The 24 Hour Rule

This past week I had the privilege of teaching a couple of sessions at the annual Ohio A/G minister's retreat. This event is always a highlight for me. The speakers and sessions are always good, but mostly, I enjoy the interaction and laid back atmosphere. There is so much of an iron sharpens iron element. In the lobbies, the cafeteria, hallways, throughout the campus there are conversations happening that are strengthening and encouraging. Leaders learning from each other is a great thing!

It was a very real honor when I was asked to be a part of this event as a presenter.

I taught both sessions on technology in ministry. The first was a basic look at organizing and using email effectively and efficiently. The second was talking about being mobile and leveraging technology for our benefit.

I will from time to time post some of what I taught as well as what I am currently learning in these areas.

Michael Hyatt has a great series of posts on his blog regarding email. Click here to read his insights. I used some of what he has written in my sessions this week as they are things I have implemented.

One thing we use around here that I feel is very important: the 24 hour rule. It simply states that ALL phone calls and emails are to be responded to within 24 hours (those that require a response , of course). This holds, even if the answer is no or not now. The reply might be as simple as, "Thanks for the email, I will get back to you with that information when it is available," or, "Received your message, I will be in touch with you to follow up by ________."

There are some specific reasons and benefits related to this rule.

• It is common courtesy; something this world could use more of.
• It keeps us responsive.
• Nothing is more frustrating than feeling ignored.
• It shows that we care about people.
• It makes a person feel valued that they received a prompt response.
• It keeps things from falling thru the cracks.

A couple of exceptions to the rule are days off and vacation. Otherwise, we return calls and emails. I do allow for exceptions to unsolicited sales calls. No need to rush a return call there, they will call back. I learned this rule a long time ago and rarely does it get broken. Now my staff follows it as well.

While I am on the subject, if you are a Pastor or church leader, return your calls! Even to missionaries. I know they are asking for platform time and money, but even when the answer is no, they will appreciate the returned call. It is hard to do what they do in contacting churches and pastors. I know how hard it is to tell a missionary no. I have to do it as well. At some point in the future you may be able to work with that missionary or may have an opportunity to get to know them. Think how much better that will be if there is already some respect there.

I have personally experienced this. At my last church, we supported missionaries, but did not have the ability to add more. The number, while good for that size and location church, was much smaller than the number of missionaries the church I am currently pastoring supports. When I moved here and suddenly became a supporting pastor for many missionaries I had not been for the previous years, it was great to know that I had no reason to avoid any missionaries because I had not returned their calls before. Several times, missionaries have commented how much they appreciated me returning their call, even when the answer was "no." At least they knew and could move on and not spend time trying to track me down.

Sorry, I'll get off me soap box now.

What rules do you have regarding emails, phone calls, etc. that work in your context?

General Council

I will have a couple of posts that reflect some of my thoughts and impressions from General Council (GC09)in Orlando two weeks ago. In this first one, I will hit some of the overall things and the tone etc. In other posts I will address a couple of specific issues regarding decisions and business conducted.

Overall, GC09 was a great event! We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. Everything except the registration was run very well and quite organized. Not sure what happened at registration, I have attended Councils before and never had to stand in line for more than a few minutes to get through, especially when we were pre-registered. I was in line for almost an hour and a half and know of some who did so for over three hours. Oh well, I wouldn't want to be in charge of processing 29,000 people.

The Kids Council registration was excellent. They took pictures of the kids and of the parents and even fingerprint scanned the parents. After that, parents signed their children in and out via fingerprint and then received a printout with pictures of kids and parents. That print out had to be turned in and the child's sticker placed on the paper before a parent could leave the area with a child. Very secure and very well done.

The children's workers were wonderful. They engaged the kids and they showed great energy even when I know they were tired. There were field trips in the mornings, activities in the afternoon, and children's services in the evening. My girls loved it! They made friends and they came away telling us about the Bible lessons learned and singing the worship songs. They are already asking if they can go to Kids Council again in two years. Very cool.

