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

“We are judged by what we finish, not what we start.”
- Anonymous

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

“The man who removes a mountain begins by carrying away small stones.”
– William Faulkner