“To be successful you only have to work ½ a day – the first 12 hours or the second twelve hours”
– Ken Blanchard

Here’s an article I wrote a while back for Sermon Central:

Disconnect: Permission to Power Down
by Nelson Searcy
www.ChurchLeaderInsights.com

I have a serious question for you. There is only one right answer to this question, so get ready. If you answer incorrectly, don’t be too discouraged. There is hope. But this question is a barometer that can’t be ignored. Here it is: Did you take your cell phone with you on your most recent date night with your wife?

If you did, let me assure you that you are not alone. A recent study by Hewlett-Packard found that 62 percent of the adult population is addicted to cell phone technology – that is, texts, tweets, Facebook updates, instant access to emails and, of course, phone calls. Pastors and other church leaders are not immune to this phenomenon. In fact, we may be among the guiltiest parties. We are a techno-connected bunch. We righteously clutch our Blackberries and iPhones, as we accuse the outside world of being unable to free themselves from technology’s hold. But how often do we disconnect? How often do we allow ourselves to step away from our pressing responsibilities and spend uninterrupted time focusing on things more eternal?

You may already be arguing with me: “But being connected allows me to stay right on top of urgent issues in my church.” Okay. “My associate pastor needs to be able to contact me anytime.” Really? “If I am out of touch, something might slip through the cracks – or worse, there might be a crisis that I’m not there to handle.” I hear you. But consider this: What if allowing yourself to disconnect at important times for appropriate time periods is really a statement of trust – an acknowledgement of God’s ability to handle the world without your help.

When to Disconnect

A few years ago I was attending a seminar led by a well-renowned speaker. Just before the seminar was about to begin, I, like most of the other church leaders in attendance, was busy shooting out a couple of last-minute emails and responding to a text message or two. When the speaker stepped onstage, the first thing he said was, “Why don’t you all give yourself a gift and turn off your cell phones for the duration of our time together. I want you to be able to focus your hearts and minds on what we’re going to be discussing.” His choice of words hit me squarely between the eyes – disconnecting from my cell phone for a period of time could be considered a gift I give myself. And by doing so, I would truly be able to center my attention on the critical information he was about to convey, without the distraction of a buzzing pocket. That’s the day this truth began solidifying itself in my mind: There is nothing wrong with being connected most of the time, as long as we realize and respect the importance of wisely disconnecting.

There are four scenarios where I believe it is not only important, but wise, to turn off your cell phone and focus completely on the moment:

1. When you are on a date night with your spouse
2. When you are spending time with your kids
3. While you study and prepare for your Sunday teaching
4. On your Sabbath day

Do you know what one of the best gifts you can give your wife is? Your undivided attention on date night. Do you know what your kids need from you more than anything else? Your undivided attention during your quality time with them. Know what your congregation trusts you to give to your preparation of each week’s teaching? You got it – your undivided attention as you seek and study the truths that are going to help them draw closer to God. And on your Sabbath day, do you know what God wants from you? He wants your focus to be on him. We can’t give our full attention in any of these four arenas when we are constantly dinging, vibrating, ringing, answering, scrolling, updating, reading, responding… you get the point.

In my experience, the most difficult to honor of these four disconnects is the Sabbath day, so let me be clear: I am not proposing that you put your cell phone in a drawer for the entire day. In ministry, that is practically impossible. But I am saying that you make a concerted effort to focus your attention on God, family and rest, rather than the emails that you “could” catch up on or the phone calls that you “should” make while you have down time. If you need to send an email or two, fine. For the most part, however, create distance between your cell and yourself, and direct your energy toward engaging in a true Sabbath. The day of rest and reflection was God’s idea after all, so I’d say we should take it seriously.

The Fear Factor

There is only one thing that keeps most of us from being able to disconnect (besides our proposed addiction) – the fear that we will be needed during the time we’ve made ourselves unavailable. That’s why being able to intentionally disconnect is both a statement and a test of faith. By powering down when you are involved in activities that deserve your complete focus, you are releasing control of your people and your church back to God. You are essentially saying, “God, I am not the commander. You are. I acknowledge that the world will not fall apart if I spend a few uninterrupted hours away from my phone.”

