No One is Paying Me To Say This

Early this year, Casey Graham and I had a chance meeting in the Atlanta airport. After that ten minute encounter, I was determined to find out more about TheChangeGroup.tv, the organization that Casey started out of a passion to help local churches.

What intrigued me most was Casey’s vision. He said to me, “I wake up every day thinking about helping churches increase their operational revenue.” I said, “You mean you run a stewardship campaign company.” That wasn’t it at all. His deal is the ongoing, regular offerings of the church. He wants to help church leaders figure out how to connect the vision to people’s giving.

And so early this summer we hired The Change Group. And they have been helping us significantly. They are genuine, they are trustworthy, and they have a knowledge base that has been adding value to our team.

Right now, TheChangeGroup.tv is launching a financial management and outsourced bookkeeping service. They can actually do ALL of your bookkeeping for your church–at a fraction of the cost of hiring staff to do the same thing.

Check them out. Right now you can have a free consulting session with them. Give it a try–you might just find a solution that will be helpful.

P.S. No one is paying me a penny to say any of this. I just think they are a great partner, and think you might agree.

Some Things You May Not Remember

Last week was my 15-year anniversary at Granger. Mileposts like that tend to make me reflective.

I thought I would share some things that you may not know, but were true upon my first day in the office 15 years ago…

1. Rob Wegner had hair like Albert Einstein.
2. Mark Beeson was younger than I am now (he was 40 years old).
3. We were a 100% Mac shop before it was vogue to be so.
4. There were 6 people on staff.
5. Church services were happening in a movie theater, the offices were rented, and we owned no land or buildings.
6. All the men wore ties to the office. Yep, every day.
7. The church stationary was printed in one-color: Holy Spirit Red.
8. We had no email. It was high-tech to have a fax machine.
9. Our staff handbook indicated that men should not have facial hair.
10. Ginny Lawley was a volunteer on the vocal team; Kem Meyer was a single mom who had recently met Christ, and Melanie Rosander had long hair.

Ah yes, haven't things changed!

Amazon Can’t Beat This

I just read an encouraging tweet from @DustinACrawford: “Dang, @timastevens book Pop Goes The Church is a must read!!! Don’t wait, go get it now.”

So in honor of Dustin and his great endorsement, I was recently told we have a can’t-be-beat offer on Pop Goes the Church right now.

The book is $10 right now from WiredChurches.com. That’s 41% off the cover price. It is less than you can buy it on Amazon.

But wait, there’s more (always wanted to say that). If you order it right now you get a free set of Ginsu knives! Okay, not really.

But, if you order 5 or more copies, you get 10% off. I’ve talked to many groups who have studied the book together as a staff, worship team, elder group or pastors’ meeting.

This discount expires soon. Don’t delay.

Beeson Wraps up Innovate

Some quotes from Mark’s final session…

• Every now and then God calls a leader to dance the fine line between insanity and radical faith.
• I have a grave concern that church in America has become just a building. It has become like wallpaper that you pass and don’t even notice.
• Let me ask: What are you doing in your church to raise up and mentor young leaders?
• There are five stages of innovation…
  • People deny innovation is required.
  • People deny innovation is effective.
  • People deny innovation is important.
  • People deny innovation will justify the effort required to adopt it.
  • People accept and adopt the innovation, enjoy its benefits, attribute it to people other than the innovator, and deny the existence of stages 1-4.

• A: Many preachers/teachers start with the Bible, then Exegete the text, then Apply, then Illustrate. Nothing wrong with that method. But culture has shifted. Many (maybe most) question the veracity of the Scripture. It is no longer positioned by the majority of Americans as the authoritative guide for life.
• B: Another way to teach: Start with real life (the human condition), then Exegete life, then go to the Bible to see what it says about the human condition, then Apply/Illustrate.
• I can only find one place in the Bible where Jesus used method A. In every other place, he used method B. And in that one place, he was driven from the temple and chased out of town!

Within the next week or so, you’ll be able to watch this session (and ALL the sessions) at InnovateConference.com for free.

Shannon O’Dell Brings It!

Today we heard the story of Brand New Church from pastor Shannon O'Dell. Some of my takeaways…

• God called me to Southside Baptist Church six years ago. I didn't see it coming.
• I was taught in seminary, "God's everywhere. Go where the money is." I thought it was supposed to start a church in a white collar suburban region.
• I put out a bunch of fleeces cause I didn't want to go to this rural church in Arkansas. The population there is 88.
• I felt the call of God: "What if I want you to blaze a trail in rural America?"
• I believe the most unchurched place on the planet is rural America.
• God blesses those who are serious about transformed lives.
• Within two years–another church asked us to take their ministry and we were officially multi-site.
• We re-branded and moved to Bergman, Arkansas. The population there is 407. Grew to 600 by Easter of the third year.
• We purchased a uplink satellite Hummer and now we can broadcast to anywhere in the world from our town of 407.
• Now we have house churches in communities that are too small for a congregation.
• 16 countries participated last weekend in our online service.
• Why does God only call us to plant churches in metro areas?
• Many people will never hear the clear call of God because they haven't lined up with his prerequisites (I Timothy 3).
• In rural America, a whisper is a roar. We all pump gas at the same place, our kids all attend the same school.
• Earlier this year, my best friend stabbed me in the back, had an affair, and took scores of families out of the church. As recently as a few weeks ago, I thought it might rip our entire church apart.
• If you are married, you are required by God to have a red hot marriage. If you have kids, you are required to disciple them.
• You can't expect your church to grow if your spiritual life doesn't have vitality.
• It is so important to have a church that is theocratic–not democratic.
• God is more interested in growing congregants than in growing congregations.

