I have some big news to share today. At this morning’s West Ridge Church staff team meeting, Brian Bloye, our senior pastor, announced I’m leaving my part-time employment with the church. Don’t be concerned. I initiated this transition to focus my attention on coaching, consulting and writing. I’m encouraged, though, that Brian has asked me to continue serving West Ridge in more of a consulting role. And, my family will continue to stay engaged at West Ridge. We’re not moving. Brian is my pastor, and West Ridge is my church.

This is a transition that has been years in the making. I had my first opportunities to consult with other pastors and churches back when I was still on staff at Granger Community Church. Then, three years ago, I started shifting more time and attention in that direction. That’s why I was only “part-time” at West Ridge. In recent months, though, my ministry to churches across the country has become a full-time commitment. To protect my family time, Emily and I decided I need to get more focused.

With that said, I just wanted you to know that I will be in a better position to help leaders and churches get unstuck. If you’re reading this, you may be in a position to recommend my services to a friend. I’d welcome that connection.

In the coming months, I’ll be tweaking my web strategy to highlight the specific solutions I offer to church leaders. In addition to the books and other resources you may have seen previously, I’ve helped more than 50 churches through training and consulting and I’ve provided coaching to over 100 leaders. That has included:

• Ministry health assessments (helping churches identify where they can improve church health)
• Leadership team assessments (helping senior leadership teams have a bigger impact)
• Staffing and structure reviews (helping churches organize around leadership strengths)
• Leadership coaching (both group and one-on-one opportunities)
• On-site visits for assessment, consulting or team training

I hope you’ll pray for my family and me during this transition. We’re excited about this next step. God’s been preparing us for this move for several years.

Just to be clear, God doesn’t want you or your church to be stuck. Let me know if I can help you take your next steps.

Here are the top 10 posts from TonyMorganLive.com in February 2012.

1. The Story ESPN Won’t Televise (2/19/2012)
2. Invest and Invite…and Invest (2/27/2012)
3. 12 Questions on Job Satisfaction (10/14/2008)
4. 10 Ways to Keep Me Engaged in Your Message (2/23/2012)
5. 8 Reasons Why Your ChMS Isn’t Working (2/15/2012)
6. Senior Leadership Teams: 7 Questions to Identify Who Should Be on the Team (10/24/2011)
7. 10 Easy Ways to Keep Me from Visiting Your Church Because I Visited Your Website (5/14/2005)
8. The “Culture of Honor” is Hurting Churches (3/31/2011)
9. Manifesto (2/19/2012)
10. New FREE eBook Available Now: Stayin’ Alive (2/22/2012)

Six of the top 10 posts were written last month. The other posts are from the list of “popular articles” I recently added to the sidebar which seems to be generating new interest in archived content.

Stay tuned in the coming days. Some exciting posts are right around the corner.

Over the years, I’ve had the opportunity to serve and lead many dynamic teams. In his book, Jesus on Leadership, C. Gene Wilkes shares six benefits of teams:

• Teams involve more people, thus affording more resources, ideas and energy than would an individual.
• Teams maximize a leader’s potential and minimize his or her weaknesses.
• Teams provide multiple perspectives on how to meet a need or reach a goal, thus devising several alternatives for each situation.
• Teams share the credit for victories and the blame for losses.
• Teams keep leaders accountable for the goal.
• Teams can do more than an individual.

President Woodrow Wilson once said, “We should not only use all the brains we have, but all that we can borrow.”  Today, I would like to introduce you to my team.  All of us are very excited about working together to help churches get unstuck.  

Paul Alexander

Paul Alexander is a ministry consultant at Tony Morgan Live. He is a pastor, speaker and strategist who has a passion for helping churches make vision real. For more than 10 years he has served on the senior leadership teams of some of the nation’s leading mega-churches. Currently, Paul is serving as the Executive Pastor at Sun Valley Community Church, a large multi-site church located in the Phoenix area. He has engaged in training on leadership and ministry strategies with Tony Morgan through coaching and consulting relationships. Paul has been married to his wife Lisa for more than 15 years. Together they have three children Kennedy, Mia, and Lincoln.

