Things I Learned at #LCI2012: Day 2 PM

For the past few days I have been attending the Large Church Initiative at First United Methodist Church in Richardson. 

The general session speakers and workshops have been so great in the wisdom, and ideas they have shared. However, as one person put it, it's kind of like drinking water from a fire hydrant. So much stuff coming at you at one time.

I'm taking a little time to use these posts to help me digest and filter through the key things that I have learned. Maybe they will help you to.

In the first post I talked about our opening night of worship. The second post shared what we learned from the morning keynote speakers, before lunch.

After lunch we had two more keynote speakers. Here are some of my notes from those.

Keynotes

Rick Bezet  - From New Life Church

Rick talked about the fact that we need friends in ministry. We need to be relational.

He said there are 5 main reasons people leave or do not attend church...

1. Don't Like the Music - Too contemporary, too traditional, it doesn't matter. Here is the question.

"Are you gearing your sound towards those who are already in your church, or those you are trying to reach?" ouch...

2. People are not kind. Don't make the ushers at the door, and the greeting time in your service the only time a guest is spoken to and welcomed. The harvest is showing up in your church. Teach your congregation how to be welcoming.

3. Sermons are Not Relevant - Pastors who are relational tend to be practical in their teaching. How can your creative team help your message to be relational.

4. Kids Don't Like it  - Have a children's ministry that shocks people because it's so good.

5. Church Just Wants My Money - They don't want me, the just want what I have... How can we value people so they know they are important, wanted and loved?

Chris Hodges

Chris talked about his ministry strategy and how it is based on the 4 cups of the Passover story from Exodus 6.

1. Cup of Salvation  - I will bring you from under the burden of the Egyptians -

2. Cup of Deliverance - I will free you from being slaves - Discipleship... Even though we are saved from slavery, we still think like our old selves. Accountability is a big part, people who will ask tough questions.

3. Cup of Redemption - I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and acts of judgement. This is where we find God's purpose for us. He brings us back into what we were created to do.

4. Cup of Praise - I will bring you to be my people - God says we are going to be a team, a family.

Few extra thoughts - Training/Sunday School should be for the expressed intent of training people to do what God has called them to do.

Workshops

Social Media Strategy- Scott McClellan

5 things successful organizations use social media to do

1. Listen - people share more on social media than real life. You can discover ministerial opportunities, and respond to them in ways you never could before, if you listen

2. Converse - Engage people in some sort of give and take. Use social media to continue the sermon conversation. Take prayer concerns, ask people what they think of different things. Create conversation.

3. Share - Sharing is about giving and not what you will get back. Share the right stuff with the right people and you will be indispensable. 

4. Tell Stories - Tell about what is interesting and going in in your church or with your people. You can use links, videos, photos and more to tell the story through social media.

5. Invite - Social media allows your story to spread. You can reach people you never would have reached in your own personal spheres of influence. Invite people to be part of what you are doing in social media but more importantly invite them to be part of your church.

Planning Worship in a Team Concept - FUMCR Worship Planning Team

How to plan as a team, and things to think about when planning worship.

1. Determine who is coming to your worship services. What types of people.

Faithful

New Church Shoppers

Spouse who would rather be somewhere else

Pregnant mom who's husband just left

Employer who has to lay off employees

Once you know who is in your service, make sure there is something for each of those attending. This could be a scripture, a line in a song, video etc...

2. Think of ways you can broaden your worship style, not change it. Try to incorporate a more, not instead of. You can brooding your worship style, without changing the style of your worship.

*Design your worship around those you are trying to reach, not what you are trying to do.

3. Rhythm and Flow are important - 

How you change things affects the flow or rhythm. High energy to low energy, or the other way.

Do not let liturgy dictate the flow. Be flexible so that it flows naturally

Pauses, dead space, technical glitches all kill the flow.

Work on transitions. Rehearse!

4. On Liturgy

We want people to be active participants, not just consumers.

Use some traditional creeds and response, but seek out or write new ones to use.

Sometimes scripture readers can "set up" a scripture, or let it speak for itself

5.On Music - 

When making changes, or suggestions to your music director, go slow and be patient.

The phrase "We need to do more of this" can easily be taken as "you don't like what I'm doing."

6. On Children - 

Make sure children are part of your services all year round.

Create dialog parents can use with their children about that worship services

Give families ways to serve together, maybe have a family usher.

Invite kids and parents to a special time, other than Sunday morning, where you can explain what happens in church, why we do the things we do, how stuff works.

7. On Screens and Media - 

What you put on the screens should enhance, not distract

Go slow

Don't let what you CAN do with your new software dictate what you do.

Closing Worship

Our closing worship was led by the Access worship team. Access the contemporary worship at FUMC Richardson. We were challenged by Olu Brown to think about what would happen if we succeed?

He used the Great Commission in Matthew 28:16-20. He talked about being in a place of great doubt, and great faith at the same time, like the disciples after Jesus' death and before his resurrection. That the people we are called to reach are often in that same place between faith and doubt, and that it's ok because God is big enough to handle our doubt, and your faith.

