rayray's ramblings

Moved to Wordpress

2007-05-12T01:23:00.000-04:00

I am experimentally moving my blog over to WordPress after seeing this site. My new address is:

rhughes.wordpress.com

Steve Fee “Burn For You”

2007-05-10T16:23:00.002-04:00

I just bought the new album from Steve Fee called “Burn for You”. All I can say is this stuff is really good. I am tired of the same sound from the Christian artists with weak lyrics or stuff that sounds like a prom song to Jesus. This CD has rich lyrics, much like the classic hymns, with a modern language and sound that I dig. Bottom Line: GO BUY THIS MUSIC! We will be blasting this stuff in our home!

What Not to Do When Starting a New Site

2007-05-10T16:23:00.001-04:00

1. Neglect Prayer Effort
2. Fail to Raise a Suitable Launch Team
3. Fail to Communicate Essentials/Train Existing Staff and Leaders
4. View the Different Campuses as Separate Churches
5. View the Different Campuses as Culturally Identical
6. Cater to Convenience for Insiders Instead of Reaching Outsiders
7. Forget the Great Commandment in Pursuit of the Great Commission
8. Ignore Opposition (Institutional, Cultural, Spiritual)
9. Stop Recruiting and Evangelizing after Launching New Campus
10. Have No Plan for Ministries (esp. Spiritual Formation) Across Campuses
11. Underestimate the Organizational Complexity
12. Fear Talking About Money
13. Blindly Take Advise of the Experts

Google Reader Shortcuts

2007-05-09T10:51:00.000-04:00

Christian vs. Christ Follower (Part 2)

2007-05-07T00:27:00.000-04:00

Google Reader

2007-05-05T16:46:00.000-04:00

Google is rocking the online world because of the way they have fully integrated Calendar, Email, Reader and Blogger. I realize that there are other more advanced blog sites out there, but I am sticking with Blogger because they are all in one place, with one password and work well together.

But, no doubt, I am hooked on Google Reader. It handles all my favorite blogs and news, keeps me up to date with what other church leaders and church planters are up to...all without littering my inbox. I think blogs are going to change the way we do church and build community. Blogging is becoming a great way to communicate and will only get better as the rest of the world catches up to the early adapters. I was sceptical at first, until I realized how easy and handy the Google Reader makes it to keep up with all the blogs I am interested in.

Long Live Google!

Aucilla River Trip

2007-05-04T21:25:00.000-04:00

Jacqueline and Mary Frances are off for a girls weekend, so the boys went saltwater fishing today, out from the Aucilla River. We got about as much "fishing" done as we could with a 1 1/2 year old and a 4 year old in the boat. Chase was excited because he caught his first fish (a pinfish). It was fun to take them to the place that holds many memories for me. I can rememberas a kid spending many days on the grass flats catching speckled (or spotted) sea trout or scalloping or swimming in the river. It is a beautiful, pristine river that has remained undisturbed for the most part.

This picture is taken at near Nutall Rise where the Aucilla goes underground before re-emerging a few hundred yards farther south. The lower part of the river disappears underground and reappears several times. Our fishing cabin in on the left side of the photo.

This picture is down river nearing the mouth.

The river reaches the Gulf of Mexico and the banks of saw grass as you reach the brackish water.

Stinkin Awesome!

2007-05-03T23:57:00.000-04:00

Call me a slow adopter, but I am finally getting into the blogging world through using my Google reader. I am blown away at how much info I can get in a short period of time. It's amazing how much smarter I actually think I am now!

My Stinkin' Awesome Find of the Day Is:

Biblemap This is the online tool I have been looking for. Check it out. Look up a verse and click on the location. You can find any place mentioned in the Bible, on satellite or a map, in seconds. (Thanks to Andrew Jones)

I'm a Christ Follower (Mac vs. PC Parody) Part 01

2007-05-03T23:50:00.000-04:00

A series of these hilarious parodies were featured at the Exponential Conference...

How Great is our God

2007-05-03T11:17:00.000-04:00

I shared this video with our reading group over at sgi30days.blogspot.com
He wraps Himself in Light. The darkness tries to hide!

Listening to Communicate

2007-05-02T09:47:00.000-04:00

I subscribe to a daily email leadership devotional Equip. Today there was a line was simple yet insightful.

"People don’t lose intimacy when they stop talking, but when they stop listening. Leaders seldom realize how much their listening empowers the other person. Because they are leaders, the sheer act of listening speaks volumes that even a great speech can’t communicate."

I catch myself forgetting how important listening is. I am not naturally a good listener. It takes work and a intentional effort. But, as I read this, I was convicted that if I really seek to live in community with people, I have to learn to listen better. I tend to be impatient and can't understand why others can't "get it"...as if I "have it". I think stopping to listen could help us all prevent conflict from being destructive in many situations, because it would build a sense of mutual trust. Maybe the reason others don't seem to hear us, is that we haven't listened to them. Maybe the best way to build relationships and experience real community is to listen to people first. Maybe relationships and leadership are not quite as complicated as we think, but just require hard work. God help me!

