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Top Posts for September 2008
Blog readership for September increased by over 25% - mainly thanks to your links and some positive press in the Rick Warren Ministry ToolBox. Here’s the most popular posts for the month (in case you missed them):
Successful Church Planters Must Be Able to Recruit a Worship Leader
Where There’s Slack There’s Lack - Part 8 of 8 (Strategy System)
What Determines A Church Planter’s Success?
If you haven’t already done so, be sure to subscribe to the blog feed so you don’t miss a thing! Use the Subscribe Via RSS link or the Subscribe Via Email link on the right - just below the monthly archives listing. Or subscribe using Google Reader - my favorite - or similar tool.
Could I ask a favor? If you like this blog, would you take a moment and tell you pastor friends about it? You can tell them about the blog and about the FREE Healthy Church, Healthy Systems report. They will thank you later- but I will say THANK YOU now! Thank you for sharing this blog and for making it a success!
See you in October…..
Nelson
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Monday Proflections - September 29, 2008
Here’s what’s happening with Church Leader Insights and me this week that may be of interest to you:
Monday – I’ll be in the Journey office all morning and then I’m flying to Atlanta. I’ll be doing a recording the Catalyst folks tonight. Are you going to Catalyst next week? If so, I’d like to buy you dessert on Thursday night. Email cristina (at) journeymetro.com for all the details.
Tuesday – I’m co-teaching the One Day Launch Conference with Bob Franquiz today in Atlanta. It’s not too late to sign-up by clicking here. A huge thanks to Ritchie Miller and Avalon Church for hosting this conference! I also have a Q&A call-in time today with my Tele-Coaching Network (its at 1:00pm EDT for those of you in the network).
Wednesday – I’m off today as my weekly Sabbath and will be hanging with Kelley all day. She scheduled a baby sitter and has put together a ‘day of surprises in NYC’ as my birthday present (my official birthday is Friday). I’m hoping cupcakes are part of the surprise somehow!
Thursday – A packed day today but one thing I must get done is the manuscript for Sunday’s Financial Peace kick-off. We are teaching live in all the locations this Sunday and the location pastors are all waiting on my manuscript so they can shred it and make it better! The sermon run thru is scheduled for 4pm today – I hope I survive!
Friday – Today I turn 37! Send cash gifts to….OK, just kidding but your prayers are appreciated! I’ll be in the office all day but maybe there’ll be red velvet cupcakes waiting on me when I get home.
Hope you have a great week! Maybe I’ll see you in Atlanta on Tuesday.
Nelson
P.S. Watch your CLI email for info on four ‘just announced’ live events this week - one in Tampa, two in NYC and one in Cincinnati. For a sneak peek, check out this link.
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Sunday Salsa and Worship Arts Orientation
Today I’m teaching live in Manhattan and its NOT being used as a video message in Brooklyn or Jersey City so it gives me a chance to break out of the screen box for something a bit more creative.
We call it a Salsa Service because of the way the sermon is split into multiple parts by music, testimony,
video, etc. You can read more about a Salsa Worship Order in my post from Thursday by clicking here.In preparation for this message based on Jeremiah 18 (Jeremiah and the Potter’s House) I was able to visit a local pottery shop, teach part of the message on site and actually handle some clay/pottery. The shop also gave us some pottery to be used as props on Sunday.
It should be a fun service!
After our third morning service, we have Worship Arts orientation from 2:30 - 4:30pm where we will welcome almost 100 new artists to our team (BTW, most of our artists are not professional artists - the professionals are too busy with Broadway shows on Sundays. Instead they are business professionals or teachers or regular folks who have a skill or talent they want to use for God). Jason and his team did a great job with the fall auditions and I’m excited about the future of our worship arts team. Jason told me on Friday that he is planning a tele-seminar in the future to talk about how you can use an audition process to raise up new artists. Keep an eye on www.WorshipLeaderInsights.com for all the details.
I hope you have a great day at your church! I’m off to the first service,
Nelson
P.S. A big thanks to everyone who prayed for our baptism service last Sunday. We baptized 22 people! That brings our total baptisms to 130+ for the year and we still have our big November Friday Night baptism to go!