But the key is that we have to move on and go. If we stay in that brokenness we miss Easter Sunday. 

Don't commit yourself to the minister of Good Friday. Go! Make disciples.

So are you here at LCI2012? What did you learn this week? Share some in the comments.

Read more - Things I Learned at #LCI2012 : Day 1   Day 2 AM   

Things I Learned at #LCI2012 : Day 2 AM

Where day one of the Large Church Initiative 2012 or #lci2012 was great food and awesome music, day two we spent listening to some challenging and inspiring messages.
The day started with breakfast and then our trip, in school busses, to FUMC Richardson.

Side note - This is definitely one of the prettiest churches I have ever been in.

Through the sessions and workshops I took notes, I'm just going to share a few of the things I learned from each one:

Mike Slaughter - 

The main thing from his keynote speech is the idea that we have adopted an organizational model, instead of a missional model for ministry. Organizations tend to spend most of their time, money and resources maintaining themselves, instead of reaching out and being missional in the community.

When we change to being missional, we have a purpose and a passion.

He challenged us to think about multiplication instead of expansion in our churches. We don't need to build more buildings, or bigger buildings, but look at other ways our church can multiply it's DNA in other areas.

Two great ideas were restarts, and house churches.

With a church restart you reclaim buildings and save money, while starting a new congregation. The money you saved could go into other missional areas.

We need to find ways to, as he said "Minimize the brick, and maximize the mission!"

He also talked about being a mission focused church. To pick one significant mission focus to put your energy and money into as a church.

My favorite quote... "Christmas is not your birthday. On your birthday you can do something to honor yourself, but on His birthday do something that honors JESUS."


Clayton Oliphint
Rev. Dr. Oliphint is the Senior Pastor at FUMC Richardson

He talked about the role of leadership, using a passage from Nehemiah 6:1-3

"When you try to do something new, people will come to you and try to take you to 'Oh-no'.. They will tell you a million reasons why you cannot do what you are doing." - Dr. Oliphint

He told us as leaders we need to do three things:

1. Clarify the purpose -
Constantly ask "Why are we doing this? What is our purpose?"

2. Have Passion -
We have to be passionate and be willing to give our all whether we have 12 or 12,000 in our church, program, ministry, worship service etc...

We tend to end up with an "it will do" mentality. Thinking it's good enough, when we should be thinking "It will never do", constantly striving to do more, find new ways to be in ministry and serving those God has called us to reach.

3. Keep it About People -
Keeping numbers is ok, but remember each number is a person. We should be about the transformation process in people and in the world.

Lisa Greenwood

Lisa is the Contemporary worship pastor for Access, FUMCR's contemporary service.
She used the story of Ezekiel in the valley of the dry bones... Ezekiel 37:1-11 to talk about how God can work through us to bring life, if we'll listen and obey.

Ezekiel was God's messenger and found himself standing in front of a valley of dry bones, to whom God told him to prophesy.

It made me thing about who or what those dry bones are in our ministries. Churches? Ministries? People? Cities?  Do I have the courage to stand up and speak God's word, to prophesy to those?

"It's easy to see the realities. Dry, dusty, worn out, hopeless. But we are called to see the possibilities, to see the things that aren't there, to see what God sees. To often we thing that what it is, is just the way things are."

Too often we look at our positions or ministries and think, "I can't do anymore. And if I cannot make it happen, then it cannot happen."

We are not called to complacency, we are called to trust in God.

Trust God can do more than you could ever imagine...


Wow.. and that was only from the first half of the first day!  I'll get notes from the workshops and final keynotes up later.

Things I Learned at #LCI2012: Day 1

I just finished my first day of the Large Church Initiative conference at First United Methodist Church Richardson, Tx. Over 500 pastors, staff and lay people from large Methodist churches across the nation have come together to worship, listen and learn about how we can be more effective in ministry, and how we can do better in our mission to make disciples, for the transformation of the world.

Day 1 started out with our trip to get here. Once we arrived and got checked in we had a great dinner from the volunteers at FUMC Richardson.

We then went to the sanctuary for a concert featuring Eric Michael, Josh Wilson and Jars of Clay. Though I am a big Jars of Clay fan I have to say my favorite part of the night was Josh Wilson playing an instrumental version of "Amazing Grace."

This is not the performance from this concert.. but here's a youtube of him doing that song.

And of course Jars of Clay was good. They did a more acoustic set with two acoustic guitars, keyboard, cello and light drum set. It was nice that they played some of my favorites from their earlier CDs along with some of the more recent songs.

Tomorrow we will hear from some great speakers and head to some breakout workshops.

If you want to follow what's going on here at LCI then check out the hashtag #lci2012 on twitter.

5 Reasons I'm Taking the 31 Days to a Better Blog Challenge

Last year problogger.com issued the 31 day blogger challenge. Bloggers signed up, and were given a task do complete with their blog each day. It was a great way to get some new ideas, and some expert advice from creator Darren Rowse.