Jott...my prescription for ADD

2007-04-30T16:02:00.000-04:00

My mind is never in the same place more than a minute. That's why Jott is the new best tool for me. I have used a digital voice recorder before, but the problem for me has always been the inconvenience of having to carry it around with me. I have also figured out that the best way to keep up with anything is to email it to myself. This works great, except some of my best thoughts, ideas or creations never make it out of my head because I am in the car or otherwise occupied and I can't get to the computer.

So, Jott has solved my crisis. This slick little web service allows me to call a toll free number and send a message to myself or anyone else on my contact list. I have it on speed dial and I simply speak the message and the service transcribes it and sends it to my email! AWESOME idea and it actually works well!

30 Day Experiment

2007-04-30T15:23:00.000-04:00

We just launched a 30-day experiment with our congregation to study the Bible daily together and see what God does. I am using the following blog as a place of reflection on our journals. Join us if you like.

www.sgi30days.blogspot.com

Goals for Life...

2007-04-28T22:48:00.000-04:00

We are in the middle of a sermon series on the book of Ruth. It has been a good study for me and I have learned much in prep. The series is called "The Essence of Faith"...which is Faithfulness. I am reminded of the life goals I set for myself a few years back. They were:

1. To be faithful child and servant of God.
I want to get to the end of my life and not have any regrets.
2. To be a faithful husband and father.
I don't want to be one of those pastors whose kids or wife hate the church because it becomes a mistress. My first ministry is to my family and they are irreplaceable!
3. To be a faithful steward.
To use every ounce of my energy, time, talents, resources and personality for God's glory. I want to develop myself mind, body and soul to maximize my kingdom impact. I don't want to get to the end of my life and think "What if?" or even "I sure did have a nice career". I want to say, "Look at the lives that were changed and see how God's kingdom was revealed through my life and labors".

Sometimes I get distracted in the business of life and forget what I really want to achieve. This series has been a good reminder, because I am talking about doing the small things everyday and being faithful in relationships. We want the quick fix that will bring success (we are Americans after all!) but that is not the way God works. God rewards those who practice long obedience in the same direction. I pray my life will be a portrait of this obedience.

NNCC Take Aways

2007-04-27T11:05:00.000-04:00

I went to NNCC expecting to understand a bit more about the church planting endeavor, particularly in the arena of multi-site churches. It was a well done conference for the most part and I felt I grew a good bit by attending. Here are the main things I am walking away with:

1. I went thinking I would be focusing on the "how" of church planting, but really came away with a better understanding of "who" a church planter is and what kind of team it takes to do this successfully.

2. You must start with health in the existing church. You will reproduce whatever is already there.

3. Multi-site planting has many, many forms, but there are some consistencies:
- A Team Approach
- A Common Vision to Reach People
- A pre-existing health that is replicated
- A big vision
- A spirit of adventure and flexibility
- A humble and missional approach (it is not about ego!)
- A desire to be incarnational

4. Church planters must fight the tendency to sell people on a form of church and instead must remain focused on introducing people to Jesus. The form of church is always the tool to reach the goal, which is to reach people and make disciples. The vision is Jesus, not a church. The church is the means not the end. This seems obvious, but it seems the nature of church planting makes it more difficult to keep this at the center.

Hybels at NNCC

2007-04-27T10:42:00.000-04:00

Bill Hybels led the final session at the NNCC. I had heard the talk before (he shared the story of Willow Creek), but each time is still captivating to listen to the way God worked in their hearts. I think he really desires to encourage pastors with the fact that Willow wasn't always what they are today, but that they struggled, just like all new churches do.

He shared this advice for pastors who are launching new churches:

Advice on planting a church:

1) Know the difference between a hankering (ideas that you think you might get around to someday) and a holy discontent (if you didn’t do what God was calling you to do it feels like you would implode and something terrible would happen inside of you).
a. David: “I’d rather die than allow that guy to trash talk my God.”
b. If it kills me, so be it!
c. Martin Luther King he couldn't take the "whites only sign” even though he knew he would probably get killed he decides that it would kill him not to march
d. Only plant a church if you can say: “I will implode if I don’t launch something that will reach more people.”
e. If it is a hankering you can’t keep going 2 weeks, 2 months or 2 years into it.

2) Be ruthlessly honest about your spiritual gifts
a. Train wrecks in church plants happen when there isn’t a good understanding and deployment of spiritual gifts
b. Who has what gifts? What is the rank order of your gifts?

3) Be willing to walk out on faith
a. The connection of leadership and faith
b. “we walk by faith and not by sight”
c. If you are a church planter and all you look at is the circumstances and the obstacles, you will not make it – there are a ridiculous number of challenges
d. Trust that between here and there, God will show up!
e. Walk by faith in the direction that He tells us to go and trusting that He will show up

4) Figure out early on if you are going to take the high road or the low road
a. The world is watching and too many people aren’t doing it right with integrity
b. Question posed to the top businesses: What quality do you most want in your CEO? – #1 Integrity

5) Ask God to let you finish with a few of the people with whom you started

Dinner with PCI

2007-04-26T00:08:00.000-04:00

I had dinner with our consultant Don Smith and two of the folks from Portable Church Industries. They are a company that consults with churches that do the portable church thing. It is awesome what they do and I really wish they had been around the last time I was involved in a church plant.