The biggest trap that keeps many of us over-connected is a self-created, constant sense of urgency. We have something of a savior mentality, so we too often make problems more problematic than they really are. We make ourselves too invaluable. If we could step back and gain some perspective, we would remember that we are not actually in control. Don’t misunderstand – we are called to have our hand to the plow. We are called to diligence, discipline and excellence. But we are not the ultimate determining factor in our lives and our churches. God is. What a relief! Given the fact that God is God and we are not, we would be wise to practice putting more trust in his sovereignty and less in our own. As we do, we will be able to periodically step away from the onslaught without fear, thereby honoring God and acknowledging his true position.

Consider this scenario: A couple calls your office because their lives are falling apart and they are on the brink of divorce. They need help. They need to talk to you. You are their last hope. So, your secretary texts you and lets you know that they want to meet with you today, as soon as possible. But you are booked solid until 6. What do you do? Well, the savior mentality kicks in, so you want to jump on your white horse and save the day. You want to sit them down, point them to God’s truth, show them a way out of their pain, patch it all up and send them on their way. So nine times out of ten, you will call your wife and tell her that you aren’t going to make it home for dinner. You’ll tell the kids goodnight over the phone. And then you’ll go save someone else’s family.

I contend that you are making the wrong decision for all of the right reasons. You should be available to meet with the people in your church who need you – especially those who are dealing with urgent life situations. But here’s the truth that we all know and yet usually fail to acknowledge: If this couple’s world is in shambles and they are considering divorce, the situation is going to be the same three days from now as it is today. If your secretary tells them that you can meet with them during work hours later in the week, they will wait to talk to you. You don’t have to charge into the battle at the expense of spending quality time with your family. Of course there are exceptions but, in general, nothing is as urgent as we make it out to be. And we are not as indispensable as we like to think. This mentality is what lays the groundwork for our hyper-connected lives, forcing us to be continually engaged as we bounce from one “crisis” to the next. The great news is that God has it all under control; let him lead you into learning to let go of the perpetual urgency.

Finding Focus

The problem of being unable to wisely disconnect continues to compound. The Hewlett-Packard study referenced above also found that “today’s dependence on daily technology, including e-mail and cell phones, can be slightly more detrimental to your IQ than smoking marijuana…. Continual e-mail use and text-messaging lowered the average worker’s IQ by as much as ten points. Smoking marijuana regularly, on the other hand, causes only a four-point drop in intelligence.” Now that’s scary stuff. We are unknowingly inflicting damage on our brains worse than that caused by drug use. Jesus didn’t mince words when he taught us that our body is our temple. We wouldn’t consider damaging our mental capacity with drugs, and yet we do just that when we allow our focus to be continually skewed by our “smart phones.” Ironic, don’t you think?

As a generation of technology addicts, we are slowly losing our ability to focus on anything for an extended period of time. Most of us would be hard-pressed to think about one thing for a solid hour, without the distraction of a phone call, text message or email. Try it sometime. I have; it’s difficult. I have become convinced that lack of focus, disguised as work overload, is one of the biggest issues pastors face. If our ability to focus is as lacking as all signs indicate, then those of us who feel overworked are probably not as overworked as we think. We are overly distracted, and that distraction is sabotaging our productivity. Not to mention the fact that instant access is decreasing our capacity to focus on God. When we are constantly connected, we are putting ourselves in a position where we can’t simply “be still” and hear God’s voice. And since we are in the business of advancing his kingdom, not our own, this can prove to be quite a problem. Our tendency to over-communicate with each other is often resulting in a breakdown of communication with the one we need to hear from the most.

