Learnings @ Leadership Network

Leadership Network Mourns the Deaths of Dr. Forrest Pollock and Preston Pollock

Press Release

Leadership Network Mourns the Deaths of Dr. Forrest Pollock and  Preston Pollock

DALLAS, TX (May 13, 2008) —Leadership Network President and CEO Tom Wilson issued the following statement at the news of the tragic death of Dr. Forest Pollock, Senior Pastor of Bell Shoals Baptist Church in Brandon, FL, and his 13-year-old son, Preston. At the time of the May 12, 2008, plane crash that took their lives, the Pollocks were traveling to a Leadership Network-hosted conference for innovative church leaders in Dallas, Texas.

“The staff and Board of Trustees of Leadership Network join me in expressing our deepest condolences to the family of Forrest and Preston Pollock and the good people of Bell Shoals Baptist Church. As you walk through the difficult days ahead, please know that we grieve with you and will be praying for you. Dr. Pollock’s all-too-sudden death leaves a profound legacy for others to follow—a legacy of love for his family, commitment to his Lord and service to others. Even as our hearts ache, may we take comfort in the knowledge that Dr. Pollock’s last moments on this earth reflected his deepest passions—a father living life with his son and a pastor eagerly seeking to expand the Kingdom  of God.”

—Tom Wilson, President and CEO

About Leadership Network: Based in Dallas, Texas, Leadership Network is a nonprofit public charity that fosters church innovation and growth in furtherance of its far-reaching mission to identify, connect and help high-capacity Christian leaders multiply their impact. For more on Leadership Network, see www.leadnet.org, www.halftime.org and www.successtosignifiance.com or contact Rick Long at 1.800.477.6698 x 102 or rlong@sourcepub.com.

Portable Church–Building and All!

Churches that meet in rented facilities often learn to make everything portable. After worship, everything from projection screens to children's cribs get stored in a closet or trailer and then rolled away. Entire industries like Portable Church (www.portablechurch.com) exist to serve such situations.

Interestingly, I found a church that owns several facilities and yet behaves as if everything is portable. 

"Where do you go to church?"

"The Yellow Box."

Seems like everyone in Naperville, IL, would understand that conversation. The Yellow Box is just that—a conspicuous, two story, distinctively yellow box-shaped facility bordered by homes on one side and a well-traveled, business-lined avenue on the other. 

The church's actual name is Community Christian. Scott Thumma and I recently completed stop #7 there for our field study of megachurches. See reports here for stops 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6.

Community Christian today worships on 9 different campuses each weekend. Some are facilities it owns like the Yellow Box and a 40-year-old church building from a congregation they merged with. Others are rented like a public school and a community center.

Yet the church lives as if everything needs to be portable and replicable. The facilities are used for many things just like a community center -- church, sports leagues, recovery meetings, school for the arts, cyber cafe, etc., and so most everything is stackable and storable -- see photos.  

That multiplication value goes beyond the equipment. Everyone has an attitude that they need to be training someone to reproduce their ministry, whether it's at the same campus, such as by adding another service, or at a yet-to-be-launched new campus. "Anything we do here needs to be able to be replicated somewhere else," one person told me. Another lay leader explained, "I've almost always had an apprentice leader in everything I do." And yet another said, "God's not going to send us more people than we can care for, so we've got to be ready."    

One outcome is the church's continual growth every year since its 1989 founding (see table on left). It seems so simple: stay focused on the mission of helping people find their way back to God, and then make sure there's room to welcome them, taking the church to wherever people can be reached. That means developing Christ followers with a vision to replicate themselves through others. “We’re all about leader readiness; that's just who we are” says Pat Masek, executive assistant to Lead Pastor Dave Ferguson. 

Warren Bird, Ph.D., is Research Director at Leadership Network, and co-author of 19 books on various aspects of church health and innovation.

Church Giving in a Slumping Economy

Author Mark Kelly and The Baptist Press recently published a study by LifeWay Research on the effect of the economy on giving in Baptist churches.  Has the slumping economy affected your church's giving?  Will your revenue meet your budget needs?

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP)--While economists debate how serious America's economic slowdown really is, Southern Baptist pastors report their members are still giving in spite of the financial pressures many are facing.

A new study by LifeWay Research shows that 72 percent of Southern Baptist pastors indicate difficulties in the U.S. economy are affecting their churches negatively, yet 76 percent say offerings are at or above levels they had expected when drafting budgets several months ago.

At the same time, 24 percent of the pastors say offerings are below what they had expected and 27 percent indicate their congregations will not meet budgets if current giving trends continue.

"When two-thirds of Southern Baptist churches are plateaued or declining in membership and attendance, it is no surprise that 20 to 30 percent of churches find their giving under budget at any given point in time," said Scott McConnell, associate director of LifeWay Research, a division of LifeWay Christian Resources of the Southern Baptist Convention.