They told us that they had cut one church's set-up time from 8hrs to 1hr! This is a shameless plug for them and I look forward to hopefully working with them on our site.

Reproducing Churches

2007-04-25T23:59:00.000-04:00

One of the big emphasis of this conference has been on becoming a reproducing pastor in a reproducing church. The impact is multiplied when instead of ministering we have a bigger vision to lead people to reproduce their ministry and it explodes exponentially. The scary part is that you always reproduce yourself, so if you aren't going deep with God neither will your people.

Dave Ferguson led this session and here are a few notes:

How do we reproduce?

1) Dream Big -- If the dream is big – the plan has to be reproduced, multiplied
Big Dreams Change Your Questions
God has a bigger dream for my church than I do
Big dreams will begin to change your prayers
Big dreams change others around you

2) Start Small
Start with yourself - If I am going to accomplish this big dream, what do I want to do?
Start with your Leaders
Start with your Artists – critically important unless you do house church model

Factors that were not factors in the ability to reproduce:
Gender
Social Class
Age
Marital Status
Education

Factors that were factors in the ability to reproduce:
Prayer Life
Setting a goal for reproduction

How are you going to know when your church has made the shift?
1. Seek the lost more than the found
2. Love the edge (risk) more than the center (safety)
3. Prefer the going more than the staying

Blogger's Roundtable

2007-04-25T23:56:00.000-04:00

Another very cool thing I did today was hang out with some guys who actually know what they are doing in the blogging arena. I am just getting started on my blog and never seem to be able to keep one going, but I was inspired by their stories of how great a ministry tool it really is. I hope to keep the blog going now that I feel people are much more likely to read and respond and I have a little bit of a clue what I am doing.

Mark Betterson - Creative DNA

2007-04-25T23:45:00.000-04:00

The Session by Mark Batterson was also good on instilling a creative DNA into the church. I love being around creative people. It gets my juices flowing just hearing him talk about this passion.

Creative DNA
by: Mark Betterson

Creativity, Humor, Sense of Humor – are all stewardship issues

#1 Keep Learning
If you keep importing and looking for the creative ideas, you will have those eureka moments

• 5% of budget into development – if you are growing personally, then you will be growing corporately
• reading strategy and plan – plan your reading ahead of the game to go with your sermon schedule

#2 Exegete Culture
• one commonality of the greatest leaders of history – cultural and contextual students
• we need leaders who understand their time and context
• irrelevance is irreverence
• relevance = incarnation
• Movie and Music makers are the chief theologians of our day
• A series every year “God in the Box Office” and “God in the Billboards”
• Redeeming the technology and use it in a useful way
• Study your community, not just the trends in society

#3 Brand Sermons
I don't have time to talk about sermon branding in my session today so here are some notes.

#4 Disrupt Routines
• “Change of pace + change of place = change of perspective”
• Most good ideas come out of the times when the place & pace have been changed
• Discouragement comes from me “zooming in” on a problem or a person that I am not happy with
• Find rest and joy – I can do some things for you because: “It’s not what you can do for me, it’s what I have done for you.”
• Routines are the key to spiritual growth – the moment a routine becomes a routine you better change your routine
• If you exercise the same way every time the muscles begin to adapt and they don’t respond the same way to the same thing
• At NCC they do many off-site meetings (staff retreats lead to creativity)
• The job of a leader is to keep the sacred from becoming routine
• Jesus disoriented the disciples
• When you sing a song 30 times you forget the words
• The above is descriptive not prescriptive

#5 Keep Experimenting
• We are in the business of Research and Development
• When you have an “experimenting” model you are opening yourself to be more creative
• Small groups are an experiment – let the vision happen and
• If you create a culture where you do experiments it creates great leadership latitude

More from Tuesday at NNCC

2007-04-25T23:43:00.000-04:00

Jim Putnam Session
Jim hammered us with being reproducing coaches and leading people to full devotion to Christ and not just converting people. This was a challenging talk about the "success" of the church and our job in making disciples. I know there was alot that I needed to hear in this talk.