The exhibit hall was impressive. It was very hi-tech with computers and video screens everywhere. There were interactive media displays and a couple of stages set up to try out new audio/visual gear from Yahama and even record in a studio set up.

As part of the exhibit area, there was a Eurasia Experience that took you through a full production starting as if you were going through an airport and flying overseas. It walked you through a couple of areas that gave the feel of being in various parts of Eurasia and ended with a great program.

There were a couple of schedule changes that were really nice this year.

On Wednesday, the Youth and Kids Councils had their normal evening services, but there were no adult services. This was designed to give parents a night out alone. Great idea. (We took advantage and had a very nice meal at one of our favorite restaurants.)

On Thursday night, there was a combined Youth and Adult service with elements geared toward each. It was an amazing evening. There is not much that compares to radical and passionate praise taking place across generations in one place. A few rows in front of us was a lady well advanced in years and dressed traditionally. At the front of the room and scattered throughout were teens and young adults. On stage Jeff Deyo was leading worship. There were moving lights, giant screens, and motion graphics. This dear woman had both arms raised fully engaged in worship of God, and so did the thousands of young people as they jumped and shouted! Across the room, people of all ages proclaimed dedication and praise of the living God in one voice. Awesome!

The overall tone of the Council was very good. I am encouraged about the future of the Assemblies of God, but more importantly about the future of the church. This wasn't just about our specific fellowship as moves were made and things were done and people represented that go beyond a labeled group and have Kingdom significance. I walked away challenged and encouraged. God is doing something incredible around the world and we are privileged to be a part of it.

Killing Cockroaches (Thoughts)

I just wanted to weigh in on a couple of thoughts from the seminar I went to last Tuesday with Tony Morgan, author of Killing Cockroaches.

First, what a brilliant idea he had: take a several week family vacation and each week make a stop at a church for a half day seminar based on his book. Sweet! Tour the country with your family and get others to help pay for it; now, that is using the thing between your ears for something other than a hat rack!

Seriously, the cost of the event was more than reasonable. Believe me, I go to conferences and receive invites and promo pieces all the time. Most get pricey very quick. Not without reason, but they can become expensive. On that note, kudos to Tony for not having books to sell and turning it into a marketing event.

Now to the meat. I have already posted my notes so I won't rehash any of that here.

I love the basic premise that Tony is presenting in his book, his blog, and this tour: keep the main thing the main thing. In other words, don't do what you should have someone else doing. Or at least, don't do that thing any longer than it takes to raise up someone else to do it. This of course applies to leaders and specifically the leader in the given context: pastor, ministry leader, etc. We all need to evaluate and make sure that we are staying on task with what we have been called to do, not just what seems to be needed in the moment.

No seminar or conference is worth the time and effort at any price if you don't walk away with some action steps or ideas to implement or changes that need to made. These usually start with you the individual, but should also transfer into the entity, organization, or ministry you lead.

Without going into too much detail (for many reasons), here are a couple of things I walked away with that we will be looking at here at Capital City:

• Putting more effort into raising leaders of leaders and not just filling holes to get tasks done
• We will be evaluating all of our forms of communication to make sure we are sending out one message. We will also be looking at frequency of our communications and make sure that we are going for effectiveness and not "noise."
• We will always ask the question: does this ministry/event add value to people's lives?
• No announcements will be made from the platform that are not truly whole church and vision specific. We will leverage our other mediums to get word out to those who need it for all other things.

By the way, I do recommend Tony's book from what I have read so far.

Killing Cockroaches

Here is part two of my posts from Tuesday morning's Killing Cockroaches Tour seminar. These are the notes I took from session two. I will post some additional thoughts later.


Tony Morgan, Killing Cockroaches
7.14.09

Session Two: 3 questions we must wrestle with to gain focus...

Question 1. Are people hearing the message and experiencing life change?