Americans are feeling the pressure of rising prices on food and gasoline and millions are falling behind on mortgage payments, but members in many congregations are exercising faith by continuing to give, McConnell said.

"God has asked us to give from the first fruits we receive, and it appears that many Southern Baptists are continuing to do this despite the financial pressures they face," he said. "Giving God your first fruits requires much more faith when inflation is stealing what remains in your fruit basket."

The online survey was conducted April 16-May 5 among a representative sample of 778 Southern Baptist pastors. The sample size provides 95 percent confidence that the sampling error does not exceed 3.5 percent.

A similar survey conducted in February 2003 provides an interesting counterpoint to April's findings, McConnell added.

Although 2002 had not officially been a time of recession in the United States, a greater percentage of pastors (31 percent) indicated their church's total income ended the year lower than expected. A higher percentage of pastors (28 percent) also said income was higher than expected, while fewer (36 percent) said income was right at expectations.

That 2003 telephone survey of 497 Southern Baptist pastors or associate pastors had a 95 percent confidence that the sampling error did not exceed 4.4 percent.

Changes in congregational giving can be hard to predict, and that makes budgeting a real challenge, McConnell said.

"Difficulty in predicting giving not only affects responses to these questions, it also affects budgets. Many of these budgets were set more than six months ago," he said. "In the 2003 survey, we found a slim majority had budgeted for growth, but the size of the growth these churches budgeted was a very substantial 12.4 percent.

"If budget projections for 2008 were anywhere near that aggressive, optimism about meeting budget may fade as the year goes on."

Christopher Willard is the director of Leadership Network's Generous Churches Leadership Community

Question of the Week: How Could Google Help the Church?

You don't have to look far to see that churches are already using many Google products. The  small groups kiosk at the church I visited this week had an attractive display of groups, each with an accompanying map -- created by Google Maps. Likewise the church's website offered me a map to find  them, with the small credit that it's powered by Google. This church, as many others, also uses Google Alerts to learn of local  newspapers, blogs, or other online materials that might mention the church. Both Google  services are free.

There are many other Google products thatI've seen other churches use. This includes Google  Images, Google Talk, Google Calendar, and Google Analytics.

So . . . which NEW product could Google create that would be a help to your  church?

Warren Bird, Ph.D., is Research Director at Leadership Network, and co-author of 19 books on various aspects of church health and innovation.

real-time updates from Dwell Conference

In New York City today and tomorrow at the sold-out Dwell Conference for urban church planters. I'm using twitter to post real-time updates and highlights from the speakers, follow me at twitter.com/djchuang

I'm told the talks' audio are being recorded, and would be posted on Acts 29 Network website after event.. (will put link here when it's online and live.)

-- DJ Chuang, Leadership Community Director @ Leadership Network

Making Money More Missional

Scott Thumma and I recently completed the sixth stop in our National Field Study of U.S. Megachurches. See posts of previous stops here: 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5.

  We went to Memorial Drive Presbyterian Church (PCUSA) in west Houston, which started in 1955 with 50-60 people at their first service. The original core group, mostly people with Presbyterian roots, were amazingly active in reaching out. Within their first two years they had an Evangelism Chain that prayed for visitors to the church who were not Christians or who did not belong to a local church. Their Covenant of Seventy was an evangelistic group that called on prospective members, usually persons who have visited the church. And their membership materials emphasized that this isn't a church of "sit-easy religion" but rather "a missionary society." It also noted that "keeping you happy is not our first job." So no low-threshold, easy believism here!

The church was quite innovative early on (and continues to be so). Charlie Shedd, the first pastor, started a small-group system of "flocks" led by "undershepherds" -- way before the era of small groups emerged nationally. These "small, intimate fellowships" were to be marked by "acceptance, forgiveness, loving care, listening, and personal sharing." According to Pastor Shedd's memoirs, "within this structure arose the most dedicated and responsible lay ministry I have every seen in any church."

Another innovative quality, also begun in the church's first year, was a dollar-for-dollar budget. The church boldly decided to give away a dollar of benevolence for every dollar it spent on itself. The idea was to share its blessings with those less fortunate, from the homeless to missionaries. This was a big-faith decision for a fledging church that at the time had a huge debt (from buying property) and no building. Yet in the first 50 years of the church, that "crazy" idea produced over $50 million in gifts to others.

Through the years, the church has maintained its dollar-for-dollar emphasis -- and they're also currently debt free. Perhaps inevitably the dollar-for-dollar principle became too much of a check-writing emphasis. Recent efforts have been to balance it out by personal engagement: the church is attempting to give money primarily where its people are directly involved relationally. Now they don't just send a check overseas, they also send a short-term mission team. Now they don't merely buy groceries for the homeless; they volunteer to be on the soup line. And they continue to integrate prayer into all they do.

