Yesterday morning, my family attended the first Easter services, then we volunteered at the second two services. Since I’m serving on the guest services team, I was able to pull my youngest daughter out of her class after my job was done welcoming everyone to the third service. That saved her from having to sit through the same lesson for the third time. And, it provided an excuse for me to head over to Starbucks and grab a coffee.

Yes, Starbucks is open on Sunday mornings. And, yes, that even includes Easter. The team who served me was very friendly. There were a number of customers seated both inside and outside the store. If people congregate at Starbucks on Sunday morning does that make them congregants? If so, Brooke and I qualified and our table was positioned very close to the barista’s pulpit.

What caught Brooke’s attention when she entered the store was the apple fritter in the glass case. What caught my attention was the large sign just inside the entrance promoting the opportunity to volunteer in my community. That’s right — Starbucks is focused on community service this month. Does that make Starbucks missional? Or, does the fact that they serve apple fritters make them attractional? I don’t know if I’m supposed to love their strategy to reach new customers and make caffeine converts or not. I’m so conflicted in my spirit.

By the way, here’s the video from the Starbucks website inviting me to volunteer to serve my community:

If you are a church leader, this Starbucks initiative should raise two challenging questions:

1. Is my church as intentional as Starbucks is at reaching my community? I can assure you, this isn’t a completely altruistic endeavor for Starbucks. At the end of the day, it’s all about their stock price and the bottom line. Obviously, they’ve come to the conclusion that community service helps them sell coffee. This strategic initiative helps them fulfill their mission.
2. Is my church any different than Starbucks is at reaching my community? Just to shoot straight with you, this “outreach” that Starbucks is engaging looks identical to many local missions efforts I see in churches across the country today. And, if we don’t effectively connect the mission to the message, the church looks no different than Starbucks. (Other than the fact that their marketing is better and our coffee is not as good.)

Check out the Google Hangout with Face the Nation’s Bob Schieffer. Interesting conversation.

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 April:

BVCMS – a web-based, ministry focused, complete and affordable church management system

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

Ministry Ops – a simple hosted platform for publishing & sharing audio and video files online

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

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!

You may have noticed some great content in recent weeks from other guest contributors. There’s room for your quality content as well. (btw… We don’t publish your stinky content.) If you’d like to jump on board, here are…

10 Rules to Get Published on TonyMorganLive.com

1. Your post should provide our readers with strategic and practical content that helps them get unstuck and have a bigger impact.
2. Your post must be original and not previously published on the web or in print.
3. You agree not to post the article anywhere else, but feel free to promote it from your site, Twitter, Facebook, etc.
4. You may provide up to three byline links: one for your blog or Web site, one for your organization and one for your Twitter account.
5. Your post should be less than 500 words. We like simple and concise.
6. Your post cannot advertise your product. We do provide a way to advertise on our site.
7. We will copyedit your post for grammar, punctuation, spelling, etc.
8. We may provide a short introduction or conclusion to your post explaining why we thought your post was important to our readers.
9. We may not publish your article. Our team has to determine whether or not your content adds value to our readers.
10. Please email Jason your post for consideration. You will receive a response within 10 days.

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

1. I Have a New Job (3/07/012)
2. 5 Bits of Fatherly Advice for Youth Pastors (3/07/012)
3. My NCAA 2012 Tourney Picks (3/11/012)
4. 12 Questions on Job Satisfaction (10/14/08)
5. Are You in Student Ministry? Check Out This Job Opening (3/26/012)
6. 7 Questions to Help You Get Unstuck (3/8/012)
7. The Thirty Second Rule (3/6/012)
8. Stop Leading Like You Parent First Graders (3/27/012)
9. The “Culture of Honor” is Hurting Churches (3/31/011)
10. Minding the Gap: How to Get Unstuck (3/21/012)

Eight of the top 10 posts were written last month. The other posts are from the list of “popular articles” offered in the sidebar linking to archived content. Stay tuned in the coming days. Some exciting posts are right around the corner.

If you are a fan of Google like me, you’re probably familiar with their “20-percent time” benefit. The benefit allows employees to invest 20 percent of their time in the projects that they’re most passionate about. Out of that freedom, some of the best Google solutions have come to fruition.

In churches, on the other hand, we don’t do “new” very well.

Frankly, the idea of staff employees investing 20 percent of their time in new innovations is too big a leap for most churches. Churches aren’t ready for that type of change.

Here’s an alternative, though, that could pay huge dividends. What would happen if we asked every staff member, both full-time and part-time, to invest 20 percent of their time in mentoring others? What if we equipped staff with a leadership development strategy, tools and resources to invest in future leaders? What if we gave staff the freedom (and the expectation) that one out of every five hours would be dedicated to mentoring and discipleship? How might that impact the future of our churches?

And, here’s a little secret…

You don’t need permission to do this.

If you’re the youth pastor, you’re not going to get fired for this. Just start prioritizing your time to make it happen. Take a look at your weekly calendar. Block off one out of every five hours to make it happen.

Be intentional with other people. Test-drive this idea for the next six months. If you find success, my guess is other leaders will start asking you about your magic sauce. If it doesn’t work, drop it and go back to your regularly scheduled programming.

I challenged my coaching networks to embrace this last month. I challenged over 100 staff leaders at Cincy Vineyard to do the same during my half-day workshop on building volunteer teams. I’ve started embracing this formula with guys like Ryan.

Who are you mentoring?

If you’d like me to come invest in your staff and volunteer team and share this vision, let’s chat. I’d like to help you begin to multiply your leadership quotient.

