Learnings @ Leadership Network

The Nines - Stacy Spencer

I am reviewing some of THE NINES videos as we prepare for our next online conference AHA! coming March 3, 2010.

More details coming soon, including the announcement web site this week. Watch this space.

Part of the fun of THE NINES that we wanted was to expose participants to some new voices that were unfamiliar to them. Dr. Stacy Spencer is the Senior Pastor at New Directions Christian Church in Memphis.

I mentioned him in last week's Behind the Scenes as I got to see him briefly at our Innovation Lab. He is also an alum of our Next Generation Pastors Initiative. Stacy spoke at last year's Innovation3 gathering and was so well received that Catalyst and STORY also invited him.

I thought his message for THE NINES was most appropriate. It concerned not giving up on people when they fall and his text was Jeremiah 38:10.

He cites Coach Tony Dungy as well as his own grandma. From grandma: "you shouldn't look down on anyone unless you are trying to help them up."

Good advice.

Here's his message and we hope you enjoy.

Dave Travis

Managing Director

Leadership Network

www.twitter.com/davetravis

Behind the Scenes - Prayer for Haiti edition

A lot can change in an instant.

The news of the week is grim for our brothers and sisters around Port au Prince in Haiti. While encouraging to hear news of some projects outside the city in Haiti were unaffected by the earthquakes, they will be impacted as the infrastructure has radically changed in that country.

There was high loss of life and other casualties.

We are in the window when mass care operations are most needed. The best in class organizations such as World Vision, Compassion, Red Cross and many other good ones take the lead. The follow up rebuilding, longer term infrastructure and other projects will need sustained engagement that many churches will provide.

I know many of our client churches have projects in Haiti and have heard scattered reports of responses. I would be interested in learning IF your church has a long time partner or other project in Haiti. Please send that along to me via email here.

And let us pray for the pastors in Haiti that are serving their congregations and others during this time. Sadly, it has been reported that the Archbishop of Port au Prince died during the earthquake. Let us pray for all those that survived as well as those that are going into the area now to serve.

                                                   

In other behind the scenes news since my last report:

+ Warren Bird, our able research director, is on vacation this week. Last time he did that we made a lot of staff changes so I thought he had learned his lesson but he is very disciplined when taking vacation time. But he did drop me an email to say that the “lean staffing” survey now has over 500 responses. If you still haven’t done it, find it here:  http://www.zoomerang.com/Survey/?p=WEB22A2DVD9UC9)

 

+ I got to peek in at THE SHOW this week with Jorge Acevedo, Teresa McBean, Matt Russell and our own Liz Swanson. They were sharing about various types of recovery ministry around the country. We had a good crowd and lots of good questions. You can find the archive here.

Next week we have Matt Carter from Austin Stone Churchspeaking on Missional Communities. At least I think we do. Check it out at 4 PM Eastern on Tuesday. Here’s the link.

+ Todd Rhoades and really the whole team do a good job with this way of sharing with lots of leaders across the country with this technology.

+ Speaking of technology we had our first “The Spotlight” webinar kick off the New Year. Over 200 engaged in the live discussion, this month on “Starting and Sustaining a Healthy Recovery Ministry.” Look for another great interactive webinar next month on February 10^th. It’s free by the way.(Kudos to Producer Stephanie Plagens on that one)

I am going to do some shout outs here for some interesting news and blog posts I have read over the past week. I am sure there are many more but these caught my eye:

+  Mac Lake http://bit.ly/5YPCYA - Bringing the next generation leaders your organization 

+ I liked Will Mancini’s post on Simple Strategy here:http://www.willmancini.com/2010/01/simple-strategy-stop-creating-decision-paralysis-for-discipleship.html

+ I thought that William’s photo of a reserved parking space was hilarious here: http://williamvanderbloemen.com/2010/01/a-reservation-for-the-unwelcome/

+ I loved seeing Shawn Lovejoy’s video about the tenth anniversary of Mountain Lake Church here:http://shawnlovejoy.typepad.com/shawn_lovejoy/2010/01/tenacity-a-walk-down-memory-lane.html

(Shawn is one of the guys behind the scenes at the churchplanters.com conference)

+ Plus my friend Matt Evans of Dalton, Georgia (one of our Next Gen Alumni) reports they are getting closer to adoption proceedings.http://mattevans.cc/our-adoption-its-a-boy-x-2/

+ Christianity Today had a story about Organic Churches herehttp://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2010/januaryweb-only/11-41.0.html that has generated some good discussions.

