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.

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!

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.

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.

__________

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

On Monday I’m joining Brian and a team of other pastors to head to Burkina Faso in Africa. West Ridge has been engaged in missions efforts in the country for the past couple of years. Burkina is located in West Africa just south of the Sahara Desert and north of Ghana. The country is 55% Muslim and 40% animist. Animists worship various items in nature as determined by a village witch doctor.

Here’s a snapshot of our itinerary. Among other things we will…

• Visit the Lycee Alliance Christienne (LAC). West Ridge partners with LAC, a high school started by the Christian and Missionary Alliance. It’s the highest ranked school in the country. Because of that, many government officials and other influential leaders send their children to this school. Among other things, we are traveling with a family from West Ridge who will be working at the LAC team center for the next couple of years.
• Visit Compassion International sites. Hundreds of children are sponsored by West Ridge. A couple of the guys on the trip will actually get to meet the children they are sponsoring.
• Meet with leaders in our church planting initiative. This will include visiting Pugli villages. The Pougouli people are an unreached people group. In addition to planting churches, West Ridge and its partners have initiated the digging of 26 wells in these villages.
• Spend a night in The Bush. Whether or not I actually sleep in The Bush is a completely different story.
• Participate in a Sunday morning worship service. No, I’m not going to be preaching. Something tells me my “killing cockroaches” story would not translate very well.
• Watch football. Are you kidding? We can’t miss the playoff games.
• Meet with government officials. We want to continue to express our desire to develop partnerships and offer encouragement and credibility for the church planters we are supporting.
• Go on a safari. If all goes as planned, we may have an opportunity on the final day we are in the country to do a safari. I’d like to see a lion roar…and live to tell about it.

Not sure how much, if any, Internet access I’m going to have during this trip. In the worst case scenario, I’ll try to recap when I get back.

Pray for our team, but more importantly pray for the people of Burkina.

Here are the notes from the two sessions I taught at the Killing Cockroaches tour stop in Houston.

• Session One
• Session Two

The Houston crowd rocked! Thanks for being there and engaging the conversation.

Back in the 1992 elections, Bill Clinton’s political machine used the phrase, “It’s about the economy, stupid!” to remind themselves of their priority. If they were going to run a successful campaign, they had to keep the message focused on the economy.

In church world in the 90s, you may have heard leaders use the phrase, “It’s all about the weekend, stupid!” The philosophy was if the weekend services aren’t great, it impacts the growth of every area of the ministry.

Since we do ministry in America in the middle of a very consumer-driven culture, I still believe our weekend services are critical to sharing the Gospel. People who don’t know Christ are consumers before they are convicted and committed Christ-followers. If the weekend service experience isn’t intentional, people who are still consumers will not stay engaged. We can present the Gospel, but they won’t be there to hear it. We can challenge people to become fully-devoted followers of Christ, but they won’t be there to hear that challenge.

That said, there’s a danger if we assume the weekend service is the only component of a discipleship strategy. Primarily, that’s an issue because it’s not God’s design for spiritual growth. Corporate worship and teaching is one component, but it’s not the only component.

At West Ridge, our focus is instead on leading people on a journey of life change. In other words, it’s not about the weekend–it’s about the life change. With that in mind, we’re both intentional about what happens on Sunday, but we’re also very intentional and focused in how we offer next steps.

This current series is the perfect example. The services in “The Naked Truth” series have been very compelling. We’ve given great amounts of prayer and attention to every detail of the teaching, worship, graphics, media, stories, etc. But, we’ve also been very intentional about the next steps we are offering people to embrace the journey of life change.