The People’s Choice Storytellers

The final afternoon of the Innovate Conference started off with two "surprise" speakers (read here about how they were chosen). Some quotes…

Chris Conlee, High Point Church, Memphis, TN

• Memphis is still very racially divided.
• Every vision comes from a well-defined problem.
• One man in the church, who grew up without a father, saw a problem. Over half the high school football players played their Friday night games on an empty stomach. The coaches won't let them go home, but also don't have the money to feed them.
• This man made a difference. He began to rally people to invest in the students and prepare meals for them on Friday.
• We had a vision not to just be the great White church coming to help…but to really make a difference over the long-haul.
• It took awhile, but last December, two young African-American men came to know Jesus.
• The young men jumped in, got involved, they helped them get in college, helped them get cars and get involved. They don't teach you that in seminary.
• Ministry is so much more holistic when you get involved in peoples' lives.
• People think there are limitations to the gospel. When you are loving people, there are no limitations to the gospel.

Mike Adkins, Grace Fellowship, Orlando, FL

• The first couple years of church planting were so hard. Sometimes the worship was so bad, I didn't want to come back, and I was the pastor!
• We started a building campaign at the beginning of the recession. We were crazy, and decided to say that we'd give 50% of every dollar to the poor. It was a bad way to accumulate money for a building, but it was what God wanted.
• We've been able to take the money and build 30 wells in a village in Rwanda — and it is saving thousands of lives.
• We also reached out to the working poor in Orlando.
• Last Easter we rented out an outdoor amphitheater and had 1,000 people show up.
• It was a crowd of homeless and poor and transvestites. There's nothing like the church when its' working the way its' supposed to (Hybels).
• One guy who was there: Jesse - a gangmember from Chicago. He gave his life to Christ.
• Jesse started sharing his colored past in testimony in the church–and pretty soon others in the church felt the freedom to be vulnerable as well. It opened up our church to a whole level of honesty.
• 100 people gave their life to Jesus that Sunday morning, and 65 were baptized two weeks later!

Another First at a Conference?

Yesterday we went through a process to find 2 people in the room to be featured speakers today. That's right — two people who came to a conference thinking they were going to sit back and enjoy and listen and learn — are now sweating bullets because they are presenting in a few minutes.

Love it!

Here was the process:

• Yesterday we asked everyone in the room to share a story of life change with 5 or 6 people around them. What is happening that is exciting in your church, where lives are being changed? We asked them to share that in the group.
• Then we asked the group to pick one of the stories that needed to be shared with more people.
• We ended up with 85 people — and took them out of the room.
• We divided again into 13 groups and asked them to share the stories again.
• We asked those groups, again, to pick 1 story from their group. We ended up with 13.
• We divided them into 2 groups, and did the process one additional time.
• We ended up with two individuals and asked them to share their story on the "big stage" today.

It starts now — join us at Innovate Conference online!

Arts Mash-up

The first Innovate session today is the one I've been looking forward to the most. We are trying something that, as far as I know, has never been tried in a conference before. Here's the deal:

• Early this summer we invited four churches to join us for the Arts Mash-up.
• They are churches of different types, sizes, styles and denominations.
• They paid their way to come!
• Each church will take 12-15 minutes to do an artistic presentation on the same topic.
• Thirty days ago, we gave them the topic assignment.
• It is not a contest–it is a celebration of the diversity and creativity in the church!

It starts at 8:45am (EST) today. I'm so jazzed.

Not here? That's okay, join us to watch it live. Reading this too late? We'll post videos of the session as soon as possible.

Beeson Launches Innovate Exposed

If you are missing the Innovate Conference — watch it live here.

My take-aways from the first session, led by Mark Beeson:

• The world is changing. Everything is global, instant and permanent.
• In the next 10 years around the world, the church is going to have to wrestle with this question: “Is it necessary for people to get together physically?”
• We live in a virtual world…what does that mean for the church in the next generation?
• The only people innovating aren’t just the people in this room. Our culture is changing.
• If you don’t tweet, text, or blog – you might think about quitting and getting a different job. Cause that’s the world we are in.
• There are moments of sorrow and brokenness that can bring the greatest moments of growth in your life.
• Being exposed isn’t just about being vulnerable with friends – but being exposed before God.
• God is calling us to build teams of unique people and hold them together through our mission and the values we share.
  • Your Mission: “Why we are here”
  • Your Vision: “What is pulling you into the future? What does the desired future look like?”
  • Your Values: “How we play together along the journey”
• When you are building a team…people can like the mission, vision and values…but if they don’t like you–they may quit your team.
• People might like you, they might love the vision, but if they don’t like the other people on the team (and have chemistry with those people)–you may lose some of your best people.

Somebody’s Watching You

Through some creative artists and the fine acting of one Joel Schipper (anchor on WNDU), we were able to introduce the giving kiosks to the church last weekend. Results? There were 94 people who used them to make donations during the first weekend.

3 Ways to Give | Giving Kiosks from Granger Community on Vimeo.