So what is the solution? Learn to disconnect. You hereby have permission to master the art of periodic unavailability. Let it be a gift you give yourself. Go about your work with zeal and integrity, but when it is time to focus on your wife or your studying, focus with the same zeal and integrity. I challenge you to take the dangers of this phenomenon of distraction to heart and prayerfully make the necessary changes. Decide to disconnect when it’s called for so that you can find focus in all areas of your life. When you manage the time and resources God has given you well – as he intends rather than as our culture demands – you unlock the door to unimaginable blessing. So do yourself, your church, and the ultimate purposes of God a favor – turn off your cell phone and go play with your kids.

P.S. To put together an intentional Personal Growth Plan that reflects healthy priorities, check out Developing a One Year Personal Growth Plan.

Here’s a recent equipment Q & A that our Worship Pastor, Jason Hatley answered for a member of the CLI family:

Q: Our church is looking to do a satellite campus next year very similar to what you’ve done at The Journey.

We’re really pumped about going multi-site and expanding our ministry in that manner. In prepping for this transition, our tech guys had a couple of questions. Any insight you can give us regarding these questions would be great, thanks:

Satellite Campus
1. Projector Type? Screen Size?
2. DVD player model? Cable type to Projector?

Main Campus
1. Camera Type? Model #?
2. Signal Type? HD or SD? Digital or Analog?
3. Service Editing – Post-production or live switching
- Switcher (if live)? Editing Suite (if post)?

A: Sounds like things are really growing at your church. Honestly, I don’t know all the answers, but here’s what I do know:

1 – Projector’s are Eiki LCX-9 I believe (6500 lumens). Screens are 7.5×10 right now. We may go widescreen in the future.

2 – Play it through ProPresenter using Macbook Pro, adapter, and through BNC cable.

3 – Camera type – Panasonic HPX-300 high-def camera

4 – Signal type coming out of the laptop is a pure digital signal, but get downgraded to SD by the time it gets to the projector.

5 – We switch live. It’s an in-expensive switcher (not HD ready), so we’re considering replacing in the next year. I don’t know the model, but its a Panasonic I believe and cost about $5000-$7000. We edit using Final Cut Pro during the week, and then playback via ProPresenter in the locations.

I hope all of that helps!

P.S. You can submit your questions at any time by clicking on the “Ask Nelson” button on the right-hand side of this blog.

This is Kerrick Thomas – I serve as the Executive Pastor at The Journey Church in NYC and co-author of Launch: Starting a New Church from Scratch. Here’s an answer I sent recently to a church planter that Nelson asked me to share today:

Q: We started our church this past Easter and we’re only running about 20 people.

I realize now that I didn’t do enough promotion/marketing for a large launch. I only used free newspaper press release and a christian radio station. We are have a hard time during the summer months and I need to raise money to restart our marketing (we’d like to do a 10-15,000 piece mailing, cable TV advertising, etc).

We have a good location, worship and we are able to sustain as we have jobs. I feel our biggest issue is we need to get the message out better, but money is the issue. We meet in a nice school gym and we are wondering how important the environment is, as we have had a number of visitors, but we believe either from the environment or because there isn’t enough people, they aren’t coming back.

I guess my biggest question is ‘What is the best way to do a restart?’ Any thoughts and help would be appreciated.

A: First of all – if you haven’t yet - I would encourage you to pick up the church planting book that Nelson and I wrote called “Launch: Starting a New Church from Scratch.” It has our thoughts on almost every question you ask in your e-mail. You can pick it up here:

http://www.amazon.com/o/ASIN/0830743103/thejouchu-20

I think you would find it helpful if you haven’t read it before.

Now to answer some of your questions:

1) My first thought is that if you are starting a brand new church – your goal should be to reach the unchurched and those who don’t know Jesus. Because of that – I would strongly urge you not invest your valuable and limited evangelism budget on Christian radio. Most everyone who listens to Christian radio is already connected to a church. If it was free then that is okay.

2) I think you are right that you should re-start if you are averaging 20 people each week and don’t have funds. What we recommend in Launch is 6-weeks of monthly services that lead up to the launch of weekly services. And during that time – you make an effort to raise money (we give suggestions in Launch), reach people, create systems and get better and better at all aspects of the Sunday service.