Neil Cole responded here: http://cole-slaw.blogspot.com/2010/01/long-live-oc-response.html

Frank Viola here:http://frankviola.wordpress.com/2010/01/14/why-organic-church-is-not-exactly-a-movement-christianity-today-article/

Andrew Jones also had some helpful movement comments here:http://tallskinnykiwi.typepad.com/tallskinnykiwi/2010/01/how-to-spot-a-church-movement.html

All these guys are friends and have some good insights.

I know Leadership Network is often pegged as being exclusively for megachurches, but we actually like all kinds of churches. And the article for CT cites a number of people that we work with regularly including Neil, Bob Roberts, Alan Hirsch and the like.

Neil, Alan, Bob Roberts made appearances on THE NINES. Frank is going to speak at Aha! in March.

+ And to point to one more blog post – I thought Eddy Hall nailed it in this article http://www.living-stones.com/articles/poor.htm - Do the poor feel welcomed at your church?

While I don’t get to read all the things sent to me, if you have one of note, send it along. Click here to email.

+ Finally, and this is for real insiders, can you believe it has been a year since Innovation3? And our 25^th anniversary banquet? This time last year we were all going nuts in preparation!

Til next time. And send me news if you have some!!

Dave Travis

Managing Director

Leadership Network

Speech Part One – What IS changing in the Church World

(Long Post Warning)

This is the first part of my speech to the Cornerstone Knowledge Network. The speech was in four parts:

Things that ARE changing in the Church World

Things that AREN’T changing but some say they are

Things that AREN’T CHANGING YET but I think are coming

Things that SHOULD BE changing but don’t seem to be happening

Some caveats:

One, this is all my opinion based on my keyhole view of the world. Feel free to disagree.

My key hole that I see through involves lots of leaders of very large churches in US (and a few in Europe). The avg size for our clients is around 3700 in weekly attendance.

I believe that the things these churches deal with often set the tone and direction for other churches (for better or worse). So some will read my observations and say “that doesn’t apply to my church.” Fine by me. You may assign a particular point to another bucket. Fine with me.

My attempt with these lists were to help these business leaders whose livelihoods depend on working with churches be better equipped to deal with their challenges.

And part of this reflection is based on my comparisons to some notes from conversations with Senior Pastors of large churches 15 years ago. So they are “what has changed.”

So, Things that I think ARE CHANGING:

I am just going to touch on them here and if demand is great enough write a small booklet or a blog post on each one.

1. The rise of Multi Site churches – multi site changes everything as we say.
2. Social Media penetration – I read that 85% of Americans aged 18-29 logged onto at least on

   on
   

   e social media site in August 2009. That’s one month not year to date. I think widespread
   adoption of this communication medium changed how we perceive leadership so I think it changes churches.

3. Internet Campuses – They’re here and they are about to be “in a box” so any size church can have one if the want. For some this will be a fad but for others this is going to be a big part of their reaching strategy going forward.

4. Growth of Teaching Teams – that is a big, accepted change from when I joined
   Leadership Network almost 15 years ago. It’s almost like everyone wants to do it now while they may not know quite how to do it.
5. New Church Development by young 20/30s. People say this generation is not going to church. They are. They aren’t going to existing churches, they are flooding some new churches.
6. Online giving – this number continues to rise and some churches in Europe tell me that they get 80% of their giving through this channel. That is way above US. So I think eventually the number will rise. They tend to get it by automated draft by the way. Probably the most consistent way to get it.
7. The iPhone revolution of communications. Probably more accurately called the smartphone revolution with others now coming on market. How will we communicate in the future – lots being driven via these hand held devices. Pay attention to that.
8. Big change – Availability of appreciated stock . So what does that matter. Lots of gifts in the past came through that type of giving. When it ain’t around no more its hard to build an extravagant building. Might be a good thing.
9. Availability of home equity. Not as much as there used to be. Plus is that it is driving folks to be more fiscally responsible. My guess is that it might have some short term affects on churches in subtle ways.
10. More thinking of church “beyond the walls”. In Leadership Network language that means “Externally Focused Churches” being the best church FOR your community. (We have lots on this one)
11. Lots more multi racial churches (though perhaps not multi cultural churches). We have been tracking these numbers for some time. What this means? Well if you are in the building and advisement industry, (like these people are ) it means that the committee or team you are working with may have different assumptions within their own team to be worked through.
12. Mobility of Americans – I recently read how that total percentages were down. I attribute mobility factors as a big reason for megachurch attraction. If people aren’t moving at least 10 miles away as much, they tend to stay in their same patterns.
13. The book/magazine/church conference business – Anything print seems to be suffering so there is a big restructuring going on there. Also in the church conference business, there are going to be a few winners, a few that can survive and a lot that go under. So a restructuring there as well.