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How to Always Win – a Saturday Quote from the Babe
This past week we saw the ‘official farewell’ to the ‘House that Ruth’ built here in NYC (the final game at Yankee Stadium for those of you, like me, who are sports-challenged), so I thought I’d share this quote:
“You just can’t beat the person who never gives up”
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Communication Card Download
You asked for it…here’s the latest version of the Communication Card we use at The Journey. We call it a Connection Card (I stole that term from my good friend Jimmy Britt a few years ago) because it seems a little softer.
Two versions for you to download (just right click and choose Save As - includes both front and back of the card):
Communication Card as Mircosoft Publisher File
Here’s some key thoughts for your connection card:
- Are you asking for information you are not using? If so, cut the info from your card.
- Can you fill out the card in your lap?
- Is the most important info at the top of the card?
- Is there enough space for a long email address?
- Are you placing the card in the bulletin (no more tear-offs or back-of-pew cards)?
If you are just starting out, you don’t need to customize the card for the series or even do it in color (I’ve found no increase in the return rate for either).
Hope this helps! I want this blog to be a useful tool for you. If you have feedback, you can use the Ask Nelson button on the right.
Nelson
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Launch Conference in Atlanta - Sign up and Save
Bob Franquiz, who is co-teaching with me the Launch Conference in Atlanta, just posted this on his blog and I couldn’t have said it better myself, so I’ll just quote him:
“Just an FYI to those thinking of coming to the Launch Conference in Atlanta on September 30th from 9AM-4PM. The price for the conference goes up on Sunday, so register today if you want to get the get the discounted rate. The link is here.
This is going to be a great conference that has already helped 1,000’s of Pastors. A church planter should get every bit of info he can before he launches. If you don’t, you’ll be kicking yourself later.”
I hope to see you in Atlanta!
Nelson
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Salsa Service on Sunday
On Sunday we are doing a Salsa service at The Journey. No, I’m not talking about the style of dance or the refreshment selections, I’m talking about the style of worship order.
If you’ve listed to my Worship Planning Seminar, then you know that we have three different types of worship orders that we use regularly to give variety to the service each week. They are:
Simple Worship Order (most common)
Split Worship Order
Salsa Worship Order (Least used)
In the Salsa Worship Order, the control of the service goes back and forth at non-even points between the teaching pastor and the creative team. In other words, my sermon is split in at least three parts and is surrounded by three or four elements designed to teach the previous point through a different medium.
Here’s the elements for this Sunday:
Worship Song
Sermon Intro and Part 1
Testimony
2 Worship Songs
Center Stage Screen Image Reflection
Message Part 2 (via video on-location in Pottery class)
Worship Song/Movie Clip
Message Part 3
Conclusion and Lords Supper
Worship thru Giving
Send Out
All of that in 65 minutes….now that is Salsa!
Because it’s so complicated and requires such detailed preparation, we only use this style of service about 5% of the time (or two or three Sundays a year). We are doing it this Sunday as an ‘experiential’ worship service to wrap up our One Month to Live Series.
I like this style of service….it keeps people on their toes, it allows for a lot of creative elements. It also breaks the monotony of a ‘Simple’ service where the sermon is all together at the end of the service.
Have you fallen into a rut with your worship orders? Maybe it’s time for some salsa!
Nelson
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What’s the Best Launch Date for a New Church?
This is a question we recently received through the Ask Nelson button on the right:
What’s the Best (and Worst) Launch Date for a New Church?
Kerrick Thomas, Executive Pastor at The Journey and co-author of Launch: Starting a New Church From Scratch answers it:
Here are the top 3 best times to launch a new church:
(1) February (usually the 2nd Sunday) – everyone is back from holiday (If you go early January you are going to miss some people), short on cash so they aren’t traveling and since it’s still the beginning of the year they probably are making commitments toward self-improvement.
Another added bonus is that you get to Launch on a BIG day in February (avoid President’s Day and Super Bowl Sunday) and then you have a month or two and then it’s Easter – another opportunity to build up to a 2nd BIG day (sort of a 2nd launch).
(2) A couple of weeks after school starts in the Fall – for us that’s in September. It may be in August for you. But everyone is settling in their kids into school and is back from traveling from the summer. Also – people are starting new things (going back to school). September – November is a good stretch of time to reach people when people don’t travel that much.
(3) Easter – Easter is good because more people go to church on Easter than on any other day of the year. The problem with launching on Easter is that it’s only a short time until summer. So, you might have a big launch – but you don’t have much time to consolidate it or make another push before summer hits. That’s why we like a February launch with Easter as the 2nd big hit.