A disciple is:
1. Someone who has made Jesus Christ Lord of their life – being made into the likeness of Christ – being made into the image of Christ – being born again – about the mission of God – sprinkle a little God on top – God is following them around to help them reach their mission – treat Jesus like a dog “fetch Jesus”
2. A disciple of Christ is someone who is in relationship with others – life is all about relationship – the Bible is all about relationship

Discipleship Happens How?
1. Discipleship does not happen in large groups – it happens in the context of relationship – Jesus only had 12 disciples
a. Every person should be a discipler
b. Duet. 6 – the best model for discipleship
c. Whoever you live around – you disciple them
2. Discipleship must have an aspect of pastoral leadership and shepherding
a. 90% of our time is spent on “the show”
b. shepherding gives you the right to lead
3. Discipleship has an element of teaching
a. Real teaching happens as you walk along the road
b. In a small group, in a relationship
c. A good leader gets its people into a shepherding environment
4. Discipleship requires accountability
5. Discipleship requires authenticity
6. Discipleship requires a place for giving people the skills necessary for being a disciple

Everybody really needs the same thing – everybody needs relationships with God and other people. We need to create better ways for people to have these relationships.

NNCC Tuesday AM

2007-04-25T23:11:00.000-04:00

This conference has been outstanding and very intense. Here is how my AM went:

Breakfast with Don Smith
I started the day with breakfast with Don Smith, our consultant from Jim Griffith Coaching, who I am so thrilled to have guiding us. Don is a great guy with great experience and the wisdom of having seen many churches start both well and not-so-well.

Opening Session with Ed Stetzer
Ed Stetzer is the professor of church planting and led our opening session. The worship was led by a group that is engaging the world of hip-hop with the gospel. One of the guys has the funniest website name I've heard www.godaintmadatya.com which is based in Houston and I love what they are doing!

Ed talked about having a missional DNA and once again about our mission not being about a kind of church we envision, but about reaching people with the gospel. "Many of us have community lust and demographic envy" instead of doing God's work where we are -- ouch!

Batterson: Maximizing your Environment

2007-04-24T16:10:00.000-04:00

Mark Batterson is becoming one of my favorite blogger/pastor/leaders

He has a good article on creating a good environment that came from NNCC on his blog that I thought I would share.

Seven Keys to Maximizing Your Environment

from The Batterson Blog - Thoughts on Life and Leadership by Mark Batterson

Notes from Alan Hirsch

2007-04-24T15:44:00.000-04:00

The following is a good article with thoughts from Alan Hirsch on Dave Ferguson's blog. Dave is the leader of the conference this year and the pastor of the CCC who led the pre-conference intensive.
Dinner with Alan Hirsch

from daveferguson.org by Dave Ferguson

Visit Alan's blog here

NNCC Plenary Session #1

2007-04-24T15:00:00.000-04:00

The first Plenary Session was led by Wayne Cordeiro. Wayne's book "Doing Church as a Team" is one of my favorites.

It was a pretty typical first session with encouragement to stay near God and let the Holy Spirit guide everything you do. Not really alot of new or deep information, but very good to refocus us on the center of what really drives the church plant...sharing the fresh encounter with God that we are having.

Statistics on Multi-Site

2007-04-24T10:30:00.000-04:00

Leadership Network Stats (click to go to their website)

There is a growing amount of information on multi-site movement available through Leadership Network. A summary:

- Annual growth of church going multi-site 33% (especially in the year that the new site launches)
- Most churches do multi-site for evangelistic reasons
- By 2010 50% Mega-churches (over 2,000 attendance) will be doing multi-site
- "One Church, Multiple Locations"
- Most Important Aspects of Unity: Same Doctrine, One vision/mission, Pastoral Staff all meet together, One board for all campuses, Same Preaching Theme
- Where to meet 75% in schools, 16% industrial/business park, 11% other (Regal Cinema actually has a staff person now to work with churches meeting in their theatres)
- How Do Multi-Sites Handle Worship: 46% - on site, 29% - video, 28% - combo teaching ...teaching is moving toward teaching being video, but worship music is moving more toward "live"
- How is multi-site being funded: 74% General Budget, 34% Self-Supporting in 2 yrs, 24% Special Offering, 22% Outside Funding, 20% Payback to start others, 17% Little Start up funds needed
- 58% said they sent out the most experienced, "A" Team, to the new site - missional focus
- "Failure of attention to leadership development" was the biggest mistake in the launch
- Growing Numbers of off-sites are starting with children's and student ministries - 87% kids / 81% nursery / 63% students (CCC started by advertising the student ministry at one site)
- Biggest Mistake: 80% do not see sites contributing to future sites

Children's Ministry Challenges to Multi-Site

2007-04-24T10:06:00.000-04:00

Children's Ministry is one of the most challenging and most important parts of going multi-site. Three challenges are particularly important:

1) The Skills of the Staff Person
- When you are staffing for multi-site you will need people with "kids" skills and leadership skills. The leadership skills are even more important in multi-site because of the complexities organizationally
2) Alignment
- Collaboration is more challenging for Children's Ministry
- Having at least one staff person overseeing all campuses' Children's ministry will help with this ("Champion" of Children's Ministry)
- Shared Curriculum
3) Scalability
- will the systems in a larger campus work in a smaller venue? systems (such as age group divisions) must be in place that will work in different size venues (having the same name for the ministry, same check-in system, etc...)