BVCMS is a web-based, ministry-focused Church Management System with big church features. It is comparable to any of the popular ChMS systems on the market today. But unlike these other systems, BVCMS is an Open Source project. This means that the code underlying the software is available for free under the GPL license. The code cannot be sold or used in other commercial products. Churches can download the software and host it themselves on their own servers. Or, they can have bvcms.com host their database and do all that work for them. BVCMS.com is a separate, for-profit company that provides hosting, service and helpdesk support for over 110 churches using the BVCMS Open Source software. These churches are hosted on a rackspace.com web farm managed by bvcms.com.

Open Source software allows churches to have the system for a lower total cost. However, because there is no revenue from commercial license fees, this requires a different type of funding for the continued development of new software features. So, the Open Source BVCMS has become a Church Sponsored project. New features and improvements to the software are paid for and sponsored by churches. The Open Source BVCMS currently has two main sponsors: Bellevue Baptist Church in Memphis and Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City.

Bellevue was the originator of the project and is the largest church using the system. They generously released the source code under an Open Source license, which now benefits well over 100 churches and will continue to reap Kingdom rewards.

We are now fortunate to have Redeemer Presbyterian Church, NYC as a partner. Redeemer has used BVCMS since July 2010 and became an official sponsor in October 2011. Their attention to design, detail and user experience has helped improve BVCMS in many ways. Redeemer helped design our online registration system and our iPhone App used for directory search and recording attendance. They helped sponsor the new iPad BVCheckin App, used for self check-in for events and children’s ministries at their new W83 Ministry Center. Also, Redeemer directed the development of a complete API in BVCMS, used to run custom modules on redeemer.com.

Continue Reading…

In case you missed these, here are some great articles I recently shared on my Twitter account.

Five Strategies to Reach Young People at Church by Will Mancini

Email is More Popular than Social Media by Todd Wasserman

Ambidextrous Ministry by Eric Geiger

Thoughts from Catalyst by Ryan Stigile

Organizing Your Church on Purpose and Giftedness by Rick Warren

Jim Collins’ Ten Greatest CEOs of All Time by Jim Collins

When Leaders Suffocate Their Staff by Scott Williams

Seven Suggestions for Asking More Powerful Questions by Michael Hyatt

Lead Differently by Mark Miller

Test It On A Few by Pete Wilson

By Ryan Stigile, contributing writer

Many of us have a desperate desire for strategic change within our organization. Unfortunately, most of us are not the point leaders of our team. This lack of authority creates frustration for a forward-thinking follower. Constrained by position, the pursuit of change can feel far above our heads. I imagine many have thought, “My organization will never improve because my leader won’t initiate the necessary change.” This line of reasoning is based on the assumption that change develops strictly through a hierarchical structure. If we consider the reformation of societies,  innovations in industry, and turnarounds of organizations, we can find one truth that spans them all:

Change begins with new ideas.

New ideas are not restricted by structure, only lack of influence. Regardless of your position, the following principles can help you get the ball rolling from the bottom:

1.  Challenge the paradigm, never the person

Everyone on your team holds a paradigm of your organization, its problems, and the accomplishments it is capable of achieving. Some of the paradigms are accurate reflections of reality while many only limit the possibility of change. It is natural to judge a person’s heart by their paradigm. But paradigms are created by experience, not character. Despite disagreeing perspectives, the people on your team share a genuine desire for your church or organization. Challenge the paradigm but never challenge the person. The quicker you recognize and value someone’s heart, the faster you will win it.

2.  Utilize objective evidence, not subjective observations

Forward-thinking followers can quickly recognize the need for change with basic observations. General statements such as, “We need to be relevant” or “Our people are not serving,” can be quickly discredited with equally unverified opinions. Objective evidence provides credibility to your assessments, opening the door to discuss new ideas. Your subjective observations are probably correct, they just do not communicate well. Take them a step further by surveying your members, putting together a focus group, graphing your attendance data, etc. Verify your subjective observations with objective evidence that a real problem exists. Continue Reading…

Yesterday, we talked about Solomon. He was the wisest man in the world, and, because of that, he understood the value of seeking counsel. His son, on the other hand, was not so smart.

We can read about Solomon’s son, King Rehoboam, in I Kings 12 and II Chronicles 10. As Rehoboam transitioned into power, he needed to determine how he was going to rule his people. Initially, he sought the advice of his elders. The older, more-experienced advisers told the king to be kind to the people. If so, the people would remain faithful and would always be the king’s servants.

Then Rehoboam sought the counsel of a different group of advisers. They were younger men. They had grown up with the king. One could argue that since they were so close to Rehoboam, they told the king what he wanted to hear. Their advice was different. They encouraged the king to treat the people harsher. They encouraged the king to make the burden even heavier.

Who do you listen to?

Rehoboam made a poor decision. He followed the direction of the younger, less-experienced advisers. As a result of that decision, the people of Israel rebelled against his leadership. What’s fascinating is it says in this passage that this poor choice was “from God.” Isn’t it interesting? Since Rehoboam distanced himself from the heart of God, God allowed Rehoboam to make a poor decision and face the consequences.

As Christ-followers we have the wisdom of the Holy Spirit in us.

John 14:26 says the Holy Spirit “will teach you everything and will remind you of everything I have told you.”

It’s as if we’re receiving wisdom directly from God. Again, if I was God, I’d say, “The Holy Spirit is sufficient. There’s no need for seeking the advice of others.”

Yet that’s not God’s design. He designed us to teach others. He designed us to be in relationship with others. He designed us to mentor others. He designed us to learn from others. We see examples of this throughout Scripture.

Wisdom comes from God, but it oftentimes comes through the counsel of other people.