Launch Dates to avoid at all costs:
#3 Christmas
#2 Tie: Super Bowl, July 4th, Labor Day or any other national holiday
#1 Any time other than Sunday Morning
I hope these thoughts help. Many blessings as you prepare to launch large!
God bless…
Kerrick
Got a question? Use the Ask Nelson button on the right. Looking for more resources on church planting? Check out this link (church planting resources)
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Two Time Management Principles
One of my tele-coaching participants/pastors shared these two time management principles with me in a recent email:
1. Always start the day with God. Just like tithing stretches money, time with God has an amazing way of
stretching time!
2. The next day principle. Whenever possible, get through your “to do” list, then do something you’d planned on doing the next day. This snowballs over time and greatly increases your capacity to get things done.
(Submitted by Glenn Edward Layne from First Baptist Church in Temple City, CA)
Two great principles! Thanks, Glenn!
So let me ask you:
Are you starting your day with God?
Are you starting your tomorrow before you finish today?
Nelson
P.S. For my top 34 time management principles, check out my recent bestselling resource entitled Time Management for Busy Pastors. Click here for more.
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Monday Proflections - September 22, 2008
Here’s what’s happening with Church Leader Insights and me this week that may be of interest to you:
Monday – I’m back in the office after being in Southern California for a few days last week. One of the things I’ll be doing today is the follow-up from yesterday’s baptism. Click here to learn how we follow-up on baptisms. I’ll also be prepping for a video shoot for Sunday’s message. (I plan to teach part of Sunday’s message from a graveyard – sounds eerie, right?)
Tuesday – Response to our new CLI sermon series offering entitled “Tongue Pierced” has been incredible. Watch your email from CLI today for more on this series. (It’s back in stock). Be sure that info@churchleaderinsights.com is in your address book so you don’t miss anything from us.
Wednesday – My weekly Sabbath.
Thursday - Have you listened to this month’s podcast yet? I call it The Top 10% Principle. It’s a leadership podcast about how you must keep the Top 10% of your church informed if you want your next strategy, program or vision to succeed. Click here to listen online or download.
Friday – I hate to say it, but this is my monthly day to catch up on paper work. I’ll be reviewing accounting issues, legal documents, attendance reports, trend analysises (or whatever the plural is of analysis), etc. I’m reminded of the leadership axiom from the great new book by Bill Hybels, “facts are our friends.” Although I never look forward to diving into these reports, I love what I learn from them.
Saturday – I’ll be spending the morning in the office and then the entire family is heading to the Cold Spring Harvest Festival in Upstate NY (that’s how us snooty Manhattanites refer to the rest of NY State – even if it’s just a few miles north of the city). Maybe there’ll be farm animals there to delight Alexander. At two years old, he loves farm animals!
Hope you have a great week!
Nelson
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It’s Baptism Day!
In addition to the 6 services we conduct on a Sunday (four in Manhattan, one in Jersey City and one in Brooklyn), we are holding a special baptism service this afternoon. Pastor Taylor Field of Graffiti Community Ministries and East 7th Street Baptist Church graciously allows us to use his church (check out his books about Lower East Side Life here). Our two churches couldn’t be more different, but I love doing baptisms at Graffiti because so many in our church support his community ministries to those in need.
Baptism is my favorite event in the life of our church. It reminds me how much I love being a pastor. I never get tired of hearing the stories of life change. We’ve baptized 103 people so far this year and today I’m hoping we’ll top 130. 130 stories of life change… that’s what keeps me going.
It’s going to be a great Sunday. Hope it’s a great Sunday at your church, too!
Nelson
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Friday Catch-All (Coaching Networks, Stewardship Seminars and Friends)
Here are some quick hits on things I wanted to cover this week in the blog but didn’t get to:
Bob Franquiz is working with me to start a new Church Planters Coaching Network. Click here to learn more and be added to the wait list.
Terry Mahan, Founding Pastor of The Fathers House Church in Lakeland, FL is teaching my Stewardship Seminar at his place on October 1. Terry is one of my Advanced Coaching Alumni and gets stewardship principles better than anyone I know. Learn more by clicking here.
