How is your church being a service to your community? Is it simply being another place of worship or is it putting forth an effort to minister to the lives of those within reach? Does your church serve your community?
I’ve been blessed to be a part of a church whose pastor is genuinely concerned with the community we live in. It takes time and sometimes interrupts his schedule but our pastor has been involved in the city chaplaincy program for the last few years.
During that time he has not only been serving our city police department but has also become a high-ranking member in the national chaplain community. He travels across the country training other chaplains and was recently flown to Jamaica to teach a chaplaincy course. This is a shameless plug for him but he has also developed a course on how to prepare a church for crisis situations and steps you can take to help prevent them. You can check out his course, When Crisis Comes to Church on his website.
Here is one way our church has become involved, with the chaplains of our city, to provide a valuable service: [Read More]
I Just Posted a Scathing Review
The average amount of Facebook friends per-person is around 500. Let that sink in a moment. You’ve heard about viral marketing. You want to know why it is the most coveted aspect of marketing? Because it can spread faster than any high-dollar commercial.
Think about it:
You post an update on Facebook. If you’re friend list is an average size, the potential number of people seeing that update is around 500.
If 3 people connect with your update and decide to share it with their friends, you now have the potential to reach 2,000 people.
If your update was really great and 3 more friends from each of your friends share the update you now have the potential to reach (2,000 + 4,500 =) 6500.
Sharing an important message with one click can get your message in front of, literally, thousands of people.
The bad news:
It works with negative comments as well. Secondly, people believe and spread bad things a lot faster than they do good things.
Apathy is not a luxury any business or church can afford in this information age. Being a reactionary to bad comments will always put you on the defensive. Someone defending their reputation is never a pretty sight.
A proactive approach to defend your online reputation is more important than ever.
Take a look at these online church reviews [Read More]
What do you do when life gets in the way?
I was at a MLM coaching session in Seattle when one of the speakers basically started preaching. No, he wasn’t preaching the gospel but, he very well could have been. I have learned that a lot of business success strategies are wrapped up in Biblical Principles.
The speaker, Troy, was the last one for the seminar. He wasn’t making a sales pitch as much as trying to motivate people to take the initiative and give a little more effort for their own good. He paused for a moment and played a clip from the motion picture, Braveheart, starring Mel Gibson. [Read More]
I remember going to a Zig Zigler success event in Memphis. I went mainly to see Jerry Lewis in person. (No, not the great balls of fire guy. Were you born yesterday?) I brought home a few good principles from the other speakers however. One of the ones I remember is from one of the top Real Estate agents in the nation; I can’t remember his name.
His big success tip was to pump yourself up every morning. He made us clench our fist and raise our hands. Then, we would punch the air with one arm then the other in time with these words, “I feel great, I feel fine! I feel this good all the time!” He told us to do that every morning before we got dressed for the day. [Read More]
Marketing is not a difficult concept to grasp. You use tools available to spread a message and increase awareness. Viral marketing is the golden goose that is getting other people to spread the message for you.
Success in marketing is easy to benchmark. You have stats, increases, number crunching, and income to show you how well your marketing is doing.
I was the promotions director for Texas Bible College a few years ago. Promotions = Marketing in the pentecostal world. My focus was simple. The more students I had requesting information, the more students we would have at Preview Weekend; the more students at Preview weekend, the more students enrolled.
Successful marketing equals growth in awareness and increases in whatever service or product you are selling. [Read More]
Here are my five favorite blogs that I check out all the time:
If you’re interested in the science of blogging, nobody is better than John Saddington. Check out his blog about blogging for fun and profit.
Michael has an amazing blog and podcast on intentional leadership. Every leader should stop by and subscribe.
Tim Enochs is from the area in Tennessee where I currently live. My pastor, the Crisis Chaplain, turned me onto his blog. Tim’s blog is pretty new but Tim has been a professional life coach for years helping many to be successful in life. Check out his blog and you will learn a lot about success and how to manage it.
Jeff is also from Tennessee, although he lives way over in Nashville. Jeff has a successful blog dedicated to the art of writing. Though he writes most about his passion, which is writing, Jeff’s post are always informative and inspirational. He will motivate you to think higher of yourself and encourages you to think the right way. His new blog, You Are A Writer is going to be an incredible resource through his new book release.
This is our newest blog venture. We’ve had the design up for a while but are just now starting to generate some content and put together a posting strategy. The focus is worship leading and successful worship services. It will cover everything from stage design to the little apps you can use to make your worship services the best they can possibly be. This might not be for everyone but for those who like your worship services to run smoothly, you may enjoy it.
Call it the greatest oversight in my blogging career. I started the ThirtyNines Network a little over a year ago and meant to post an explanation as to the significance of 39 all the way back then. Fast forward a year to today and I was asked by David Tonen what it meant. I realized then, the very important question had never been answered.
So here is a quick explanation as to the significance and history of the number 39. [Read More]
I read an article today about a man seeing a hand-made sign offering free rides to church. That article gave me an idea for an entire marketing campaign for churches.
We need to realize that church evangelism isn’t a one-time push for a special service. If you’re serious about church growth you don’t need to buy into the get-rich-quick scheme of church growth. Real, sustainable growth is an every day culture of a church.
We shouldn’t spend all our finances, time, and effort on marketing one, special service. We should, instead, be putting our effort into evangelizing and marketing what our church is 24/7/365. People may be wowed by a large crowd and special program on Easter Sunday, but, if they are going to stick around, they need to know what your church offers on regular a regular basis.
Below is an idea for a marketing campaign to span over a few months. It will take a little bit of funding and a few volunteers but it could be a way to keep a steady stream of visitors in your services week after week. [Read More]
Everyone is a leader. Some people hate to hear that, but it’s true. Everyone influences someone. The consensus in all the self-help, leadership books is that, to be a leader, you have to find people that will follow you. I think the real truth is that everyone has followers.
The secret that separates good leaders and bad leaders is where they are going and how they get there.
In any group, there are going to be leaders that are going the wrong direction and leaders going the right direction. Your job as a minister is to somehow find a way to get the leaders going in the wrong direction to turn around. This is what how much influence you have and what kind of leader you are.
To make sure you are being the best leader possible, you should look for warning signs that tell you if you’re going the wrong way. [Read More]
Buy it on Amazon
(Part of the “Books Every Church Leader Should Read” series)
Everyone deals with change in different ways. Some people embrace it with gusto, some people fight it with every ounce of strength that they possess. However, the truth remains the same, no matter if your an embracer or a fighter, change is going to happen.
The difference from leadership and church leadership is that the change you deal with is going to be felt by a bunch of both types of people.
I’m sure everyone can tell a story when we tried to change things for, what we thought, the better. Yet, had a train wreck of a collision between the fighters and embracers, and all the force came back on you.
You might as well admit it, sometimes you’re an embracer and sometimes you’re a fighter. Learning how to instigate change and deal with change successfully is paramount for a good leader, especially in a church setting.
This book follows the story of two mice and two, mice-sized, humans that live in a maze. One day, someone moves their cheese and the author explores the different ways each reacts to the change in their environment and habits.
Check this book out. Someone gave it to me a long time ago and I’m glad they did. Buy it from Amazon.
The following is from Amazon.com [Read More]
How is your church being a service to your community? Is it simply being another place of worship or is it putting forth an effort to minister to the lives of those within reach? Does your church serve your community?