• Tony gave the example of concert violinist Joshua Bell playing in a metro stop and nobody stopping to hear him play in spite of being one of the best in the world and normally tickets to a symphony with him are exclusive and expensive. In the metro stop he was out of context and didn't connect with situation and bustle of the environment.
• We have a great message (the best message), but we have not been effective at putting it into the context of people's daily lives. People are overly busy day to day and just trying to keep up.
• We need to help people identify what is most important in the Word of God and then help them apply that Word to their daily existence.
• Two questions that matter regarding God's Word:

1. What do people need to know?
2. What do they need to do?

Question 2. Are the next steps clearly defined?

• We need to define what it means to be a fully devoted follower of Christ and be able to communicate that to help people get form where they are now. We must be able to explain who we are trying to get people to become.
• (My thoughts: Variety may be the spice of life, but it can be poison in the church.)
• People don't need more options, they need clearly defined steps.
• Lots of activity does not guarantee results.
• Research has shown that more options actually generate less sales
• Complexity creep - adding new things and never unplugging anything old. Starbucks is experiencing this. They started by offering specific and focused menu of coffee. They keep adding to the menu and have lost much of their edge and even retreating in the market place as they close locations.
• Evaluations:

1. What event or program requires a major platform announcement? If people have to be coerced for the event to happen, it may not be viable or needed.
2. What would you not participate in if you were not on staff?
3. Does this event or program reach outsiders or just satisfy insiders?
4. Where is the fruit? What areas is God blessing the most? These may be the areas we should be focusing on.
5. Who do we want people to be and how do they get there?

Question 3. Are the next steps clearly communicated?

• One message for the church that everyone knows and can articulate the same way.
• Are we over-communicating? In the corporate world, would much of we put out be called SPAM?
• We may just be adding noise to people's lives.
• Viral (word of mouth) is preferable and much more effective than a marketing campaign.
• The vast majority of new guests to a church come because they were personally invited by someone or heard directly of something that is happening.
• We need to make the experience better and work to build relationships.
• Luke 11 - We cannot create impossible religious demands or we are the same as the Pharisees. This would include attendance to all programs, events, etc as well as following a prescribed set of rules or expected actions.
• Jesus is supposed to be the center of a person's life, not the church.

Killing Cockroaches

This morning I had the privilege of attending the "Killing Cockroaches" Summer Tour with author Tony Morgan. It was held at Grace Church in Powell, just a bit north of Columbus. Kary Orberbrunner was the host for the event and he and the rest of his colleagues at Grace did a great job welcoming those that attended. It was a small gathering of pastors and leader which gave way to great discussion and networking in a relaxed atmosphere.

I took several notes and am going to post them here in two posts. One today and one tomorrow. Then I will follow up with some thoughts. I am still reading his book with the same name and will post a review when I finish it.

5 Reasons We Get Stuck Killing Cockroaches...

Reason 1. We settle for something that's not God's plan.

• Abram's father, Terah, settled in Heron instead of finishing the journey to planned destination of Canaan
• Leadership is hearing from God and then obediently doing what He says

Reason 2. The ministry outgrows us.

• It will happen if we are following God
• We must have enough confidence and security in our leadership that we can empower others to do great things. This will allow the ministry to continue to grow beyond us. We cannot try to hang on and control things.
• The trap is being involved in God's ministry instead of being true to God's calling. What has He called you to do? NOT... What activities are you involved in?
• Leading is a cycle os training and raising up to send and release others into leadership. Like parenting, the goal is to get them to move from dependence to independence.

Reason 3. We stay too focused on execution instead rather than outcomes.

• Move from delegation to empowerment.
• Let those leaders you raise up take care of the how as long as you make the expected results clear. Otherwise you are a backseat driver. They are driving, but you are barking out the instructions the whole time. You might as well drive.
• We should only get involved in the execution details when the results aren't what was expected. (In the parable of the talents, the master didn't worry with what the servants did with the money or give any advice when they got a return. He only spoke to the execution of the one who did not bring the desired results.)

• Potential leaders are asking:

• Am I really needed?
• Will I have input?
• Will I be kept in the loop?
• Do they care about me or are they just using me?
• Will I get to lead something significant?