Multi site kids (see the job descriptions)

NNCC Day 2 - (part 1)

2007-04-24T09:18:00.000-04:00

5 Lessons to Save You 5 Years

Lesson #1: The Leadership Lesson
1) The Matrix
- use the matrix, use the matrix, use the matrix (the matrix is a tool to determine volunteer needs and build your leadership, I have a hard copy that I will image when I get a chance)

2) Launch Team Development
When it comes to the launch team:
a) Don't over do it - don't overfill the matrix because there need to be places for newcomers to connect - newcomers need a relationship and a responsibility to connect
b) Children's ministry is usually the most demanding to fill on the matrix

3) Leadership Community
a) share the challenges, where are we winning, what's the next hill we are taking

Lesson #2: The Campus Pastor Lesson
"the face does matter" - who is in charge? who can answer my question? "the face with the place" - they say the lead pastor will have to relinquish control at that location - newcomers may or may not even know who the lead pastor is - they will gravitate toward the campus pastor - this campus pastor will be a "lead pastor"

Lesson #3: The People Not Like Me Lesson
- the people you understand the least, are the ones you need the most
- the leaders won't necessarily attract artists the same way they will small group leaders
Secrets to Developing Artists
A) Use various styles and develop multiple ____
B) Make room for failure
C) Start a school for the arts
D) Commission artists to identify and recruit artists
E) Let pagans play
(you really also need organizational leaders because of the complexities of a multi-site -- you cannot overlook these leaders!)

Lesson #4: The Small Group Lesson
- All I really need to know about multi-site, I learned in a small group
A) Small groups establish a reproductive culture
- multiplying campuses is much like the multiplication of small groups - it can be painful to "give away" the people/leaders who go to the new campus - the payoff happens
B) People are still best cared for in small groups
- people may like the big crowd, but they won't get cared for in the big as much as they will in the smaller group - it creates more loyalty
C) Clusters of groups provide an avenue to start new campuses
- geographically clustered small groups can lead to new campus
D) Proximity increase the depth of community (Randy Frezee: The Connecting Church)
-creating a campus near the people's homes increases their sense of community and their buy-in and contribution

Lesson #5: The Language Lesson
- El lenguaje es imprtante

Bad words:
- "satellite" (satellites revolve around the "big" campus - satellite either spins off or crashes and burns)
- "other"
- extension
- branch
- 2nd, 3rd, 4th
- mother ship
- big
- big house
- core team
- "live" teaching

Good words:
- "geographic" campus or site
- north, south, east, west - neutral words
- launch team
- in person, video cast

Campuses are like kids - we try to treat them equally and not make them feel like there is a favorite (even when there is a personal favorite)

Extra Credit
Don't assume what worked yesterday will work today

3 Mini-lessons from CCC Failed Campus
1) Failed the Campus Pastor Lesson - wrong person at wrong time
2) Failed to recognize the cultural differences - multi-cultural influence
3) Failed the small group lessons - not enough small groups up and running
4) Failed the matrix lesson - not enough of a launch team
5) Failed to see strategic differences (marketing, etc...)

Good Morning from Orlando

2007-04-24T09:08:00.000-04:00

It's a good morning here in O-land. We start the big conference today. I will be hooking up with Don Smith, our consultant at some point today. We just were given a advertisement for a coaching network and it was great to be able to just "tune it out" and know that we are in good hands. I am really looking forward to boot camp because it seems we will get to do more contextualized planning. One other tool we were given was the following sample of the budget for CCC.

Sample Budget from CCC as they went multisite

More coming soon...

NNCC Day 1 (part 2)

2007-04-24T00:13:00.000-04:00

(NNCC day one continued...this is our group at the pre-conference intensive on multi-site...there's me on the second row on the far side in the white shirt behind the other guy in a white shirt...yes, I am taking notes, not nodding off!)

The next focus of our discussion on Multi-site dealt with Team Building and Leadership Development. I will give an outline of the discussion:

Reproducing Leaders
Think about the qualities of the leaders that you want to reproduce. Who are the people that you want to have around? You must empower them to reproduce other leaders who are like them.

Four Quadrants of Leadership Development

Experiential (hands on) | Self Learning (give resources for learning - blogs, books, etc...)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Classroom (trainings) | Mentor (one to one, hard talks, regular meetings)

The tightrope that we must pull in either direction is between empowerment and excellence. Valuing both the quality of the task and the development of the person.

Reproducing the Role
Apprenticeship - see three great books all by Carl George (I'm not sure which of these 3 were mentioned. I know the first was):
Nine Keys to Effective Small Group Leadership
How to Break Growth Barriers
The Coming Church Revolution
Prepare Your Church for the Future

2-2-2 Principle from II Timothy 2:2 (four generations of leaders developed)

Apprenticeship Process
1. I do - You watch - We talk (Integrity, transparency)
2. I do - You help - We talk (Specific role - function)
3. You do - I help - We talk (Responsibility)
4. You do - I watch - We talk (Leadership)
5. You do - Someone else watches (Reproduction)
**Do this at all levels

Reproducing the Person
Value the person and the ministry in balance.
Power of one on one.