Since that time Darren has turned his 31 days blog challenge into an Ebook called 31 Days to Build a Better Blog for anyone interested in taking the challenge on their own. It contains advice and ideas, along with a task for each day.

The first day's challenge was to write an Elevator statement for your blog. I'm still working on that, but the second was to write a list post. So why am I taking this challenge?

1. I need to learn to blog more consistently. Hopefully by taking this and making myself blog once a day for 31 days, I will get into better practice.

2. I want to know more blogging skills. Up to this point I have tried to glean ideas from some others, but I think the advice from a seasoned, proven blogger will give me some of the tools I need to move on to the next level.

3. I'd like to make some money - Up to this point I haven't really tried blogging for money, but I do know that it is possible. By writing more consistently, and writing better maybe I can turn this into a way for some extra income.

4. I want to help others in their blogging. - I have friends and family members who have their own blogs and look to me for advice. I want to learn things that I can pass on to them, and help them get their ideas out as a blog.

5. I have nothing else to do. - Ok that's not true. I have plenty to do, but if I am going to use blogging as a way to advance ideas, teach, and or make income I need to make time for it.

So there it is...my first blogging challenge. I am attempting to try this for two of my blogs. I'll do it mostly on my personal music ministry www.forkintheroadmusic.org blog, but write about the process here on simplechurchcommunication.com.

UMR Communicators Conference-Day 1 Photos and Thoughts

Today was the first day of the UMR Communicators Conference. Here are some photos and thoughts from the first day.

Rainy drive up.

Welcome by Debbie Christian and lunch.

Opening session by Tim McLemore

Workshop.. How to get organized.. with Samantha Naeyaert

Thoughts-

We started with our keynote speaker Tim McLemore. First let me say, awesome jazz piano player. He used hymns, poems, songs, and humor to talk to us about how we look at things. Here are some quick notes.

- The biggest change we make in a situation is not what we do, but who we are.

- It is important to take time to take notice of the world around you

- Find time to enjoy everything

- Get out into nature, reconnect with the creator

This was so helpful as we began to talk about keeping our balance. I began to wonder how I can take time to step back, look at the whole picture and make sure I enjoy life. 

My first workshop was Getting Your Circus Act Together: Finding Peace through Organization

Samantha shared a lot of tips, and practical ways to get organized and stay organized. Here are some thoughts I wrote down:

-You cannot set your priorities till you know who you are-

- First choose the relationships that are important to you.

- Once you understand that every move you make affects a relationship,  you can manage your time because you'l know what time waters to get rid of, and which relationship growers to choose

- Find one thing to accomplish daily. Examples: Clean your inbox, wash your dishes, sweep the floor. Then you can say every day that you at least accomplished one thing.

My final workshop was Communications 201 with Liz Applegate. We talked about all the varieties of methods churches can use to communicate, and how we can use them effectively.

-Determine who you as an organization

-More than the church logo- What do people say about your church? What do you want them to say?

- Do we use our communications to proclaim the story of Jesus Christ, or to say "look what programs we have!"

- Your marketing may be the only invitation a visitor receives.. is it deserving of that honor?

-Determine in advance, which communication methods are used, based on priority

- QR codes.. the next thing?

Of course there are many pages of notes and thoughts to digest. These are just the beginning. 

Tomorrow I will learn more about volunteer optimization, and writing skills.

Remember.. follow what's going on using twitter hashtag #umr11

Less Clutter Less Noise- The Group Blog

Have you read Kem Meyer's book Less Clutter Less Noise. If you are in church communications and have not had a chance to read the book, I highly suggest you buy it and read it now.
Ok, so maybe you aren't a big reader. What if someone read it for you and highlighted some important facts from each chapter? What if then several people discussed, asked questions, commented and shared thoughts on the concepts in that chapter?
That's exactly what has happened over at Our Church dot Com's group blog. 15 bloggers got together, took a chapter each and shared their thoughts. Think of it like.. Cliff Notes for Less Clutter Less Noise
So go take a look, read, think and discuss. However I can say, as one of the writers, there is far more in each chapter than can be captured in one blog post, so if you do get a chance.. Read the book!

UMR Communicators Conference-Pre Thoughts

For the past few years I have enjoyed going to the United Methodist Reporter Communicators Conference. This two day event is put on by the wonderful people of the UM Reporter. They are the ones that print our monthly Insight magazine.
I cannot tell you how much wisdom and information I have gleaned over the years, not just in the workshops, but in talking to the presenters and participants throughout the event.
This year the theme is "Finding The Balance: Inspiration to Information." Though I cannot remember all the workshops I know I am focusing on things like writing, developing a communications strategy, and budgeting.
Throughout the event I'll be taking notes, and sharing my thoughts through twitter. You can follow me at www.twitter.com/rgmmusic. Better yet follow the #UMR11 search in my sidebar to get everyones thoughts and comments.