For example, here are some of the specific next steps we’ve encouraged people to take:

• Online Assessments – We’re offering check-up assessments for couples who are dating, engaged or married. This assessment ultimately offers recommendations for further conversation and action steps. It may encourage couples to pursue counseling as needed. We’re also offering a separate assessment for single adults.
• Daily Devotionals – We’re writing and delivering daily devotionals through email to encourage couples to talk, pray and study the Bible together.
• Group Connections – We’ve challenged everyone to connect in a short-term group based on their life stage and location. These groups are engaging in further conversation and Bible study based on the topics of each week’s message.
• Life Care Support – Where folks need additional support beyond the assessments, devotionals and groups, we also have support groups and counseling available. We have over 100 volunteers helping people in support groups that provide care for folks wrestling with divorce, substance abuse, sexual addiction, financial challenges and more. We also work with local, professional counselors to refer people to counseling when it’s helpful.

To our knowledge, we’ve seen a couple thousand “next steps” in recent weeks including almost 100 people who have accepted Christ and begun their life change journey. That’s what our ministry is all about. We celebrate the people who show up for services on Sunday because we know it leads to thousands of people taking next steps and experiencing life change.

It’s about the life change, stupid!

Several weeks ago, I invited you to participate in the my blog readership survey. 392 people responded. Based on the responses, here’s what I know about you:

• You’re a dude. 84% of the readers are male. That explains all the grunting and belching associated with my site.
• You’re younger than me. 42% of the readers are ages 25 to 34. My peers, ages 35 to 44, came in second place at 26%.
• You live in the U.S. Only 7% of the readers live outside the U.S. And, you likely live in one of these top five states: Georgia, South Carolina, Texas, North Carolina or Florida.
• You make a decent salary. Almost half of you make between $50,000 and $100,000 per year. Nearly 15% of you make more than that.
• You attend a church. Only 3% of you are unchurched. Which makes sense, since my writing focuses on church leaders.
• You don’t attend a megachurch. 42% of the audience attends a church with an average attendance of 500 people or less. Only 27% of you attend a “megachurch” with more than 2,000 people in attendance.
• You either attend a non-denominational or Baptist church. Those two categories make up more than two-thirds of the readers.
• You are on paid staff at a church. In fact, almost 60% of you get paid to be in ministry. If you are on staff, you’re likely in one of these top four roles: Senior/Lead Pastor, Student Ministry, Executive/Campus/Associate Pastor and Worship/Media/Tech Arts.
• You are smart. At least you are smart enough to be educated. 39% of you have a bachelor’s degree and 35% of you have a graduate degree of some sort.
• You like to read about leadership and ministry strategy. Your next favorite topics are communications/marketing and social media/Web strategy.
• You most likely found my site because someone invited you. Either you followed a link from another site or a friend specifically recommended it.

If you’re into the numbers, you can check out the full report broken down into part one and part two.

Does anything surprise you about the results given the typical writing and the conversation on this site?

Here are the folks that are making things happen at TonyMorganLive.com this month:

If you attend West Ridge Church, I wanted to share this update on how we’re responding to the earthquake in Haiti. Brian will be sharing more about this at tomorrow’s services. Here’s how you can help.

Pray

Please pray for the country of Haiti and for all the families impacted by this. Pray for order to be restored and that supplies would get to the people who need them. Pray for God’s peace to reign in every circumstance, and that He will comfort all those who are grieving. Pray, specifically, about how God may ask you to be involved in the days ahead.

Give

• Samaritan’s Purse – Ten percent of the Sunday offering on January 17 will be given to Samaritan’s Purse for earthquake relief. Samaritan’s Purse has already secured a facility with 200 beds to treat the sick and wounded. They are also delivering supplies and sending personnel.
• Gleaning For The World – This organization partnered with our church and Engage Atlanta by providing nine truckloads of supplies for Atlanta flood relief this past fall. Currently, they have already sent over 20 shipments of supplies to Haiti and over 550,000 meals.
• World Help – World Help has already successfully delivered $3.5 million worth of medical supplies and humanitarian aid to Haiti. They had a presence on the ground before this disaster, and are positioned to continue delivering aid.

At this point, please do not donate supplies to the church. We will continue to communicate with our ministry partners. As ongoing needs develop, we will ask for your help to gather necessary supplies.

We also anticipate the opportunity to send volunteer teams to assist in the recovery and restoration in the days ahead. Begin to prayerfully consider joining us on a relief trip, and check back here for more details.