(circle with a core and three pieces)
Core: Relationally Drive Care for up to 5 leaders. "Spiritual Friendship"
Pieces of the circle: Equip (click here)/ Recruit (train leaders to recruit leaders) / Serve

7 Coaching Questions
1. How are you?
Relational - Physical - Mental - Spiritual
2. How did things go since we last met? (accountability/follow up)
3. What are you celebrating?
4. What challenges are you facing?
5. How will you tackle those challenges?
6. How can I help?
7. How can I pray for you?

(there was a long rambling about reproducing artist here that I though was repetition of the other reproduction of leadership but dealt with the details of building teams of artists)

The Multi-Site Models (this was an overview of the different models of multi-site out there...it is interesting to me that almost nobody does the same thing...so, you have to find what will work in your situation and then be very quick to adapt to changing circumstances). CCC does almost all of these models at one site or another.

1. Partnership Model (collaborations with other organizations like YMCA/community organizations/fire stations/etc...)
www.grace.org (various)
www.stillwaterumc.org (YMCA)
www.fbclr.org (fire stations)

2. The New Venture Model (start additional locations that may be bigger than the original site as a way to expand and respond to growth - an example is a downtown landlocked situation)
www.ctkonline.com
www.northpoint.org
www.evergreencc.com

3. The Satellite Model (a hub with smaller branches)
www.missionarlington.org
www.onnuri.or.kr
www.yfgc.org
http://newlife-d.tripod.com/index.html

4. The Digital Model (simulcast or tape delayed video - technology is a substitute or supplement to teaching and/or music in order to start more sites)
www.willowcreek.org
www.lifechurch.tv
www.northlandcc.net
www.northcoastchurch.com
www.seacoast.org

5. The Teaching Team Model (I am not sure what distinguishes this from the Digital Model)
www.kensingtonchurch.org
www.mountainlakechurch.org

6. The Third Place Model (uses locations in cultural centers where people congregate or hang out)
www.forefront.org
www.theaterchurch.com
www.mosaic.org

7. The Multi-Cultural Model (targets different groups than the predominant culture of the existing church)
www.newsong.net
www.newlifechurch.org
www.apchurch.com

8. The Relocation Model (instead of deciding whether to move or stay a church can decide to do both - especially in an urban area where they want to stay in a changing demographic area, but still reach the suburbs where people are heading)
www.saintpauls.net
www.firstsayyes.com
www.goshenumc.org

9. The Resurrection Model (an additional location is started by bringing an dying church back to life as a new site)
www.lifespringchristian.org
www.discoverchristianchurch.org

...that was day one...my mind is mush!

time for bed :)

NNCC Day 1 (part 1)

2007-04-23T23:02:00.001-04:00

I attended the first day of the National New Church Conference in Orlando today. Here are some highlights in note form from the Pre-Conference Intensive "The Seven Moves to Multi-Site" led by Dave and Jon Ferguson and their team from Community Christian Church (in suburban Chicago) and www.NewThing.org.

The Seven Moves to Multi-Site

- Community Christian Church (CCC) started with a small group of friends who had a vision to: "help people find their way back to God". They began in one location and about eight years ago began launching new campuses. They currently have 9 locations that meet weekly with plans to launch 2 more locations in the coming year.

Move #1 - God Thing
- First ask, "What is God in and what is the team passionate about?" The Henry Blackaby "Where is God working and how can I be involved there?" question is the first step.

Move #2 - Vision
- Their model always allows for vision to flow out of the God-thing or the ministry that they are doing and what they see God doing. Instead of coming up with the vision and they going after it, the vision is going to flow out of faithfulness to God work and is more of a recognition of what God has been doing.
- 3 components of a compelling vision are:
1) A Problem (people are disconnected from God)
2) A Solution (a church that helps them find their way back)
3) Urgency/Motivation (take the church to them and pursue them)
-Vision is best communicated in three ways:
1) Stories - connect people with real life stories - the people that need the multi-site, the friends and neighbors that need to find their way back to God and the solution to that problem is a church that comes to their neighborhood and offers an environment that facilitates that journey.
2) Slogans - "Helping people find their way back to God" - something memorable that gives the people of the church something to connect real life situations with the vision
3) Stump Speaches - training and helping people share the vision in a 2-minute conversation - answer the question, "why are you doing this?"

Move #3- Leader
Two Questions Every Newcomer Has:
1) Who is in charge?
2) Who can answer my questions?
- Even if the campus pastor is not giving the message, it is vital to have a person that newcomers are able to see as an authority or a source for answers -- this gives people a comfort level, especially the unchurched.