OK – that was the highlights of my first list.

Any to add?

Some may actually be on one of my other lists but I would love to hear your thoughts. Just hit the old comments button and send them in.

Dave Travis

Managing Director

Leadership Network

Steve Saccone on the Road with Relational Intelligence

Last week I had the chance to connect with Steve Saccone during Catalyst 2009 in Atlanta.  Leadership Network recently partnered with Steve and Jossey Bass in the release of his first book – Relational Intelligence.  You can check out our conversation here.  Also once you get to YouTube be search “relational intelligence” for some “Relational Intelligence meets The Office” clips – funny stuff and a great book.  You can also connect with Steve on his road trip by going to his blog and checking out his speaking schedule.

Greg Ligon

Vice President and Publisher

Leadership Network

twitter - gregligon

Young megachurch pastors with blogs

Got this question recently: "What are blogs of young megachurch pastors who preach with substantial content?" I'm not sure exactly what "substantial content" means, whether that refers to theological and doctrinal details, or a kind of transformational teaching like that of Bill Hybels.

The following blogs have been suggested:

• Mark Driscoll http://theresurgence.com/md_blog
• Matt Chandler http://hv.thevillagechurch.net/blog/hvpastor [updated]
• Mark Batterson http://www.evotional.com/
• Dave Ferguson http://daveferguson.org
• Mac Lake http://www.maclakeonline.com
• Troy Gramling http://www.troygramling.com/
• Perry Noble http://www.perrynoble.com/
• Craig Groeschel http://swerve.lifechurch.tv/
• Steven Furtick http://www.stevenfurtick.com
• Josh Harris http://joshharris.com
• Bob Roberts www.glocal.net
• Dino Rizzo http://www.dinorizzo.com/

What blog(s) would you add? And what makes content substantial?

// DJ CHUANG, Leadership Community Director at Leadership Network

The Morning After Innovation 3

It's very quiet around here this morning. I'm sitting here in my favorite chair with a cup o joe reflecting on all that I saw and heard at Innovation3 Gathering that concluded yesterday. Personally it was a phenomenal time of connecting and networking with a ton of old and new friends. I met so many young ministry leaders there that I would probably never cross paths with had we not gathered in Dallas this week. If I had to boil it down to just one thing that I took away from this gathering, it would be this -- how encouraged and hopeful I am for the future of the Church. As ministry leaders (and servants), we will always have our struggles and disagreements. That's just part of the deal. Beyond all that, I witnessed a real hunger for connection, for learning, for community, and for a real sense of mission, as overused as all of those terms are. As great as it was to hear positive feedback from conference participants, I know that there was so much more going on during those two days than just another Christian conference. Yet again, God showed up and put together some incredible encounters for us.

If you didn't have an opportunity to be there with us in person, you'll have an opportunity to virtually experience much of Innovation 3 in the coming weeks. We recorded just about everything! Todd Rhoades, aka The Monday Morning Insight Guy, told me last night that we probably captured and recorded somewhere between 40-50 hours of content. That includes audio and video recordings of main sessions and breakouts. We'll be rolling that out for you soon. Some of it is already posted on the Innovation 3 website. We'll post more on the site as we get to it. More details on that later.

Here's the link to the Innovation 3 Conference Live! site. You may want to check out the photos and other stuff posted there when you have a few minutes.

I'm keeping this post brief today. There's so much still rolling around in my head this morning. As the consummate introvert, I need some time to process and reflect. I just wanted to say thank you -- thank you to all of you who invested the time and the dollars to join us in Dallas this week. My thanks to God for showing up and for orchestrating the entire experience. And lastly, my thanks to God and to Leadership Network for providing this vocation for me. This is certainly not the path in life I would have chosen for myself. I wish I could say that I developed this tremendous, focused, intentional strategy for my life that led me to where I am today. The truth is, I stumbled into this vocation, I thought by accident. I'm glad that God had (and has) plans for me.