I wish I had written this post on Hard Work by Steven Furtick. I don’t know Steven, but my first church was in Charlotte and it sounds like he’s doing a great job.Kerrick and I are seriously considering a Small Groups Tele-Coaching Network for Lead Pastors and Small Groups pastors. If you are interested, please email Cristina@churchleaderinsights.com. If there’s enough interest, we’ll roll it out.
A HUGE thanks to the CLI family for making Activate #1 on Amazon.com last week. Activate is the new small groups book I wrote with Kerrick. Who woulda thought it!
For some reason or another, Feedburner changed the feed for my blog. If this blog is no longer in your reader, please add it again (everything has been corrected). About 700 of the previous 1000 readers have re-added us. Thank you!
Over 3400 people read this blog each day according to Google Analytics. Wow! I’m honored to be a part of your week.
Have a great weekend!
Nelson
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Successful Church Planters Must Be Able to Raise Funds
On Monday, I said that there are two abilities that predetermine the success of a church planter. They are:
1 - The ability to recruit a worship leader. (See my post from yesterday.)
2- The ability to raise funds.
Let’s talk about the second ability today. If a church planter is unable to raise funds before starting weekly services, I don’t give the new church much of a chance.
A church planter’s ability to raise funds seems to be one of the most critical indicators of the future church plant’s success. Why? I won’t pretend to understand the depths of this connection, but here are some possible reasons for its truth:
- The skill set it takes to raise funds is the same skill set it takes to lead a church.
- A vision that is clear and compelling enough to prompt people to give to will be clear and compelling enough for people to follow.
- Church planting was never designed to be a solo endeavor.
- Raising funds allows you to launch large which leads to faster growth and more stability in the new church.
- Raising funds forces the church planter to live with greater accountability.
When I sit down to consider whether or not The Journey will support a new church plant, it’s ultimately the church planter who must earn my trust and our church’s missions dollars. My decision is based on that person’s future potential. I’ve found that if the planter is right for the task then God will most likely bless the church.
To help me determine our involvement, I’m always looking for two abilities: The ability to recruit a worship leader and the ability to raise funds.
The pretty packaging of a vision plan, even if complete with a slick DVD, cannot overcome the lack of these two essential abilities.
Nelson
P.S. One of the free resources I offer to any church planter who requests it, is a resource entitled Funding Your Church Plant. In this resource, I lay out a proven process for how to recruit partners and raise money for a new church. You can request it and over $50 in additional resources by clicking here.
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Successful Church Planters Must Be Able to Recruit a Worship Leader
Yesterday, I said that there are two abilities that predetermine the success of a church planter. The first one is:
The ability to recruit a worship leader.
I honestly don’t know why this is true, but I’ve seen it play out hundreds of times. (I’ve personally trained over 3000 church planters and we have coached over 100 church planters in our six to eight month coaching networks.) If a church planter does not recruit a worship leader to join his team by the time he launches weekly services, the church rarely grows beyond 150.
Here are my suspicions as to why this is true:
- The skills needed to convince a worship leader to join your staff (when you have nothing to offer except the vision of a future church) are the same skills you need to convince the unchurched to attend your church.
- Having a worship leader who has committed to the team contributes to the stability of the new church.
- There is a biblical blessing that comes through a pastor and worship leader working together.
- Early attenders are more likely to commit if they’ve seen at least one other person commit who isn’t the pastor.
- The pastor and worship leader working together brings an early synergy.
- The services are better because there is a consistent worship leader.
- The pastor has someone he can count on for help.
- The worship leader can do more than just lead worship - and thus help the church grow faster.
- The worship leader can build additional relationships in the community.
- The worship leader sacrifices to be a part of the church and God honors that sacrifice.
A church planter who cannot recruit a worship leader before his first service is less likely to succeed than one who can. Our church has decided not to fund a new church planter if there isn’t a commitment by a worship leader already in place.
There’s a second ability that also predetermines the success of a church planter… and I’ll deal with that tomorrow.
Nelson
P.S. One of the free resources I offer to any church planter who requests it, is a resource by The Journey’s first worship leader that I recruited (he’s now our Pastor of Worship Arts). It’s called “Starting A Worship Arts Team from Scratch.” You can request it and over $50 in additional free resources by clicking here.
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What Determines A Church Planter’s Success?
