A friend in ministry recently asked me what questions church leaders should be asking. I thought about the types of questions I try to help answer when I’m working with them in the church consulting or coaching relationships. Here are the first questions and some bonus thoughts that came to mind:

1. When was the last time I heard from God? Am I doing what he called me to do? This is the “Acts 6″ question. Acts 6 is a great reminder that it’s possible to be doing the ministry of God without doing the ministry God has called us to do.
2. What should our church be known for in this community? For a moment, ignore anyone who attends your church. What does the rest of the community know about your church?  That’s a better reflection of whether or not you’re really accomplishing your vision.
3. Are we really focusing our time, money, leadership, prayer behind the things that will produce life change and community impact? If not, there’s a good chance that “fairness” is driving these decisions. Fairness never produces revolution.
4. Is our church growing both spiritually and in numbers? Churches that are stuck and not bearing fruit hate this question. As I’ve shared before, I don’t believe healthy churches are necessarily big churches, but healthy churches are growing churches.
5. Is there a clear path to help people take steps in their faith with the ultimate goal of them becoming fully-devoted followers of Christ? Having a vibrant Sunday worship experience is only one component of that. I’m amazed at how many churches haven’t really established a discipleship strategy beyond Sunday morning. (more…)

Mac Lake

My friend Mac Lake moved to Atlanta last year to help start The Launch Network, a new church planting network. (The guys from DC are designing and developing the website. It’ll be revealed soon.) Through the years, Mac has become one of the most respected voices on leadership development in the church. In addition to his experience as a church planter, it’s one of the reasons why I believe he’s the perfect fit for his role as “Chief Launch Officer” with The Launch Network. I asked Mac to share his perspective on current trends with church planting. Here are his thoughts:

I think with the recent surge in church planting there’s a new mentality being built in the church. For years it would break my heart when I’d hear a sharp young leader say, “I feel God calling me to plant a church, but I can’t tell my senior pastor because I will be fired on the spot.”

It’s no surprise that research shows only 15% of American churches involve themselves in church planting. That’s a staggering 85% who don’t reproduce! Could you imagine if only 15% of the families in America were reproducing? This nation would dissolve in no time.

This is the spiritual crisis we’re facing in the church. However there seems to be a fresh interest in church planting which is causing more and more churches to ask themselves how they can be a part of identifying, equipping, funding and sending church planters.

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I’m really looking forward to this Sunday. Joe Sangl will be speaking at the West Ridge Dallas and West Paulding campuses. (Don’t worry Oak Leaf. You’ll see him in a couple of weeks.) Joe is a friend of mine from my days at NewSpring Church. He’s now helping churches help people find health with their personal finances. Here are Brian and Brent talking about what’s coming this Sunday:

Joe will also be teaching the Financial Learning Experience this coming Thursday evening at the Dallas campus. The Financial Learning Experience was developed from Joe’s book, I Was Broke. Now I’m Not. The book and the seminar equip people to accomplish far more than they ever thought possible with their personal finances.

There are already over 500 people registered for the Financial Learning Experience. If you’d like to participate, register for free so that we can feed you and make sure we have enough materials.

Josh Griffin

Josh Griffin is the high school youth pastor at Saddleback Church. He and I have known each other through the years…primarily because he’s one of the most prolific bloggers I know. (In other words, I can’t keep up with him.) I asked Josh to give his perspective of trends he’s seeing in student ministry. Here’s his response:

There are more resources and thought leaders than ever before.

In the not so distant past there were only a select few outlets for resources and a handful of voices that shaped the direction of youth ministry mainstream. The advent of blogs and the rise of micro-publishing has given everyone a voice in youth ministry. This exciting trend has led us to a renewed interest in collaboration, idea sharing and the individualization of youth ministries across the country. There are certainly still must-read books and thought leaders – but now everyone can learn from everyone.
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Perry Noble

Perry Noble is the senior pastor of NewSpring Church, a multi-site church in South Carolina. He planted the church about ten years ago, and the ministry is having a big impact throughout the state. Perry was kind enough to offer his thoughts on trends he’s seeing in the church:

TONY: What’s a current trend that you’re seeing churches across the country begin to embrace?