Well Mr. White, aka Coffee Drinking Cat, is actually drinking my coffee right now so I'm abandoning that cup and heading over to the kitchen to get another cup. Stay tuned for further Innovation 3 developments.

Linda Stanley directs the Life Stage Leadership Community Groups for senior pastors.

Interactive Artist Breakout Session @ Innovation 3 Conference

By now you've probably been "I3-d" to death with our shameless plugs, promos, live interviews, emails, tweets, etc. Well, man up! Cause here's one more Innovation 3 Conference promo.

Chris Seay , senior pastor of Ecclesia in Houston, TX is bringing a team of artists along with the Robbie Seay Band to Innovation 3 Conference . On Wednesday, January 28th, Chris and team will lead an interactive artists' breakout session during the conference. You don't have to be a professional artist to participate. Come and join in with artists as they create art on the spot. Chris wrote this brief description of what we can expect during the breakout session. Last chance to register - Innovation 3 Conference

Did You Hear That Story?

The entire cosmos is searching for a story that will frame our lives and connect us all to one another. When Christianity is at it’s best it does just that: unifies, inspires, and empowers us all to walk the path of Jesus the Liberating King.  As Pastors have been increasing relegated to the role of talking heads that dispense propositions the broader culture has seized the arts as a means to tell stories of hope, faith, redemption, salvation, the pain of being lost, and the joy of being found.  As the church reconnects with those we are called to love (notorious sinners) we are finding that we are filmmakers, artists, poets, painters, sculptors, songwriters, and parabolic teachers n the tradition of Jesus. Explore with us the ways that we can harness to creative gifts of our community to give the world a story that does more than just entertain - it actually saves!

Voices of the Missional Movement Podcast - Earl Creps

Leadership Network recently hosted four authors for a conversation about what is happening in the missional movement.  Check out the first speaker, Earl Creps at the link below.  Earl is author of Off-Road Disciplines and a recent release from Leadership Network and Jossey Bass - Reverse Mentoring.

[Download MP3 audio of Earl Creps]

Stay tuned also for conversations with Neil Cole, Milfred Mintrea and Reggie McNeal.

Greg Ligon, Vice President and Publisher

Leadership Network

Facebook Group—Church Planting Wives

I like to stay in touch with church planters I've connected with over the years. One of my good friends, and church planter, is Kevin Colon. I first met Kevin though my relationship with Northwood Church in Keller, TX. As many of you know, Northwood is a great church planting center with a well-developed recruiting, training and coaching system. Kevin completed his time with Northwood a few years ago and then planted a new church, Cool River Church, in Superior, Colorado. I've followed their progress and am pleased to report Kevin and Amy's latest initiative. Check it out. Note the free book offer for those who decide to join their Facebook group.

From: Kevin Colon
Subject: Church Planting Wives

Quick note to introduce a new Facebook Group—Church Planting Wives.

Amy and I have been working on Cool River for almost 5 years now and have found that one of the most overlooked areas in the church starting process is church planting wives. We’ve found some resources out there but the reality is that those resources are hard to come by. There are just not that many out there.

In an attempt to continue to build up the resources, Amy has started a new www.facebook.com page called “Church Planting Wives.”  (Just go to Facebook and search for Church Planting Wives. You will have to sign in or create an account if you don't already have one.)

The hope is that this page will:

CONNECT women that ‘have been there” with women that are just starting or are somewhere in the process for encouragement, tips and fun.

and COLLECT the best resources(books, blogs, websites, conferences, etc) from all over to help church planting wives in their journey.

I hope that you’ll check this out, join the group if you are a starting or seasoned church planting wife and tell your friends that are starting churches about this.

Feel free to email me or Amy for any questions or more info.

Praying for the Kingdom to flourish here and where you are,

kc

PS—Here’s something Amy wrote for the book My Husband Wants to Be a Church Planter...So What Will That Make Me?

Click here to see it on her blog:  http://amycolon.blogspot.com/2007/09/my-answer.html

To download the whole book (for FREE) click here:  Link

AND…if you join the Facebook group… Amy you can get a free printed copy, too.