Regina Brown

Regina Brown is the executive assistant at Tony Morgan Live.  She graduated from Radford University with a degree in Communications.  Regina previously worked as an executive assistant at RE/MAX and served on the human resource team at WellStar Hospital.  Regina enjoys spending quality time with her husband and their two sons.  She loves to read, play the piano, write music and volunteer at her local church.

Jason Vernon

Jason Vernon is the director of marketing and business development at Tony Morgan Live.  He graduated from Liberty University with a degree in Marketing and a Master of Arts in Christian Leadership.  Jason also received an MBA from Lynchburg College.  After spending seven years as a marketing consultant, Jason left his role as the business manager of the marketing firm to focus on his ministry.  He is currently the lead pastor of the RTP Community Church in Durham, NC.  Jason enjoys reading, playing softball and spending time with his wife and son.

Jason Young

Jason Young is a ministry consultant at Tony Morgan Live. He is an architect of “surprise and delight” experiences. He has worked with LifeChurch.tv, First Baptist Church Woodstock, FORD, Chick-fil-A and other great churches and companies. He has a B.A. in English and Christian Studies, an M.Div in Theology and Greek and is completing doctoral work in Leadership Development. Jason recently sold his leadership company to build three new companies that will help churches and companies to create surprise and delight experiences, which are simply those heroic moments that delightfully serve guests creating epic stories that get repeated. Jason loves to spend time with his wife and two children.

I partner with a group of organizations that help resource leaders like you. Here are the folks that are making things happen at TonyMorganLive.com in February:

igniteCRM – web-based church relationship management software created to empower ministry leaders for accelerated church growth

Church Community Builder – web-based church software that actively serves over 1,600 churches in 15 different countries from church plants to multi-site, mega-churches

Elexio – offers a new integrated church software suite including web, database, mobile and check-in

Leaders Book Summaries – summaries of the best books on leadership, management and church life to help you become a better leader

The Orange Conference – a premier conference for church leaders hosted in Atlanta in April 2012

Outreach Events – specializes in dynamic, outreach-oriented events with speakers and Christian comedians that create opportunities for sharing faith

Preach Better Sermons – a free 180-minute live online event to help you prepare and deliver better sermons

Standard Theme – the best-coded WordPress theme ever (My site is built on this theme.)

StreamingChurch.tv – provides everything you need to broadcast your services live

I have a couple of open advertising spots available. If you are interested, email me for more details. I’d love to have you join our team!

Josh Griffin

As part of the current series addressing shifts leaders should consider making this year, I connected with Josh Griffin.  Josh is the High School Pastor at Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, CA.  He is a father of 4 and has been in full-time youth ministry for over 15 years.  Here’s our interview:

TONY:  What’s one thing that leaders and/or organizations (businesses, churches, non-profits, etc.) should consider stopping in 2012?

JOSH:  Stop walking around with such urgency.  When it is time for the service to start and the church staff is briskly running around the worship center then you are basically telling everyone, “I don’t have time for you.”  If someone dares to stop you, you fidget nervously and struggle to maintain eye contact due to fear of dropping the ball on the last lingering details on the program task list.  You peer over this more mortal’s shoulder and silently freak out as the countdown timer signifying the service start is now nearing zero.

You pacify the person who caused the momentary diversion with a shallow promise to connect later in the week.  You know in your heart that you won’t make the connection, but it satisfies the moment and you quickly return to the task at hand.  Just to make sure you’re not stopped again, you take out your phone and participate in a ghost phone call.

TONY:  What’s one thing that leaders and/or organizations (businesses, churches, non-profits, etc.) should consider starting in 2012?

JOSH:  Start caring about people AND the program.  I’m a program person all the way.  There’s nothing more exciting to me than sharing the timeless message of Christ in a creative way.  There always will be a tension between the program and spending time with people.  The last minute details of a service and adjustments to the program sheet cannot crowd out our love for and time with people.  Care about the program, care about the creative elements, be proud of your latest spoken word or creative mini-movie that you sacrificed and sweat over multiple late nights earlier in the week.  But be keenly aware of the people who might need you before the service.  Stop the cycle of outdoing last week’s amazing program and overflow with love for the people who are sitting in the audience.

