks in Africa…even though we couldn’t get Starbucks in Anderson SC. :-)
  • We’re staying in the guest house that West Ridge teams have built. This week it’s home away from home for our team.
  • Even though it’s sunny and near 100 degrees during the day, the ceiling fans at night keep the place very comfortable.
  • This morning, the folks here in Burkina are having a service/ceremony to welcome the Feild family. The locals are certainly excited to have them here.
  • There’s a little bit of the U.S. everywhere you go. Driving to the guest house last night, we saw Goodyear and Shell, and I snapped the picture of the Hanna Montana cookies. I think I’ll pass on the cookies.

It’s looking like we may have Internet connection for brief moments just about every day, so I’ll try to keep you updated on the action.

Is someone stealing from your church?

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Unfortunately, I’ve seen too many instances when churches are making the news because of moral failures. Many times that involves inappropriate relationships. Other times it involves the mishandling of money. One of the reasons I love working with Casey Graham and the team at The Change Group is that they work with a number of churches of all shapes and sizes, and they have appropriate safeguards to protect churches. Here’s a recent interview with Casey on this topic:

TONY: Casey, tell me about some of the changes churches should make to protect their finances?

CASEY: It is absolutely essential that non-profits, specifically churches, maintain financial integrity. If you are a church leader, your financial well-being is built on the trust that your donors have in you and your financial processes. In my experience working with churches, I have seen some with over $1 million budgets and they had only one person looking at their books. You can’t even really count their financial team or board because they look at reports generated by that one person. Two of the churches had great Christian people as their bookkeepers, and in both cases money was being stolen.  One lady was the last person I would have ever imagined to steal. That’s why at The Change Group we utilize a team approach for bookkeeping so there is never any question.

TONY: Some churches are required to have annual audits by their lenders. Is that necessary for all churches because that can get pretty expensive?

CASEY: Every church should have an “annual financial review” done by an outside, third-party CPA. Someone offering to do this for free in your congregation is not a good option. You need an objective accountant that looks at the facts. You don’t need an audit each year unless your lender requires it, but you do need a review. The difference in the audit and review is the audit is more detailed. We suggest a full audit every five years. 
We are now offering this service to churches and want to make it available now for your 2009 annual review.  If you do not use us, at least use someone!

TONY: Tell us more about the annual review you have available.

CASEY: We are offering this at a church rate that is inexpensive compared to other firms. 
If you use our team to conduct your annual review, The Change Group will also do a full “Generosity Systems Check” for your church for free (normally a $3,000 fee). The Generosity Systems Check will consist of a deep dive into your financial cycles and systems, and then we’ll recommend ways to take advantage of unique opportunities in 2010 to increase operational revenue. The Generosity Systems Check alone will pay for your annual review.

If you want to learn more about the annual review and the free Generosity Systems Check or would like more information about outsourcing your bookkeeping and financial management, contact The Change Group.  They are only offering the free Generosity Systems Check through April 15, 2010.

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fyi… The Change Group is an advertising partner of my site. I’m glad to have them on my sponsorship team

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