I’ve recently put together a team of leaders and strategists. These folks have many years of ministry experience with some incredible churches across the country. We’re getting ready to do something big. Here are the folks on the team:

• Dan Reiland – Executive Pastor at 12Stone™ Church in Lawrenceville, Georgia.  He previously partnered with John Maxwell for 20 years, first as Executive Pastor at Skyline Wesleyan Church in San Diego, then as Vice President of Leadership and Church Development at INJOY.
• Tammy Kelley – Founder and chief consultant with Intelligent Design, Inc. She served on the leadership team at Willow Creek Community Church for seven years where, among other things, she oversaw people resources.
• Mark Morgan – Unrelated-fellow-Morgan who is also originally from Ohio, strategist and leadership coach. He used to serve on the lead team at Fellowship Church where he helped launch their multi-site strategy.
• Eric Geiger – Executive Pastor at Christ Fellowship in Miami, Florida. He received a doctorate in leadership and church ministry from Southern Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky and he’s the author of Simple Church.
• Paul Allen – No. He’s not the co-founder of Microsoft. That’s a different Paul Allen. This one is an executive pastor at Transformation Church, editor and writer. Paul used to be the editor of Rev Magazine.
• Scott Williams – He spent 12 years in the prison system…as a warden. At the age of 25, he was actually one of the youngest wardens in the country. Scott has been an entrepreneur, lobbyist, leadership consultant and is currently the Campus Pastor at NW Oklahoma City Campus of Lifechurch.tv.

Aren’t you curious to know what these high-capacity leaders are all doing in one spot? Well, you’ll have to wait to find out.

Stay tuned.

I’m really excited about today’s announcement. As a follow up to John Saddington’s post on ChurchCrunch last week, I just wanted to let you know about my involvement with SoChurch. In my work with churches, I come across many pastors and leaders trying to figure out how to navigate all the available channels of online communication. That results in less time to focus on forming depth of relationship with the very people they’re trying to reach and lead.

That’s what appealed to me about SoChurch. The team behind SoChurch wants to remove the friction that has unfortunately become such a part of church leadership today. With their aim to truly serve the needs of the local church, I am pleased to join this experienced team of visionaries as an advisory board member. There will be more team announcements very soon. In this role, I will be helping their team fulfill their vision of serving the Church. I’ll be sharing perspectives regarding the needs of churches and their leaders, particularly in this area of communication.

Here are some teaser “wireframes” of what SoChurch is to become.

You can follow SoChurch on Twitter, Facebook, and watch for forthcoming team announcements on their intermediary website at SoChurch.com. In the meantime, tell me what you’re looking for to help with church communication. Where does your church have need? What are you bogged down by on a daily basis? How can SoChurch help you?

As I was reading the Bible this morning, I stumbled upon this verse:

“I, too, try to please everyone in everything I do. I don’t just do what is best for me; I do what is best for others so that many may be saved,” (1 Corinthians 10:33, NLT)

Fascinating perspective isn’t it? Typically, we don’t operate like that. We put personal conviction or preferences ahead of what may be best for others. Think about it…

• It isn’t worship if the music is too loud or too fast or the wrong genre.
• It isn’t discipleship if the content is delivered in a home or online instead of in a classroom.
• It isn’t missions if we help a neighbor who has wealth instead of focusing on people who live in poverty.
• The message is good if it calls out the sin of other people, but when it’s our sin, we’re offended.
• Rather than embracing the ministries that are impacting the most people, we want the church to embrace our personal projects and passions.
• We’re more inclined to give when we can direct how the money is used.

Crazy. You’d think we’d be intentional about living out our faith to do what’s best for others. Instead, we make ministry decisions to try to keep people happy. That’s how we end up with churches full of happy Christians. That’s why churches stop growing. We start doing church for us instead of trying to impact the lives of people around us.

The reality is that if we’re going to reach people outside the church and outside the faith, we’re going to have to be uncomfortable. And, once we figure out what’s best for others today, it’ll be different tomorrow. That will involve change. That means we’ll have to get uncomfortable again.

Let’s face it. It’s a lot easier doing ministry when our only goal is to keep people happy. Doing what’s best for others makes life and ministry messy. We have to be willing to rock the boat. We have to be willing to watch people who don’t have a “1 Corinthians 10:33″-mindset leave the church.

When I stop doing what’s best for me and focus on what’s best for others, though, that’s when real life-change happens. It’s worth making “happy Christians” mad so that many may be saved.

Let me introduce you to one of my new sponsorship partners. Outreach Events provides guest speakers and comedians to churches and ministry organizations. They connect gifted communicators and teachers with ministries looking to bring a fresh voice to their events and Sunday services. I recently visited with Chad from the Outreach team. Here’s what she had to share about Outreach Events.