Even if you’ve already launched weekly services – it’s not too late to give it another shot. We’ve had churches who did monthly services and launched weekly and didn’t do well. Then stopped weekly – did 6 more monthly – re-launched and now are successfully reaching people.

What if you moved back to monthly services beginning the week after school starts in your area. Do 6 monthly services until February. Use that time to do the things I mention above. And ramp up the promotion/evangelism for your launch with each succeeding monthly service. And then use most of your funds to promote the launch of your weekly services in February 2010. (Be sure you don’t launch on a holiday).

The good part of that is that Easter will not be too far away and Easter gives you a chance for a 2nd big day and sort of a 2nd launch before summer arrives.

You would just need to take the group of people you have now and cast vision to them about the new vision and make them into your new “Launch Team” with the goal of launching with more people in February, 2010.

Now – that’s just my initial thought. Obviously I don’t know all the details of your situation.

3) Finally you ask about the environment. It’s hard for me to comment on without seeing it. But a few thoughts:

• (a) Location is most important. It your location well known to your target audience, easy to get to, is there enough parking, etc. Is it in the center of the area you are trying to reach.
• (b) I’ve seen many churches grow in school gyms and auditoriums. Ask a friend that you trust to come to a service as a first time guest (as if they didn’t know you) and ask for their feedback. But gyms can be very welcoming.
• (c) To make a school atmosphere more welcoming – be sure you have friendly greeters, good signage outside and inside and use pipe and drape to make the atmosphere more warm and welcoming. If you only have 20 people in a full sized gym it might seem weird – but there are things that you can do to make the gym feel smaller, more intimate and eliminate the weird feeling.

Again – those are just my initial thoughts. I hope they are helpful and at least get you to thinking. Again – I think a careful reading of Launch would be helpful if you are not familiar with some of the principles we include there.

Know that we’re praying for you!

God bless…

Kerrick

P.S. Are you planting a new church?  I’d like to give you more than $75 in free resources to help you — CLICK HERE.

Here’s a fellow laborer and coaching alum right here in New York City:

Tyrone Stevenson was born and raised in Brooklyn.  After a successful stints in the Navy and the banking industry, Tyrone answered God’s call to ministry.  He has been at Hope Christian Center since 2001 and has led the church to a revitalized and renewed focus on reaching the lost with the Gospel.

It’s great to work with leaders like Tyrone to reach the people of this city for Christ!

Tyrone Stevenson
Pastor
Hope Christian Center
Brooklyn, NY
www.HopeChristianCenter-NYC.org

Still not sure about applying for my next Tele-Coaching Network?  We’re only 10 days away — it starts August 20.

If you still have questions, check out the Tele-Coaching Q & A video I shared last week HERE.

For more info and to Apply Now, CLICK HERE.

“A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.”
— Winston Churchill

Here’s another of my coaching alums that’s really doing some great Kingdom work:

Terry Drost is the Senior Pastor of Peckville Assembly of God in Peckville, Pennsylvania. His family has a long history of leadership in that church and Terry has been on staff since the mid-90′s. Since stepping into the Senior Pastor role in 2005, he has led the church to growth and expansion, renewing God’s vision for their community.

Keep reaching the people of the Mid-Valley for Christ, Terry!

Terry Drost
Senior Pastor
Peckville Assembly of God
Blakely, PA
www.PeckvilleAG.org

Still not sure about applying for my next Tele-Coaching Network?

We’re only about 10 days away — it starts August 20!  If you still have questions, check out the Tele-Coaching Q & A video I shared earlier this week HERE.

For more info and to Apply Now, CLICK HERE.

I know you’ve heard me say this already, but I’m so pumped about my upcoming Tele-Coaching Network for Senior Pastors!  And judging by the amount of email and phone traffic, many of you are excited about it as well.