Reason 4. We avoid giving volunteers the opportunity to serve and lead.

• We have become to professionally minded thinking that it takes a staff member or position to lead a ministry.

• A healthy progression of ministry:

• Lead by example (early on in planting, beginning something new, small churches, etc.). The leader must do much of what needs to be done and show others how to do it.
• Lead others (after a time of growth and stability is setting in). The leader is now overseeing others who are doing the bulk of the tasks.
• Lead other leaders (the step that many never take in growth, it requires a major change in the leader and his/her relationship with people). The leader is now directly leading fewer people who are overseeing the ones doing the bulk of the tasks.
• Lead thru vision leaders who lead other leaders (only a select few make it to this step and then actually follow thru with it). The leader is now setting the tone and casting vision to a group of high quality leaders who then impart that to others who are raising up people who do the bulk of the tasks

Reason 5. We embrace and are controlled by fear and/or pride rather than humility.

• We must embrace humility!
• EVERY leader does or will deal with one or both of these.
• Fear and worry are just as much about self and about control as pride is.
• These can paralyze a leader or destroy a leader. Either way, he/she become ineffective and God's Kingdom suffers.
• Trust God enough to follow through and take the risk stepping out into the unknown.

Unique

I am sitting here going through my notes from Thr3e this past Tuesday. One of the statements made by Steven Furtick was, "The thing that makes you unique makes you powerful." I have heard this concept espoused in various forms before, so it is by no means exclusive or new with Furtick.

However, it is a compelling statement and one that needs to be heard and lived more in the church world. Especially in the church conference and leadership realm. Way too often we go to conferences or seminars or just visit other churches looking for a formula to copy. We download sermons and copy them word for word thinking that is the answer cause it worked elsewhere. We change our look, our style, even our personality to try and emulate someone else who we see as successful. I say "we" because I have fallen prey to this at times too. It is easy to do.

Now, I am not espousing that attending these events or using the resources of others is wrong in any way. The exact opposite as a matter of fact. There is so much out there that is good that we need to use what others are offering as helps and starters and even springboards for messages and ministry. It is good stewardship to share what we have and share what others are offering to make all of us better. Lifechurch.tv gets this as well or better than anyone else.

However, when we do use these resources we must do so with the individual flair of who God is molding us to be. We must be DEVOTED to prayer and preaching of the Word. That means we get our context from God even when we are filling it with content from other sources. Only in prayer will the vision and ideas and all that is needed to please God where we are as who we are come out and be revealed. It may happen at a conference or some other place, but it is not because of or from the speaker(s) or church(es) involved. They may have been used by God to spark something, but the origin is God, or at least it needs to be. In His prayer Steven said it this way, "God take what I say and turn it into what needs to be heard by the time it gets to the heart."

Everyone of us needs a direct encounter with God to know the direction we are to go. We need to hear from the Holy Spirit what it is we are to say and proclaim. Once we hear from the Source, then we can sift among the abundance of resources available to get that message that God is burning in us out to those He has placed before us. We do so using the uniqueness of who He has created us to be.

I can't be you and you need to thank God you can't be me. So let us leverage our uniqueness and accomplish what God has for us.

More Thr3e

I am still processing everything from Tuesday and what God was/is speaking to me.

I mentioned in my last post about THR3E that the level of transparency was unusual coming from a church and pastor hosting a conference. Many conferences will make light of some past mistakes that have been made, but they still work hard to present themselves in the light of "success." This is not an indictment, I fully understand it. In the attempt to put "their best foot forward" it sometimes gets overpolished and overcooked to the point of being too slick.

We have hard wood floors in our house. They are beautiful and they look great when they are polished and shiny. My wife is teaching our daughters various life skills including cleaning. Not long ago, she let them take turns polishing the floors. They got a little carried away with the polish in a couple of spots. The floors looked great! But, if you weren't careful, you would have an undignified slip and even fall because the floors were overpolished and too slick. Not even shoes could prevent this. Eventually, the polish wore down and now those spots aren' treacherous any longer.