Dave Peterson has been senior pastor since 1995. In recent months he's been suggesting a simple phrase to help the church, including its dollar-for-dollar emphasis and desire to be a praying church, both to become more missional and also to measure its missional progress. It's the acronym B.L.E.S.S., an idea he adapted from Michael Frost.

-  Bless everyone, everywhere you go. 
-  Listen to God, don't just talk! 
-  Eat with someone.  (“Christianity moves at the speed of friendship, so expand your circle of friends.”) 
-  Study Jesus, make it a serious matter. 
-  Serve sacrificially, from the church facility to the soccer field. 

If the no-airs, warm welcome Scott and I experienced is typical of how other first-timers feel, then this church will turn yet another corner. The current culture in the neighborhood they serve is one where it's easier to be generous with money than with your time. But as people at Memorial Drive step into a more relational, personal engagement of their faith, the church's overall potential might  become even greater. As one of our interviewees commented, "I'm drawn to the combination of service, study, and fellowship; when they're all mixed together, it propels me to grow spiritually."   

Our next stop is Community Christian Church, which has campuses all over Chicago. Any ideas of what we'll learn there?

Warren Bird, Ph.D., is Research Director at Leadership Network, and co-author of 19 books on various aspects of church health and innovation.

Exponential Conference “Behind the Scene” Green Room Interviews

Last week, I had the opportunity to travel to Orlando, FL and attend the National New Church "Exponential" Conference. It was a great time! There were about 2,800 church planters and church leaders assembled to hear from great main speakers, and nearly 70 breakout sessions. Scott Hodge, Chris Elrod, and myself were given full 'behind-the-scenes' access to the main speakers; and were able to stream some interviews live. We also were able to record a few that you will want to see. (For example, the interview with Rick Warren is great: he talks candidly about his views of the Willow "Reveal" study and about the new research released last week about the Southern Baptist Convention now being in a state of decline for the first time in its history...

Alan Hirsch

Dave Ferguson

Greg Surratt

John Burke & Vince Antonucci

Ed Stetzer

Rick Warren

Hope you enjoy!  Would love to hear your comments on any/all of the interviews…

Todd Rhoades
Leadership Network

Multi-Site Exposed Main Sessions Online Featuring Driscoll, Browning, & Bishop

A couple weeks ago, I was able to meet many of you at the Multi-site Exposed Conference held at Mars Hill Church in Seattle. Together we heard from three very different models of multi-site ministry (Mars Hill, Christ the King, and Living Hope) and were able to see how there is not necessarily ONE way to do multi-site. Mars Hill's Resurgence website has now posted all three keynote videos, as well as the first session that was a roundtable discussion of the three senior pastors. This is good stuff. If you weren't able to attend and have any interest in multi-site, you'll want to take a look for sure. There is some great content here!

Here are the links to the videos:

Round Table (Mark Driscoll, John Bishop, Dave Browning)

John Bishop

Dave Browning

Mark Driscoll

Re-thinking Diffusion of Innovations

A couple of months ago I picked up a book called Crossing the Chasm by Geoffrey A. Moore. This work is important in helping to understand why some innovations fail and others succeed. Most of the time, when I explain the bell curve of innovation adaptation (see previous entry) I present it in such a way that once the early adopters begin creating models for the middle adopters to observe and emulate, BAM!... the late adopters fall into place and the 16% of laggards either get on board or leave.

Moore has a different approach. Moore points out that the people in the five segments have different motivations that need to be taken into consideration and that there are actually gaps between the innovators, early adopters, middle adopters, late adopters and laggards and these motivations must be taken into consideration when trying to bring about and implement change in a social system. Each chasm represents the peril of losing momentum. Although Moore is specifically writing about the adoption of technology, I think his insights are applicable in a larger context…like a church. Let me explain.

First, Moore makes the distinction between continuous innovation and discontinuous innovation. Continuous innovations are improvements on existing products that do not require any change in behavior for the consumer. Crest may make their toothpaste “New and Improved” but you’ll still brush your teeth the same way. However, “any time we are introduced to products that require us to change our current mode of behavior” we are experiencing “discontinuous innovation.” So, for instance, switching from a PC to a Mac is a huge disruption that changes the way we interact with a key board, a mouse and the user interface. Who would have ever thought that “Safari” means “connect to the Internet?”