Through all that feedback, there have been a number of common questions about the network.  With that in mind, I grabbed the video camera and recorded this brief video answering the Top 10 questions you have asked about the tele-coaching network:

[flow href="http://cli.s3.amazonaws.com/media/videos/TC%20Q%20%26%20A%20Video.mp4" width="500" height="375"]

Hurry, network starts Aug 20 – send over your application today!

For more information and to Apply Now, visit:
www.ChurchLeaderInsights.com/telecoaching

I hear from a lot of church leaders from one week to the next and I have heard a common theme lately that has me pretty excited.

It’s a theme of faith, expectation and motivation, an understanding that God wants your church to grow and you want to do what it takes to cooperate with Him.

I agree and I really want to help you break your next growth barrier this fall.

So, with that desire and in preparation for my new Tele-Coaching Network (which begins in two weeks), I want to give you your choice of one of my bestselling Growth Barriers resources (Breaking the 65, 125, 250 or 500 Barrier).

To receive your Free Growth Barriers resource, click the link below and enter the current growth barrier you’re facing (65, 125, 250 or 500):

www.ChurchLeaderInsights.com/giveaway

P.S.  There’s still time to apply for my new Senior Pastor Tele-Coaching Network, but you need to hurry!  For more info and to apply, click here.

I read a great article last week over at Church Multiplication Network. Here’s a re-print for you:

Even Tiger Woods Has a Coach

by Dave McNaughton

I have enjoyed sports for as long as I can remember. While playing football and baseball I had dozens of coaches. Many of them were colorful characters and had equally colorful vocabularies. Most of my athletic coaching conversations cannot be blogged about on the CMN site due to vocabulary sensibilities of some, but I will say that some of the conversations were actually quite motivational. Fortunately, I can tell you about one of the most important coaching conversations that I had with John Goodner, one of my high school football coaches. Coach Goodner was an excellent high school coach that ultimately went on to be a very successful college coach in the Big 12. He was a straight to the point, no frills kind of a guy. He believed that talk was cheap and hard work was the key to winning – not some pep talk. He did not try to be a motivational speaker. Ironically, a very simple comment of Coach John Goodner has stayed with me for my entire adult life. Commenting on the off-season workouts, he said, “If you are not moving forward, you are actually moving backwards”.

Coach Goodner was trying to impress upon the team the importance of working hard and getting better as a team. It is a concept that has never left me. He would say, “we cannot control how much ability that we have, but we can control what we will do with the talent that we have been given. We cannot control the talent level of our competition but we can outwork them.”

I am not sure if Coach Goodner knew that his philosophy of continual improvement was the foundational philosophy for Toyota. The principle of continual progress, known as Kaizen, is a daily activity that goes beyond simple productivity improvement to creating a culture of collaborative effort; a culture that values making changes, monitoring results, then adjusting as opposed to a top down command-and-control process. Large scale pre-planning and extensive project scheduling is replaced by smaller experiments, which can be adapted more quickly as new improvements are developed. All that I know for sure is that principle is true and it works.

Both scenarios have several points of commonality; taking personal responsibility for becoming better, not being satisfied with the status quo and accountability to the team. They both have coaches.

How can I move forward in my life? Coaching.

Coaching is a structured relationship designed to help the person being coached to move forward, to reach the goals that they have set, and to reach their potential. With all the things that are remarkable about Tiger Woods, probably the most remarkable is the fact that he has a coach. The coach may change from time to time but he always has one. Why do you think Tiger Woods has a coach? Tiger Woods is taking constructive feedback from a golfer he could undoubtedly beat with some regularity were he to compete against him. Imagine what it must be like to not only be the very best in the world at what you do, but to be humble enough to admit that you can get better, that you don’t know it all.

How about you? Are you moving forward or backward?

Is it time for a coach? Only if you want to move forward!

P.S. If you hurry, you can still apply for my upcoming Senior Pastor Tele-Coaching Network (click here). It starts on August 20.

Not a Senior Pastor? You can find other coaching opportunities HERE.