Through my partnership with Vanderbloemen Search Group, I’m working with Lee’s Summit Community Church in Lee’s Summit, Missouri, to help them find their new Lead Pastor.

I’ve visited with the team at Lee’s Summit Community Church (LSCC) several times. They’re great people. And, after 23 years of faithful service, the Lead Pastor is transitioning to the role of teaching pastor and opportunities to minister in Asia. Because of that, LSCC is searching for a candidate to follow him in a seamless transition in becoming the new Lead Pastor.

LSCC is a growing and externally-focused church in the Kansas City area with a track record for reaching the unchurched, making disciples and furthering the Kingdom by planting churches and intentionally caring for their community. Over 1,800 people attend services each weekend.

The Lead Pastor will serve as the chief communicator, teacher and visionary for LSCC. He will be responsible for sharing the gospel and communicating the vision of the church, leading the staff and elder teams and championing all areas of growth including church planting. The candidate will lead from a place of a servant and have a strong relationship with Christ. He will be able to teach with clarity and authenticity, lead LSCC into the future with respect for its history and be relationally and spiritually proactive with the staff, members and community. Candidates will have a Bachelor’s degree and seminary training or advanced Biblical studies are preferred.

Lee’s Summit is becoming one of the busiest centers in the Kansas City metro region. Cultural, entertainment and educational opportunities are fifteen minutes away from this suburban area with a low cost of living.

Interested applicants can upload their resume to our secure site, or you can email it to resumes@vanderbloemensearch.com. As always, this is a confidential process.

I partner with Vanderbloemen Search Group, a retained executive search firm, to help churches find their key staff. I’m frequently helping large, fast-growing churches with a focus on reaching the unchurched. If your church needs assistance in this sort of search, feel free to contact me.

1. Fantasy football
2. The new album “The Awakening” by James Morrison
3. Driving my new-to-me Acura TL…after driving the minivan for six days
4. Presidential politics
5. 30 Rock episodes on Netflix

Because of what I do, I get to sit in many different services in many different churches. I’m surprised at how very little connection I typically see between the various elements of the services in many churches. It’s as if there was no planning — I’m guessing everyone prepared their portion of the service separately. The message stands alone. The worship stands alone. The announcements stand alone. The videos stand alone. The special music stands alone.

On the other hand, there are churches that understand the value of communicating one message throughout the entire service. Every element is connected. It flows from beginning to end. In fact, if you were to pull out a particular element on its own, you may ask why would a church include that in a service? But, in the context of the entire service, it helps communicate a powerful message. This video is a good illustration of this.

Last week at the East Paulding location of West Ridge Church, the band played “Black Dress” by The Normals. It’s a song about adultery. It’s accompanied by a video that visually captures a man wrestling with sexual temptation. On their own, either one of these elements would be completely inappropriate for a worship service. In combination with everything else including the Bible teaching that follows, though, it provided the foundation for the one message that was communicated in the service. Check out the video:

Among other things, let me highlight…

• Chris Fenner did an amazing job with the video. He’s incredibly talented. We’re grateful to have him on our team.
• The video shares an unfortunate trend we’re seeing: People are putting their marriages at risk by engaging past relationships through Facebook. It’s a real life issue that needs to be addressed.
• Paul Richardson immediately comes out to connect the message of the song and video with the message he’s teaching — it’s the same message.

I love the intentionality of creative arts programming like this. We’re fortunate to have many of these resources in-house at West Ridge to accomplish this. However, there are many resources available so that churches of any size can integrate every element with the one message in a service.

Are you being intentional about communicating one message through your entire service? This article on 10 Ways to Improve Series Planning may help you think about how you can improve your planning to improve this aspect of your services.

The following was written by Joseph Sangl, President & CEO of Injoy Stewardship Solutions.

As a church leader, you are acutely aware that the God-given mission and vision costs money.  Church leaders must raise the money for the key next steps toward their God-given mission and vision. But let’s face it, most church leaders haven’t received much financial management training or guidance on how to talk to people about money.  Pastors become pastors to help people learn about and experience the life-changing message of Jesus.  As the church reaches more people, there is suddenly a need to take a big next step to be able to serve all of the people that are being ministered to – and it costs money – BIG money.

When faced with this challenge, here are six key questions to ask yourself and your leadership team:

1. Is this truly a God-given vision?
2. Is the next step crisp and clear?
3. How much will the next step cost?
4. How far do we need to go with this step?
5. How fast do we need to get there?
6. Are the leaders in my church on board?

As a leader, these questions can serve you very well in understanding the current environment, but one additional question to ask yourself is: “Do I want my church members to just participate in a fundraiser, or should this be a spiritual journey that leads to life transformation?”

I don’t know about you, but there’s nothing as incredible as a fully funded vision that leads to life transformation!  That’s exactly what Injoy Stewardship Solutions is all about – helping leaders fully fund their vision while lives are transformed as a result of engaging in an effective stewardship journey — one based upon the blueprint of the Bible.