One of the most frequently asked questions I get is,“Is it possible to predetermine whether or not a church planter will be successful?” Here’s the answer: There are two abilities that predetermine a church planter’s success:
1- The ability to recruit a worship leader
2- The ability to raise funds
If a church planter doesn’t demonstrate these two abilities by the time he launches weekly services, it seems that his church never really gets off the ground in a big way.
Of course, there are dozens of other abilities that are needed to launch a church successfully (the ability to teach, the ability to cast vision, the ability to build a team, etc.) but these two seem to be more indicative of future success than all the others.
Has this piqued your interest? I hope so.
Read Part 2 by Clicking Here (Raise Funds)
Read Part 3 by Clicking Here (Recruit A Worship Leader)
Nelson
P.S. If you are a church planter (or if you know a church planter) check out my free resources for Church Planters. I give away over $75 of my resources to any church planter who requests them. Click here to request them.
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Launch Conference is coming to Atlanta on September 30!
The One-Day Launch Conference is coming to Atlanta on Tuesday, September 30. I just found out that my schedule will allow me to be there, so I’ll be co-leading the conference with Bob Franquiz, founding pastor of Miami Fellowship in Miami, FL.
During this event, we will teach you:
- The best launch dates (and the worst!)
- The most critical factor to the success of your church (It’s not what you think.)
- The most effective ways to raise funds for your church plant
- The biggest staffing mistakes and how to avoid them
- How your preview services can have the greatest impact in your community
- How to pick the best location for your launch (It’s not as easy as it looks.)
- How to keep the momentum between preview services
- How to launch large
- Plus much, much more!We will do everything we can in this conference to give you the tools to succeed in your new church.
This is the only Launch conference I’ll personally be teaching this fall and only one of two that will be offered in the US this year. (Kerrick will be leading one in Cincinnati in late October. More on that soon.)
Click here for all the details. If you are a church planter, do whatever you have to do to make it to Atlanta.
Nelson
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Monday Proflections - September 15, 2008
Here’s what’s happening with Church Leader Insights and me this week that may be of interest to you:
Monday – I’ll be in the Journey office all day working with our follow-up and strategic teams. I’ll also be putting the final touches on the promotion for our October/November series entitled “Financial Peace” based on the Dave Ramsey series.
Tuesday – Watch your CLI email for our latest sermon series offering entitled “Tongue Pierced.” We did this series, which is based on James 2, at The Journey back in May and it has been the most talked about series of the year. At least once a week I still get an email on the ‘cursing’ message and how it has helped someone ‘watch their words.’ You may want to change the title, depending on your church, but this series on the power of words is very… well, powerful!
Wednesday – Flying to Los Angeles today with Jason Hatley, our worship pastor and founder of Worship Leader Insights (click here and forward this link to your worship pastor). I’m in LA for a Fusion Seminar tomorrow and a private event on Friday and Saturday.
Thursday – I will be leading The Fusion Seminar from 9am – Noon at The Crossing Church in Costa Mesa, CA (in Orange County, just south of LA) If you are in the area, plan to join me – click here to register. If you aren’t in the area, please pray for this event. We have about 100 people coming.
Friday – Jason and I are attending The Story Seminar today and tomorrow in LA. I think there’s a lot we can learn about preaching and worship planning from this seminar. But I could be wrong…. I’ll let you know if it’s worth the time and investment.
Hope you have a great week! Maybe I’ll see you in Costa Mesa on Thursday.
Nelson
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6 Sundays Ago…
It’s been 6 Sunday’s since I’ve preached at The Journey (or anywhere for that matter)….this is the longest I’ve gone without teaching on a Sunday since…well, maybe since I went in ministry in 1990. It’s been healthy, restful and positive (and some people might say the last 6 weeks at The Journey have been the best ever. Ha!).
Today I’ll be continuing our One Month to Live series with “Live Passionately.” Can’t wait!
This afternoon we have Growth Group Leader training and tonight we have a ‘Welcome Back’ party for our college students. Should be a great day all the way around.
I hope its a great day at your church too!
Off to the first service,
Nelson
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How to Move a Mountain - A Saturday Quote
“The man who removes a mountain begins by carrying away small stones.”
– William Faulkner
Archive for September, 2008
Church Leader Insights is a bi-weekly publication sent via email that focuses on effective leadership, church growth, church planting evangelism and much more.
My Books
Ignite: How to Spark Immediate Growth in Your Church
Activate: A Totally New Approach to Small Groups