Kevin Colón
www.coolriverchurch.com
www.kevincolon.blogspot.com

Linda Stanley serves as Director of Life Stage Leadership Communities and provides leadership for the Next Generation Pastors Leadership Community groups. The Next Generation Pastors Leadership Community exists to create relational peer networks of senior pastors who share similar ministry challenges and desire connections to other leaders serving in similar ministry situations. Additional information is on our website - www.leadnet.org, linda.stanley@leadnet.org

GodStyle – Exists to Change Youth Culture

I quote the website,
“GodStyle Productions exists as a change agent targeting youth culture by connecting influential youth and youth workers; equipping them with a message designed for the urbanized mindset and empowering them to communicate that message of hope to their world”
– www.godstyle.com.

Why is this important? Here are a couple of statistics for you –
•    Over 50% of the world’s population lives in high-density, urban areas.
•    Over 50% of the world’s population is under the age of 25. 

How does one communicate The Truth to today’s urban youth?
Fred Lynch, founder of GodStyle, says it this way: “We take the message of truth and design it in a way that communicates to kids right where they are at.”

Hip Hop music communicates in The Script
Hip Hop music is a powerful communicator to kids these days so why not marry the scriptures to Hip Hop? That’s what Fred has done in his latest work, The Script (formerly titled The Epic.) 

Fred Lynch, Campus Pastor
What do I know about Hip-Hop’s influence on youth culture? Not much. Recently I spent part of my weekend finding out. I made the drive to The Oaks Fellowship – Oak Cliff campus in South Dallas for the ReLoad Dallas Training Experience, produced by The Urban Youth Workers Institute. Larry Acosta, President of the Urban Youth Workers Institute, was in the city and invited me to check out ReLoad Dallas. 

Clearly I was the Grandma of the Day trying to blend in with about 300 youth workers and a good representation of what looked to be high school youth. After a few minutes of wandering the campus, I ran into Larry. He said he wanted to introduce me to someone. We made our way to the office of Fred Lynch, Campus Pastor at the Oak Cliff campus. In the midst of the mid-conference craziness, Fred greeted me warmly and sat down with me for a few minutes to tell me about The Oaks ministry and his latest project – The Script.

The Script: a hip hop devotional through the book of John is an artistic translation of the gospel of John in rap. It portrays the gospel of John presented in a contemporary hip-hop format. The work includes the print version, a devotional to walk through the book of John (all 21 chapters) and an audio CD of The Script to accompany the printed version.
It will be available in August of 08’. Zondervan is the publisher.

Fred explained it this way -

“The goal of The Script is to engage people in processing the Scriptures in a fresh new way that helps them understand and apply God’s Word in their lives. Through the art of hip hop and spoken word (modern day poetry) we’ve combined the greatest story ever told with the strongest medium of communication today to produce The Script.

I was trying to bring this radical gospel message of God meeting humanity, realism, sin and salvation into the language of this generation.  Language is where it starts.  While sharing this vision with my colleagues, I began realizing something more than what I intended was going on. Imagine the opportunity to transmit truth to a generation and see teens falling in love with the scripture and through a medium that they already heartily embrace!”

The back-story on Fred
Fred began his ministry at age 15 going door to door sharing the gospel on the streets of Dallas. He graduated from Christ for the Nations at age 18 and formed P.I.D., a Christian rap group. Fred’s passion was, and still is, relevant evangelism and discipleship to inner city youth. He served for eight years as the urban ministry coordinator for the Josh McDowell Ministry. Fred currently serves as a campus pastor at The Oaks Fellowship in Dallas and continues his urban ministry work today.

Fred didn’t exactly plan this to be his life’s ministry. As we continued the conversation, he passionately expressed how he felt God has blessed his life and ministry.   

“What started out as a passion to transfer truth in a unique way has become an incredible vehicle to share the gospel with millions. From my early teenage days of ‘rapping’ the gospel to the present (20 years later), I have truly been blessed to be a part of countless opportunities to serve the body of Christ. I want you to know that I appreciate your prayers and connection as our family looks forward to the next 20 years of ministry. GodStyle is ready to launch and transform youth culture.”   

Experience The Script by clicking on this link and be sure to check out the FAQs.

Linda Stanley serves as Director of Life Stage Leadership Communities and provides leadership for the Next Generation Pastors Leadership Community groups. The Next Generation Pastors Leadership Community exists to create relational peer networks of senior pastors who share similar ministry challenges and desire connections to other leaders serving in similar ministry situations. Additional information is on our website - www.leadnet.org, linda.stanley@leadnet.org