Joe and his team at Injoy would love to talk with you about the next big financial steps you are facing at your church.  Share your project with them below and a member of the Injoy team will respond ASAP to see how we can help you move the dream to reality!

__________

This is a sponsored post from Injoy Stewardship Solutions, one of my ministry partners on TonyMorganLive.com.

When considering who should be on the senior leadership team, many times we try to answer the wrong questions. Sometimes we ask, “What positions should be represented on the team?” In church world, we may think the “Pastor” or “Director” title or people with certain positions automatically qualify. That’s not always the case.

Sometimes we ask, “Who has been around for the longest?” Tenure does not necessarily equate with the profile of the person you want serving on this team. In fact, I’d argue that if you’re stuck and fresh perspective is one of your needs, sometimes the newest person may be who should be on the team.

It’s not about positional leadership or length of ministry. It’s not necessarily the people at the very top of your current organizational structure. However, once you identify the right people for your situation, you should build your structure around your senior leadership team. In other words, every person and every ministry needs to be connected to one person on your senior leadership team.

With that preface, here are seven questions to help you identify who should be on your senior leadership team. This assumes, of course, people have already met the qualifications of leadership defined by Scripture.

1. Do they have the leadership gift? This is the key question that shapes everything else. If they aren’t a leader, they shouldn’t be on this team. You also need to consider leadership capacity. We know from Scripture that there are leaders of tens, fifties, hundreds and thousands. For this team, you ultimately need leaders of hundreds and thousands.
2. Are they a big-picture thinker? In other words, this person always prioritizes the church’s health over what’s happening in their specific ministry area. They are more concerned with alignment to the overall goals rather than defending their turf. They won’t let their passion for a specific ministry get in the way of making decisions that help the entire church take a step forward.
3. Is this person a strategic thinker? You need people who can think beyond the daily details. There are places for managers on your team. You need people who can take the game plan and make it happen. Your senior team, though, isn’t the place for managers. Find people who think about the future and then can strategically propose how to get from here to there. (more…)

These rarely are available, so I wanted to give you a heads up. We have an opening on our West Ridge team at the Cartersville location. One of our guys just accepted a new job at a new church back in his hometown. That means we have a leadership role available on our team. Here are the specifics:

• Role: Student Pastor
• Status: part-time, about 20 hours per week
• Supervisor: Cartersville campus pastor/executive pastor with influence from West Ridge student ministry leaders

You’ll be joining six other staff members in Cartersville. You’ll primarily lead our student ministry, but we do everything together as a team in Cartersville. You’ll have immediate voice and influence in every area of ministry.

You’ll also jump right into a ministry with solid volunteer leadership in place. We have the people and resources ready to reach hundreds of students in our region. We are looking for our next leader to see it happen. Seriously, if you’re looking for a shot at being empowered to build a healthy ministry that helps students become fully-devoted followers of Christ, this is your opportunity.

Here’s what else you could potentially gain by investing the next several years of your life in this role:

• The chance to grow with our ministry. Think leadership development and doing life with others committed to a BIG mission.
• The opportunity to link up with people and resources in multiple locations. We are currently one church in three locations with plans to expand throughout our region northwest of Atlanta.
• The chance to be a part of a reproducing church. We partner with The Launch Network to inspire and equip next-generation leaders. That’s part of our DNA, and it’s reflected within the church’s culture.
• The expectation that you’ll invest in people that will impact the world. Whether it’s partnering with over 100 local churches and thousands of volunteers to help our neighbors through “Community Makeover” or drilling wells and planting churches in Burkina Faso, this church doesn’t settle — we want to link up with Kingdom-minded people to make an impact beyond the walls of our buildings.

Are you a young leader ready to take your next step in ministry? Send me your resume. I’ll forward you the job profile. But, act quickly. We already have candidates in the process.

A few weeks ago I picked up a free copy of Read This Before Our Next Meeting by Al Pittampalli. It offers an interesting twist on the strategy for meetings in organizations. Here are some of the highlights from my reading:

• “We’re now addicted to meetings that insulate us from the work we ought to be doing.”
• “When’s the last time any one of us made a game-changing decision that made our hearts race?”
• “I can think of no single great innovation that has ever happened without the presence of opposition.”
• “Regularly interrupting the day to bring our best minds together to focus on the urgent makes it impossible for these people to spend their focused energy on what’s actually important.”
• “Peter Drucker tells us that meetings are by definition a concession to deficient organization. We either meet or work. We can’t do both at the same time.”
• “Meetings need to be less like the endless commercial breaks during a football game, and more like pit stops at the Daytona 500.”
• “Meetings have become a tool to delay decisions. They have become our default stalling tactic.”
• “We must structure the Modern Meeting so that bold decisions happen often and quickly, and those decisions are converted into movement that leads our organization forward—fearlessly.”
• “Modern Meetings can’t exist without a decision to support. Not a question to discuss—a decision.”
• “I believe that just about anyone is capable of participating productively in a brainstorming session, but with one important caveat: the closer the topic is to the work you do all day, the worse you will perform.”
• “Group decision making often leads to a culture of compromise.”