Let me make a few comments on what Moore writes:

“Early adopters are buying some type of change agent and by adopting first they expect to get a jump on the competition. They expect a radical discontinuity between the old and new and are prepared to champion this cause against entrenched resistance.” Think of the hoards of people who lined up to pay $600 for the iPhone. They are willing to put up with gliches and are willing to fight the battles. “Because early adopters do not rely on well-established references in making their buying decisions, preferring instead to rely on their own intuition and vision, they are key to opening up any high-tech market segment.” These are the “visionaries”—those “who have the insight to match an emerging technology to a strategic opportunity, the temperament to translate that insight into high-visibility, high risk projects. Visionaries are not looking for improvement. They are looking for a fundamental breakthrough.” Early adopters are essential for any enterprise to move ahead and perform a vital function if the “new” is to be adopted. Now, Moore insists that there is a chasm between early adopters (visionaries) and middle adopters (the pragmatists). This is because the pragmatists “want to see well-established references before investing substantially. Because there are so many people in this segment—roughly one third of the whole adoption cycle—winning their business is key to any substantial profits and growth.” This group however is unlike the visionaries. The pragmatists want “to buy a productivity improvement for existing operations. They are looking to minimize discontinuity with the old ways. They want evolution, not revolution. The goal of the pragmatist is to make a percentage improvement—incremental, measurable, predictable progress.” There is also a huge chasm between the pragmatist and the late adopters. The late adopters (the 34% on the far side of the innovation bell curve) are what Moore calls the “conservatives.” “Conservatives…are against discontinuous innovation. They believe in tradition far more than in progress. And when they find something they like, they stick with it.” Change efforts often fail, because we mistake the enthusiasm and receptivity of the early adopters (visionaries) to be a foretaste of how everyone else will and should respond. However, to cross the chasm, each group needs different motivations and information. I think Moore’s insights reflect what we have seen with externally focused churches—that no matter how many opportunities are given, few churches are able to get more than 50% (visionaries and pragmatists) engaged outside the walls. Those that DO get an increasingly larger proportion (70-80%) do so because they have figured out to capture the second 50%, they have to do so with as little disruption to what people currently do. So for instance, a couple years ago at Christ Community Church in Omaha, congregates were asked to show up the following Sunday in their work clothes. When the church service was over, folks walked outside to find buses in front of the church with lunches already on the seats of the bus. Over 1700 people boarded the buses and were shuttled off to different 3-hour work projects around the city. Now here is the better news…of these 1700 who served, over 460 signed up to be a more permanent partner with the agency they partnered with that afternoon. The leaders at Christ community figured out a way to engage the conservatives without disrupting the reason these folks chose to come to church. But by providing this opportunity, many had their comfort zones stretched and their preconceptions changed.

At my own church, Calvary Bible EFC in Boulder, for the past several years we have worked on a 2-day “Sharefest” where we have 70-80% participation. But the surprise benefit of such continuous engagement is that an increasing amount of people at Calvary see our church as externally focused and engaged in community.

Written by Eric Swanson, Director of Externally Focused Leadership Community at Leadership Network.

Live streaming from huge church planting conference

[UPDATE 4/23] Todd Rhoades is live-streaming interviews with speakers at Exponential Conference today and tomorrow! He'll be recording videos too -- Greg Surratt and Dave Ferguson and Alan Hirsch are already online.

[mirrored from the Digital @ Leadership Network blog]

A huge gathering well into the thousands, like about 2,800 church leaders in Orlando, Florida -- at the Exponential 08 Conference, aka National New Church Conference! Touted as the "mother of all church planting conferences". (Wish I could be there, but I'm still recoup'ing from my heavy travel season, not that I'm conferenced out. Plus, I have work to do besides attending conferences, I really do.)

Some of the live reporting of the action from the floor (via blogging, twittering, photos, and/or video): Todd Rhoades of Leadership Network and MondayMorningInsight.com, Scott Hodge, Chris Elrod, and Jay Hardwick. Follow tweets from toddrho / scotthodge / chriselrod /  jayhardwick / mpayne1970 / ronsylvia.  And/or, see the latest in the blogosphere via Google Blog Search. Good notes at Planting Partners too.

We now join the program already in progress. It's almost like being there. Almost.

And one aside: this is the most creative lead-up to this conference, pre-game show if you will: Exponential Conference Blogging Tournament over at PlantingSpace.com -- the tourney started with an all-star blogger / church-planter line-up: Dave Ferguson, Derek Brown, Ron Klabunde, Ben Arment, Carl Kuhl, Chris Barras, Tadd Grandstaff, Vince Antonucci, Dave Milam, David Putman, Jeremy Myers, Kirk Schneemann, Tim Dunn, Mark Doebler, Matt Mehaffey & Pat Furgerson. And the final four came down to: Mark Doebler, Matt Mehaffey, Jeremy Myers, and Dave Milam. Not sure when final playoff will be.

-- DJ Chuang, Director of Digital Initiatives & more, Leadership Network