It was refreshing to see and hear Steven Furtick and staff be brutally honest about what got them where they are and what they face. He laid it all on the line and held nothing back. Even admitting his personal struggles and insecurities as a leader. He is a great man of God and a great leader, but he is human and flawed. That is vital. It is vital because that is what and who God uses: flawed men who do not shrink back because of their flaws and do not attempt to present themselves as more than they are.

Everyone of us could do with some more transparency in our lives. I'm not talking about dumping our crap on everyone we meet and constantly presenting ourselves as needy and whiny and weak. I'm talking about living real and not being phony and plastic in our relationships. Life is gritty and it is dirty, so why do we try and present like we are living on clouds and everything is white and shiny and clean?!

We are flawed. Let's admit it. Let us also strive to overcome. Let us live to encourage and build up. Let us work to glorify God. His strength is made perfect in our weakness, not in our best most polished projections of ourselves. If we really want to glorify God, let's allow people to see that He is working in, through, and among us even though we are not perfect. That brings Him more glory than anything.

Elevation church is glorifying God. They are doing it by giving their best most passionate effort, by obeying His Word, by trying things and failing and succeeding, by being real and raw, by allowing God to do His thing among them and in them. Would that more of us would live and operate the same. We would see more churches have exponential growth.

THR3E

I am sitting here in the airport in Charlotte waiting to catch my flight home. To say I am overwhelmed, would not adequately explain it.

I knew that today would be worth the time and expense. Just the experience alone plus the resources that were promised made the trip worthwhile. I was hoping that I would also have a God encounter today. I did. In fact, everything exceeded my expectations.

Allow me to use this blog as a public journal over the next few days as I process what God is speaking. For this post, I will give the initial and surface things I observed and experienced today.

First, I don't know that I will ever attend another "typical" conference/seminar. I might, but right now, I can't imagine how the typical format could be as worthwhile as today. I will attend events, but I will be quite selective and even extreme in being exclusive about the ones I choose. The reasons will be many of the things I share here from today over how ever many posts it ends up being.

There was no hype, no music, no booths, no vendors, no marketing, limited use of video, no slick presentations. It was raw and it was real. It was as authentic and transparent as I have ever seen a church and leadership be in a group setting. It was also limited. Truly limited. I've seen events called "limited" but they were not. 1500 is not truly limited. This was 150. On top of that there was a volunteer worker for every three attenders. More on that in a moment. The point is, there was nothing to distract from God's voice and the principles being shared.

I was impressed the moment I walked down the street toward the venue. There was a crowd of volunteers wearing Thr3e t-shirts standing outside with Krispy Kreme donuts and they immediately engaged anyone who walked up. The volunteer that got to me first was Maria. She made me feel like a VIP instantly. She wrote down my name and info and walked me into the registration table where she got the name tag (pre-printed and nice!) and conference pack for me. Then she made sure I had something to drink and showed me to the snack table. Maria introduced me to some of the staff members and a couple of other pastors who were for the event. She then handed me a business card with the Thr3e logo and her name along with her cell phone number and instructions to call or text for anything that I might need that day. Throughout the day she checked in on me and made sure I had water etc. and introduced me to others as the day went on. The care and attention was amazing. As far as I could tell, every person there got the same treatment. Amazing! I spoke with some of the church staff and they could not say enough about volunteers in their church. These 50 or so individuals took a day off work and arrived at 6 am knowing they would be there until 7 pm and spend the whole day serving others. We have got to find a way to make that the normal way we treat people week in and week out at church.

I have so much more to say, but I've written enough for now. More will come.

Posted from Thr3e

Absolutely incredible. God is speaking thru Steven Furtick and the staff of Elevation at Thr3e.
There is so much truth and wisdom and insight being imparted.
I'll be blogging about it for some time I am sure.
There are some things that are just reading me right now. As I process all of it there will be some things I implement in our context.
One thing that has been in my heart was confirmed. Something else is going to be changed. Details will follow.