I don’t necessarily buy into all the principles discussed in the book. For example, I’m not sure what I think about every decision happening outside the context of a team meeting. However, I think this is a good read for anyone who is responsible for organizing and leading people to reassess the effectiveness of meetings.

Here’s my Amazon link if you’d like to pick up a copy to read and discuss with your team.

Wow! It’s been quite a week around here. We launched the latest eBook last Monday, and lots of people have generously been sharing the love. Since Hanging Up the Leisure Suit: How to Get Unstuck was released, over 5,000 people have already viewed/downloaded it. I really appreciate the response.

Over the last week, several folks have shared reviews on their websites. Here are a handful of reviewers that sent me their links:

• Bob Adams
• Louie Marsh
• Steve Stewart
• Charles Cole
• Paul Alexander
• Steve Blumer
• Mike Morris
• Matthew Costner
• Tom Jamieson
• Ryan Stigile
• Nick Blevins
• Billy Ritchie

It’s no secret — organizations must have leaders in order to accomplish their mission. However, as I work with churches across the country, the development of leaders seems to be a huge challenge every one is facing these days. That’s why I’m excited about this new eBook from Mac Lake. Until now, it’s been difficult to recommend specific resources for churches to help with leadership development. In Building a Leadership Development Culture, Mac addresses the core issues of this challenge and gives practical steps to help you and your organization begin building many reproducing leaders.

Many leaders are paralyzed by the seemingly impossible challenge of building new leaders.  In this book, you will find practical ideas that can be implemented right away to help you start building a culture of leadership development in your team, department or organization.  If you implement the strategy provided in this resource, the leadership landscape of your organization can look drastically different 12 months from now.

Here’s the truth: Leaders develop leaders. It’s not enough to depend on conferences for leadership development. It’s time to challenge leaders to get their hands dirty once again in raising up new leaders. When an organization learns how to reproduce leaders, it will impact their growth and health for generations. Don’t settle for a one-generation run of ministry. God has a bigger vision for you and your church. Real leaders leave a legacy of new leaders.

Building a Leadership Development Culture is available through Leadia. Leadia is a new venture from the Leadership Network that provides resources to leaders through an integrated media experience. If you have an iPad or iPhone, you can download the app then purchase Mac’s resource on leadership development.

I also have a couple of FREE copies to give away to TonyMorganLive.com readers. To win one of those copies, just leave a comment on this article. Again, you need to have an iPad or iPhone in order to access the resource. I’ll select the winners tomorrow evening.

UPDATE: The winners have been selected and notified by email. Thanks for participating!

The Launch Network

West Ridge Church has had a strong commitment to planting churches through the years. Like just about anything in ministry, though, you can accomplish a lot more when you partner with others. That’s certainly been the case in the last year. By partnering with other churches in The Launch Network, West Ridge is helping plant churches in cities all over the U.S. and Canada.

Here’s a list of the church planters Launch will have assessed, trained and resourced. Some of these churches have already started. Others will start in the coming months.

• Brad Raby, Discovery Church (Knoxville, TN)
• Will Goodwin, Oak Leaf Church (Canton, GA)
• Chad Davis, Venue Church (Hattiesburg, MS)
• Christian Newsome, Journey Church International (Lee’s Summit, MO)
• Robert Green, Fondren Church (Jackson, MS)
• Justin Craig, Vinings Church (Atlanta, GA)
• James Cordell, 101 Church (Rockmart, GA)
• Josh Nelson, The Station Church (Carlsbad, CA)
• Jeff Phillips, The Crossings Church (Vancouver, BC)
• David Bradford, Celebration Church (Hoover, AL)
• Angus McKinley, Elevation Church (Loveland, CO)
• Damian Boyd, Vertical Church (Atlanta, GA)
• Keith Montgomery, Kingdom Come (Woodstock, GA)
• Brandon Brilhart, Relevate Church (Lawrence, KS)
• Doug Sibcy, Impact Church (Lebanon, OH)
• Wesley Odum, Dynamic Church (Chattanooga, TN)
• Jonathan Napier, Newnan Church (Newnan, GA)
• Joey Baynes, Restoration Church (Greensboro, NC)
• Chaz Churchwell, Restore San Diego (San Diego, CA)
• Travis Fox, Salt Lake City Church (Salt Lake City, UT)
• Shawn Peoples, Grace Community (Kaneohe, HI)
• Chris Hughes, Hope Church (Orlando, FL)
• Terence Lester, Innovation Church (Atlanta, GA)
• Bryan Carter, Bozeman City Church (Bozeman, MT)
• Bryant May, The Exchange (Jackson, MS)

Think you might be interested in planting a church in the future? Launch has an assessment next week in Atlanta. Here’s where you can apply online.

Email me if you’d like more details on how your church can partner with West Ridge and the over 25 churches that are inspiring and equipping next-generation planters to lead strong.