The Role of the Campus Pastor
1) Face with the Place - a consistent person always on that campus
2) Host - creates the "vibe" for the environment (think of the role of a host at a small group-may not be the teacher, but provides the "vibe" that is essential to the success of the small group and the facilitator
3) Cheerleader - in the case that the campus pastor is not teaching, there is more opportunity for deep and meaningful conversations and being with people
4) Emcee - provides the focus, announcements, etc... connecting with the newcomers
5) Catalyst - to really make an impact on the community - once again not being the teacher would give more opportunity to be incarnational at a level that wouldn't be possible if doing extensive study and preperation (The flip side to this is that doing the teaching live and in person is arguably much more incarnational, although their experience is that the effectiveness of the communicator is more important than the mode of communication. In other words, a message by a communicator who is "on their game" is more effective than someone who may be physically "on site".)
6) Quality Manager - the on-stie eyes and ears, "are the expectations being met?" "is the children's ministry a safe place for newcomers to feel comfortable leaving their kids?" etc...
7) Talent Scout - identifying artists, leaders, etc...
8) Team Leader - organization and design...The Team Development is the HUGE issue with the campus pastor and really with the whole concept of multi-site. The church must have a system of recruiting, training and growing leaders that is extensive, well thought out and doing the job. There is a good hand-out that we recieved that has a matrix for determining if you have the necessary leadership to start a new site.
The big questions to ask are:
Who? - this is the biggest and most important - put the best people on the biggest challenges - most of the best leaders come from within and understand the DNA - the chemistry between the lead pastor and the campus pastor is critical! (reference "Good to Great" by Collins)
How? - Pipeline to raise up leaders
1. Apprentice --> 2. Leader --> 3. Coach --> 4. Staff --> 5. Campus Pastor (see process below)

Move #4 - Team
- Terminology "Launch Team" is better than "core team" - more inclusive and time-sensitive because after the launch you want everyone to be the church and not carry a elitist mentality because they are the "core"
- Spiritual Entrepreneurs
-Missionaries - the people who are ready to move - sometimes the best people don't always commit right away - be patient and keep laying the vision out there for people to process and own
-Missional Mindset - "if you start one in my neighborhood, my friends and neighbors might come"

Move #5 - Finances
1) Know and share the costs!
-Budgets are different according to needs: facility, technology, staff, marketing, etc... (I will be getting a budget breakdown from CCC via email soon)
2) Don't be afraid to ask.
-Think creatively about a missionary mindset to raising funds. Launch teams have even done missionary style letters to friends and family to garner support.
3) Make sure you have enough money in enough time.
-Most of the money will be spent in the 60 days prior and the 30 days after the launch.

Move #6 - Alignment
- Alignment of people, ideas and all resources is crucial in order to stop the diffusion of energy that is natural to multi-site and the dynamics of doing things in different places and spreading things out. There are a whole lot of churches doing two sites and a whole lot doing 4 or more sites, but very few doing 3 sites because of this phenomenon. The churches that don't align well and overwhelmed with the complexity of the situation and never move past it. They have a mentality of "we don't have the energy to do that again"

Keys to Alignments:
1) Consistency
- Consistent language - the same terminology helps prevent the diffusion of energy by keeping everyone on the same page i.e. "Apprentice Leader" "Leader" "Coach" "Staff"
- Consistent experiences - in all areas, locations and levels there are consistent experiences: Celebrate - Connect - Contribute
2) Leadership Community
- All the leaders from all the locations meet for a once/month event that is 2 1/2 hours with three purposes:
a) Vision (to raise a value - or show the next hill to take)
b) Huddle (coaches with leaders)
c) Skill (training).
3) The Big Idea
- This keeps them going in the same direction and going after one big idea (The Big Idea is the book they wrote that goes into details of how they do this...I am reading it now).
4) The Four Ones -- All Moving in the Same Direction
a) One Vision
b) One Budget
c) One Eldership or Organizational Polity
d) One Staff

Move #7 - Unstoppable
- Characteristics of a Level 5 Leader (Good to Great by Jim Collins)
1) Other Centered
2) They are unstoppable - determined to get it done and will not stop until it is done!

Your Speed

2007-04-23T08:19:00.000-04:00

I took a little jog around the old section of Orlando this morning. Many very beautiful old houses are near my friend's house where I am staying and it made for a very nice run. While on my run I saw a sign like this one and when I approached it read '00' for my speed. Ha! As if I needed a sign to tell me how slow I am. I could almost hear a low chuckling as I passed the sign, but I just turned up the volume on my ipod and my pace...a little bit. I haven't been running that long, but have just gotten to the point that I don't feel completely inept and then this sign has to come and damage my ego.

It seems that in life just when we start to feel good about our progress there is always one of those well timed voices to tell us how much we really stink. Lance Armstrong said that there can be 10 people cheering and 1 person booing and the booing person will always seem to drown out the cheering people. So, I guess my response to this would be:

1. Surround myself with as many people who are going to encourage me to grow and make the most of the opportunities in life.
2. Realize that the booing voices will always be there...turn up the volume!
3. Use those voices as motivation...pick up the pace!