PERRY: One of the trends that I am absolutely loving is the willingness of churches to cross denominational and even theological lines and begin to work with each other. I believe that for years the church was held back by small-minded individuals who thought they could not work with or learn from people who did not think and act just like them. However, today we are seeing more
and more churches partner together and learn from one another in ways that they never have before.

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Will Mancini

Today’s contribution to the “Church Trends” series comes from Will Mancini. Will is the founder and Clarity Evangelist of Auxano. He is a consultant, strategist, and vision architect for churches and ministries across the country. Here are a couple of Will’s latest thoughts on trends he’s seeing in the church:

Networks are Becoming the New Denominations

The rise of church planting networks not only validate the entrepreneurial spirit but enable new groupings of ” the small” from the prior trend to exert more influence. As the new learning, new strategies and new relationships cluster in these front line networks, the knowledge, encouragement and accountability of traditional denominations bring less value. It’s no surprise to most readers that the time and resources from most denominations are woefully tied up with ineffective congregations.

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Thanks to a little inspiration from Michael Hyatt, I decided to check out options for creating a personalized URL shortener to use on Twitter. Today all the stars fully aligned and I was able to go live with “tmlive.us” as an alternative to the “bit.ly” urls you may have noticed in the past.

As I was digging into the process, the one thing I wanted to avoid was all the ongoing monthly fees. I’m cheap, so I was only going to pull this off if I could find an almost-free solution.

It turns out that bit.ly has a “Pro” level that’s currently in beta. Among other features, the beta level allows for custom short domain names. Here’s a graphic that highlights the differences between the various bit.ly features available:

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Reggie Joiner

Reggie Joiner used to be part of the leadership team at North Point Community Church. Several years ago, he transitioned to focus full-time on Orange, an organization that provides resources and events to equip children’s and student ministry leaders and parents. Here’s what Reggie had to share about one of the current trends he’s seeing impacting teenagers in the church:

The dropout rate for teenagers and college students in churches is forcing pastors to rethink programming. An influential church in the Dallas area has just redefined a weekly gathering for teenagers in a radical way. Instead of meeting to simply study Scripture, they are also mobilized to engage in hands-on service and ministry in their community. Pastors and small group leaders around the country are beginning to recognize that this age group needs to be given more ministry responsibility. If they hope to change the consumerism attitude toward church that causes so many teenagers to ultimately disengage, they will have to evolve their conventional programs.

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I’ve had an intriguing email exchange today with a pastor of a small church here in the Southeast. He’s been in his position for less than two years, and he’s leading his church through a transition. They’re just beginning to break the 100 barrier. Here are a handful of take aways from his experiences:

• It’s impossible to grow a church beyond 100 people if there’s one person who makes all the decisions and calls all the shots.
• When one person controls the ministry, it denies God’s plan to equip God’s people to do his work. Healthy growth doesn’t happen outside of God’s design. See Ephesians 4:11-13.
• Many times people have to leave before the church can become healthy and experience growth.
• Many times the people who leave make little if any financial impact with their departure. In other words, your most vocal antagonists in many cases are giving very little to the church.
• It’s difficult to build momentum with regular transitions in leadership.
• Growth in churches is more about relationships than anything else. This church doesn’t even have a website at this point.

Those are some learnings from this pastor’s experiences. What are yours? As the pastor of a smaller church, what were some of the keys to breaking through those growth barriers?

John Ortberg

About a year and a half ago, I had the opportunity to meet John Ortberg for the very first time. He’s been one of my favorite teachers and writers through the years. Now, after having had a couple of opportunities to connect with him face-to-face, I can confirm that he’s also a genuinely good guy.

John is the Senior Pastor of Menlo Park Presbyterian Church. He’s also written a number of great books including his most recent, The Me I Want to Be (affiliate link). Currently, John is also partnering with the team at Monvee to to help people discover what is getting in the way of their spiritual growth and then craft a plan to address it.

I asked John to give his perspective on spiritual formation trends in the church:

I think that there is a large groundswell of people who are seeking to be disciples–followers of Jesus–in a way that brings about authentic change at the level of character and habits and ‘automatic behaviors.’ I think for too long discipleship became a word that, in certain circles, conjured up early morning meetings at Denny’s and reading a book and filling in blanks and ‘accountability’ to make sure other people filled in their blanks.

People are more aware that information alone does not produce transformation. People are also hungry to understand the connection between discipleship and doing justice.

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