TONY: What’s the driving force behind Outreach Events that makes it different from other organizations?

CHAD: We believe God designed human beings to have a natural connectivity for each other and the gospel. Those connections can be through a night of comedy, an inspirational speaker or even a powerful story. The power of human relationships is unsurpassed in reaching people for Christ. With this in mind, Outreach Events began with a vision to help churches and other faith-based organizations reach their communities with the message of Jesus Christ. Outreach Events specializes in dynamic, outreach-oriented events that create opportunities for sharing faith. Our nationally recognized talent is ministry-minded and ready to share a Christ-honoring message with tact and relevance. We work with over 700 churches and ministries per year and understand the impact of bringing an Outreach Speaker to your church.

TONY: What kind of impact can a church or organization expect to experience when they host one of your speakers?

CHAD: One of the things I love is the relationship we develop with the local church and how one of our events can generate momentum and a fresh voice in their community. I remember recently a church event with Michael Franzese saw over 600 hundred people come to Christ in one weekend! By partnering with churches, we are able to see dramatic life change and momentum created by these events. We are passionate about empowering churches by providing the tools to expand their message of hope. We are here to exceed to your expectations and partner with you to plan the most effective event possible.

TONY: What is your current lineup?

CHAD: We represent hundreds of amazing speakers and comedians- including Lee Strobel, Josh McDowell, Rich Praytor, Kirk Cameron, Michael Franzese, Sean McDowell, Scott Rigsby, and many others!

Looking for a speaker or comedian (or both) for your next event or service? Check out the Outreach Events site where you can view all the available speakers and learn more about their unique opportunities.

One of my teammates at West Ridge sent me this article last week from the Barna Group which addresses people’s perceptions of Easter. There are some interesting stats in the article. Among them, one-third of the people surveyed don’t view Easter as a religious celebration. Maybe even more interesting is the fact that 19 percent of the born-again Christians don’t view Easter that way, either.

That said, here’s the stat that jumped out to me:

“Overall, 31% of active churchgoers said they would definitely invite someone they know who does not usually attend a church to accompany them to a church service on Easter weekend this year.”

So, if your church is averaging 500 people, only 155 “said” they would invite a friend. This begs the questions: How many people actually invite someone? And, how many people respond and show up for services?

For churches trying to reach a post-Christian, unchurched culture, I think we need to wake up to the fact that Christmas and Easter are no longer slam dunks for drawing crowds and sharing the Gospel. These are my personal observations:

• The crowds that show up on holidays are typically people who are already connected to our churches. Most people who are connected to our churches don’t show up every week the doors are open. The biggest difference between holidays and the typical Sunday is that everyone connected to our churches actually shows up at the same time.
• There’s a chance we’re sharing the Gospel on Christmas and Easter with a big crowd, but there may be very few people outside the faith who are actually in attendance.
• Given the current culture, we can no longer assume that just because it’s Christmas or Easter people are going to show up…especially if we’re trying to reach people who are not Christ-followers.
• In the future, our outreach will need to shift away from an emphasis on the holidays and focus more on the needs of the people we’re trying to reach. If I’m not a Christ-follower, I’m not going to church because it’s Easter — I’m going because I need something that I perceive the church can address.
• All the marketing dollars you’re spending to promote Easter are probably just encouraging people who are already connected to your church to show up.

What do you think? Is this a jaded view of our current reality, or do you think there’s some merit to this? If so, how do we need to respond?

If you want my opinion, I think the Easter Bunny has a leg up on us. We ought to view these holidays through new eyes and begin to be more strategic (or shrewd) about how we approach them.

After several years of being a Blackberry guy, I recently switched from the AT&T network back to Sprint and picked up an HTC Hero using the Android operating system. It’s been fun discovering new Android apps over the last few weeks. Here’s my current list of favorites:

• Amazon – It allows me to scan barcodes on books in Barnes & Noble and see what the comparable price is on Amazon.
• Barcode Scanner – I can scan anything with a barcode and shop online using Google Shopper.
• Evernote – It’s the primary way I document everything I do in meetings including capturing pictures of whiteboard sessions.
• Expensify – When I travel, this app let’s me track expenses, upload receipts, track mileage and request reimbursements.
• Fandango – I can browse movies, find theaters and purchase tickets from my phone.
• Golf Channel Mobile – This app is going to come in handing this week as I follow the Masters coverage.
• Google Voice – It’s one of the key reasons I never switched to an iPhone. I use Google Voice for all my calls.
• Live Scores – Provides updates on NCAA, NFL, MLB, etc. scores.
• NewsRob – This is an app that allows me to read Google Reader content offline.
• Pandora – It’s still my favorite mobile app for streaming music. (My favorite is the Justin Timberlake channel.)
• PDAnet – The app provides the ability to tether for Internet access.
• Redbox Codes – Allows me to get free DVD rentals from Redbox kiosks.
• Seesmic – Even though I still use Tweetdeck on my laptop, I’m using Seesmic for Twitter on my mobile.
• Shazam – A nifty tool that listens to music on the radio and then identifies the track, album and artist.
• Sprint Navigation – Powered by telenav, this has been a huge time saver now that we’re trying to get our way around Atlanta traffic.
• SprintTV – My favorite channel is the new live streaming of ESPN. Love it!
• TripIt – I’m able to forward confirmations for flights, hotels and cars and this app tracks my itineraries.
• TV.com – I can watch clips and full episodes of CBS programming.
• WordPress – The app allows me to manage TonyMorganLive.com on the fly.
• YouVersion – This let’s me connect to the online Bible reading site including over 40 translations and 20 reading plans.
• Zillow Real Estate – Helps us find homes for sale and home values as we’re trying to hunt down our next home.

Those are my favorites. What am I missing?

In case you missed the news, yesterday William Vanderbloemen announced the launch of the Vanderbloemen Search Group. The group has the sole focus of helping connect the right ministries with the right key staff people.

I’ve been partnering with William in the last year to help with church leadership search. We’re working together to help churches find leaders including their next senior pastor, executive pastor, campus pastor or lead pastor. The creation of this new group provides a new focus, but what doesn’t change is our continued partnership to assist churches with their ministry leadership search needs.

Check out our new website to read about our team, our process and the churches we’ve worked with in the past. Feel free to contact us with questions about how we might help you.

A couple of months ago, I let the world know that we were hiring a communications director. The world sent us Phil . Now we need to hire Phil’s partner in crime.

Our team at West Ridge Church is looking for a media director. I’m not very knowledgeable about these things, but this is the person that takes pictures, videos and moving graphics and creates visual stories. Only we need someone who is really, really good at that. My amateur film-making skills don’t qualify.

As an amateur describing this very specialized role, here’s my description of the person we want to hire:

• You are an artist looking for the freedom to use your creative gifts.
• You’re a leader. You inspire and bring the best out of others…especially gifted volunteers.
• Your mobile phone is filled with other artists and techies who can help you get the job done when a special talent is needed.
• You’re good behind the camera. You can edit with the best of them, but you’re most comfortable directing and producing multiple projects with other talented people.
• You don’t necessarily have church experience, but you love Jesus and you want to reach others.
• You love sharing stories visually.
• You love the creative process.
• You believe video is critical to reaching today’s culture with the Gospel message.

Here’s the deal–we’re building the dream team at West Ridge, and we see this role as critical to where God is taking us next. Is it you? Is it someone you know?

Seriously gifted and interested folks can email me with a resume and a link to your online home so we can check out samples of your work.

I can’t wait to have you on our team!

I love Gary Hamel’s writings in the Wall Street Journal on management. Last week, he had an interesting article on the ideals that have made Apple the company that they are today. This was his list:

• Be passionate. “I think, for a company to generate years of exceptional returns unless it first devotes itself to the pursuit of an exceptional ideal.”
• Lead, don’t follow. Apple “always sets out to radically redefine a category with a distinctive product or business model.”
• Aim to surprise. “Apple seems committed to exceeding expectations—to evoking a “Wow!” from even its most jaded customers.”
• Be unreasonable. “Reasonable people don’t produce breakthroughs.”
• Innovate incessantly and pervasively. Apple “must be relieved that innovation is still a sideshow in so many of their competitors.”
• Sweat the details. “Great design isn’t just about bold strokes, it’s about getting all of the tiny things right that conspire together to make a product truly exceptional.”
• Think like an engineer, feel like an artist. “A company can’t produce beautiful products if the bean counters win every argument.”

This is just a snippet of Hamel’s thoughts. Check out the rest of the article for more insights.

I think he pretty accurately describes what makes Apple unique. What would you add to the list? Do you think any of these attributes have a place in the organizations we lead? I do.

It’s hard to believe, but Killing Cockroaches was released one year ago. The book continues to be available on Amazon and in your local bookstores, but I also have about 125 copies remaining. So, until supplies last, you can purchase a copy for $10 plus shipping. I’ll sign it. With that, I’m sure it’ll become a collectible.

You may use the link below to place your order.

By the way, you may not know that I’ve also written three other books with Tim Stevens. The three books are part of the “Simply Strategic” series. One is on details of running a church. There’s one on volunteer strategy. The third one is on growing churches. Again, all three of these books including the Kindle version of Simply Strategic Volunteers is available on Amazon.