Missing the crew

2007-04-22T23:36:00.000-04:00

I just got a new picture of the kids that I thought I should share. They are at their grandparents' house while I attend the NNCC. Jacqueline's blog captures the daily circus that is our home. Give her a visit and tell her how great of a mom she is! http://mommyof3preschoolers.blogspot.com

By the way honey, the toothpaste article was little much, even for me...I'm not sure I want a kiss when I see her again :)

we also got updated pics of the house today...see the link on the article about the house two before this...

Off to Orlando for NNCC

2007-04-22T19:32:00.000-04:00

As I write, I am at my favorite Crisper’s spot in Gainesville catching their free WIFI. This is the spot I would stop each week to study when I was making the 4-hour weekly commute to Orlando for class during my final year of seminary.

I am headed to Orlando to attend the National New Church Conference (exponentialconference.org). The lineup for the conference includes:

- A pre-conference track on Multi-Site congregations (one church in multiple locations) by Dave Ferguson (daveferguson.org). I am reading his book "The Big Idea" now and I am really looking forward to this track because we are going to be doing multi-site in Houston.

- The conference includes 4 main plenary sessions. Wayne Cordeiro speaks Tuesday afternoon, Ed Stetzer Wednesday morning, Dave Ferguson Wednesday afternoon, and Bill Hybels on Thursday morning.

- The conference includes 5 main tracks integrated throughout the conference. These are essentially conferences within the main conference. Each of the 5 main tracks consists of 7 one hour sessions. The one I am attending is on reproducing churches.

- I hope to attend a bloggers' roundtable discussion at one of the lunches.

- I also emailed Dave Ferguson this week and he invited me to attend a special breakfast for multi-site leaders to network and Q and A. I'm excited to have a more informal setting to interact with him and the New Thing team there. Check out their website for some cool happenings in the concept of multi-site and Big Idea (newthing.org)

There is wireless access in the building where we will be, so I plan to blog my way through the whole conference, so stay tuned!

our new home

2007-04-18T20:36:00.000-04:00

anyone interested in keeping up with our new homes progress can check this website. we get weekly updated pictures every Friday...

you can also visit our neighborhood website click here...this is where we are starting the new campus too.

nomadic church

2007-04-18T18:13:00.000-04:00

In prep for our move to Houston, I just finished reading Nomadic Church by Easum and Theodore, a book about churches without a building. It brought back many memories of our time at Community of Hope , when we used to do "church in a box". The book dealt with common experiences of nomadic churches on the author's list of thriving nomadic churches across the country. I enjoyed the read and it definely brought back the memories of all the sweat, challenges and unbelievable thrills that these type churches face. We are both excited and overwhelmed by our new challenge. Our new church in June is The Foundry UMC.

Some of the take-aways I got from the book were:

The 8 P-attitudes of sucessful nomadic churches:
1) Positive Attitude
- bumps in the road are inevitable, how will we react?
- a positive attitude in a church can be felt by newcomers and spurs on the faithful

2) Present Tense Attitude
- whether dwelling in a cathedral or a cafeteria, the people of God are the church today...not one day

3) Possessive Attitude
- we own the space and make it our temporarily ours

4) Paranoid Attitude
- have a plan B for everything, because something will not go as planned
- "only the paranoid survive" -- Andy Grove (former CEO of Intel)

5) Pliable Attitude
- be flexible
- planning is everything, but the plan is nothing

6) Purpose Driven Attitude
- ask "why are we doing this?" and be sure there is a good answer in line with the mission or else stop doing it

7) People Focused Attitude
- portable and people are not mutually exclusive
- tasks and the to-do list do not supercede relationships but actually should facilitate them

8) Prayer Focused Attitude
- last on the list but first in priority!

holes in the soul

2007-04-18T10:50:00.000-04:00

A description of Seung-hui Cho, the young man who went on a shooting spree at Va. Tech, keeps bouncing around in my head this morning. One of his professors said, “he was so distant and lonely it was like talking to a hole...as if he wasn’t there most of the time”.

It seems that Cho was not even aware of the fact that he was shooting people. His soul was so empty and he was so deeply depressed by the isolation that his life had fostered that he seems to have become a hollow shell of a human being. I am not going to try to hypothesize all the reasons why this happened, but I am reminded that the soul's food is loving relationship. The epidemic of the soul is isolation and Cho was a tragic example of this disease run rampant.

Jesus came to offer life and relationship, a better way to live. Like Adam and Eve we were really not meant to walk around with clothes that cover, hide and isolate. Yet, feeling shame seems to be the natural fear of "naked" people. This nakedness is not just about fig leaves and cotton, it is about intimacy and relationship. I wonder how many times a day I forfeit what my soul really needs because of the risk associated with having a real relationship. They may hurt me, disappoint me or not like me. I find myself being impatient with people when they don't live up to my expectations and so the easy way out is to just have a bunch of surface relationships that don't really get at this need of my soul to connect.

I wonder if I am ever really authentic in my relationships to the point that my soul is experiencing the kind of nourishment it is meant to have. While most of us are not "holes", I wonder how many of us are really full of the "life of the soul" that Jesus offers. How many of us live in isolation rather than intimacy? How are we starving the soul?