You can follow more of Josh’s thoughts and updates from his ministry on Twitter.

There’s something new happening at storiesofsifting.com this week. Make sure to check it out. Today they launched a really cool 20-day campaign of daily devotionals based on the theme “sifted.”  The word “sifted” means accelerated spiritual growth in times of trouble.  The 20 leaders in 20 days devotions are essays on 20 Bible leaders (Paul, Noah, David, etc.)  The stories are written in Max Lucado story format by a professional writer. The collection of the stories and similar essays from national leaders will be packaged into a free eBook in the next few months.

Leaders can participate by:

• visiting the stories of sifting web-site each day via http://storiesofsifting.com
• subscribing to the sifted RSS feed at http://feeds.feedburner.com/sifting
• subscribing to the Exponential RSS feed at http://feeds.feedburner.com/exponential

I will also be teaching a couple of workshops at this year’s Exponential Conference on April 23-26 in Orlando, FL.  Hope to see you there.

Here are the top 10 posts from TonyMorganLive.com in January 2012:

1. 6 New Year’s Resolutions for Church Leaders (1/2/2012)
2. 7 Questions to Identify Who Should be on the Team (10/24/2011)
3. The “Culture of Honor” is Hurting Churches (3/31/2011)
4. 12 Questions on Job Satisfaction (10/14/2008)
5. 10 Reasons I Don’t Like Most Christians (12/4/2008)
6. Friday Five: My 5 Favorite Kindle Fire Apps (1/6/2012)
7. 10 Easy Ways to Keep Me from Visiting Your Church Because I Visited Your Website (May 14, 2005)
8. 12 Trends for Healthy Churches in 2012 (1/19/2012)
9. Stop & Start in 2012: Mark Batterson (1/3/2012)
10. 5 Attributes of a Church in Decline (7/15/2010)

Only four of the top 10 posts were written last month. Several of these posts are from the list of “popular articles” I recently added to the sidebar which seems to be generating new interest in archived content.

Stay tuned in the coming days. We’ll wrap up the “Stop & Start” series and share several announcements related to new resources including a new FREE eBook.

Abby, my 11-year-old, gave me this picture for Christmas. It’s now hanging in the home office.

The picture was her idea. She drew it. I think she’s a pretty perceptive young lady. It captures my personality very well. I’m all about business. I want to develop the strategy and work the strategy. But, I have a creative bent. I like life when it’s filled with new ideas and new opportunities.

What does the picture on your office wall say about you?

There’s something big happening at ONLY144.com this week. Be sure to check it out. It’s the biggest sale they have ever had since they started: $97 for $1,678 worth of children’s and preteen ministry resources. The sale starts Friday, January 13 at noon, but I have one package I can give away to one of my readers before the sale starts.

HOW TO ENTER:  All you have to do is leave a comment below with the name of your favorite television show from when you were a kid. My favorite show was The Six Million Dollar Man. I’ll pick the winner this Thursday, January 12 at 12:00 pm. (That’s exactly 24 hours before the sale starts.) I’ll post the winner on my blog and send on the ONLY144 package for free! Good luck!

If your church needs children’s and preteen resources, don’t miss this deal. It only lasts 144 hours and it’s a great way to make your ministry budget go much further in 2012. The first 200 people who order will win some cool prizes. Here they are:

• The first person who orders will get a brand new Amazon Kindle.
• The first 10 people who order will win the new PRAISE VBS Curriculum from GOFISH ($199).
• The first 20 people who order will win the book Stretch by Jim Wideman ($15).
• The first 50 people who order will win the MissionSix Superhero CD.
• The first 100 people who order will win the iShine Live DVD.
• The first 200 people who order will win a YANCY CD.

Visit Only144.com for all the details.

UPDATE: We have a winner! Ryan Guard has just won over $1,600 in resources from Only144.com. Congratulations!