Today is the second installment of my 6-week blog series, “Igniting Growth In Your Church.” This Thursday series is your sneak peak into the pages of my new book, Ignite: How To Spark Immediate Growth In Your Church. If you are one of the tens of thousands who are already reading Ignite, well, thanks! I trust that this series will serve as a weekly reminder and reinforcement of what you are learning.

Last week we uncovered four of the most powerful reasons for doing a big day. Once you decide to go for it, the next step is to pick the most strategic date…

Today’s Topic: When Should I Do A big Day?

Here are four of the best times of year for a successful big day:

1. Easter Sunday – The Built-In Big Day - Easter is a big day “gimmie.” God has already put this one on the calendar for you, so your job is to maximize the increased turn out you are already destined to have. If you’ve never done a big day, this is a great one to start with because a large part of the structure is already in place.

2. Fall – The Back-To-School Big Day - The second best time of the year for a big day is one month after school begins. Yes, you read correctly – you should schedule your big day for approximately one month after school begins. Your regular attenders and members won’t all start returning with normalcy until the Sunday after school begins. You need some time for them to get back in the swing of things before your big day.

Also, we’ve found that reaching unchurched people is even more difficult than usual for the first couple of weeks after school starts.  They are consumed with getting everyone back in a routine.  Give them a month to settle into the school year and get back on track. Then, they’ll be more ready to accept your invitation to attend a big day.

3. February – The Unexpected Big Day - You may be surprised by this, but February is an extremely effective time to do a big day. It’s a hidden gem of a month that you can maximize to help you break through growth barriers. Why? First of all, February is a time of the year when people are home. No one is traveling; they’re hibernating. Secondly, February brings with it a host of emotional needs that stay repressed during other months. The days are short. It’s dark. In a lot of households, this leads to tension and fighting.

February is also an ideal time for a big day because of its proximity to Easter. If you have a big day in mid-February, you will usually have five to eight weeks before Easter. That double boom of two big days close together is a great way to build fast momentum and break through some barriers.

4. Your Pick – The Big Day of Choice

To fill in any seeming dry spells in your annual calendar, I suggest that you pick one more day each year and make it a big day. This big day probably won’t be as big as your Easter, fall and February big days – because it won’t necessarily have the natural rhythm of the calendar supporting it – but it can give you another burst of momentum at what you consider a low time.

To balance out The Journey’s annual calendar, I usually create a big day in the summer. I will either kick off a big summer sermon series or leverage an existing day, like Father’s Day, and turn it into a reason for people to invite their friends.  Be creative.

For more information on planning and executing a big day, make sure to pick up your copy of Ignite: How To Spark Immediate Growth In Your Church. You may also want to check out my audio resource, “The Big Day.” Just click here.

Once you decide why and when to do a big day, what’s your next step? That’s what we’ll talk about next Thursday. Don’t miss it!

- Nelson

P.S. – I just recorded a brief podcast on doing a big day, called “Is it possible to double my church in a day?” You can listen to it by clicking here.

P.P.S. – I also have some upcoming LIVE Ignite Seminars in North Carolina (one in the Charlotte area and another in the Raleigh area) – check out this link.

And watch for more Live Ignite events in 2010!

What if you could greatly expand your church’s ministry potential and encourage spiritual growth within your church by adding one thing to your annual schedule?  Now is the time to start planning your church’s Christmas Offering.

I just revised and updated my How to Plan & Conduct a Christmas Offering E-Book and I’m giving it away FREE.  It’s designed to teach you the step-by-step process of planning and conducting a Christmas Offering at your church.

To download your copy, CLICK HERE.

ALSO — Along with the new report, I’m doing 4 FREE WEBINARS next week, where I’ll walk you through the planning process and help you get everything together to launch and conduct your Christmas Offering just in time.

When you download your report, be sure to sign up for the webinar that best fits your schedule next week!

http://www.ChurchLeaderInsights.com/christmas

Hey guys, I’m coming to North Carolina to do two identical events.  One will be in the Charlotte area on October 28th.  The other will be in the Raleigh area on October 29th.

I’d enjoy meeting some of the reader of my blog and at the same time teach evangelism.

Click here to register now.

Here’s a glimpse of what I’m going to cover:

-  How to DOUBLE your church in a day (it can be done)

-  How to immediately raise the evangelism effectiveness of your church

-  How to mobilize your congregation to reach their friends

-  How to spark growth in a stalled church

-  How to keep momentum year after year in a growing church

-  How to excite your people, even if they’ve not been motivated in the past

-  How to influence your leaders to reach out to the community

-  How to plan and implement a proven BIG DAY process

-  And much more . . .

I look forward to seeing you in North Carolina!

Nelson

P.S.  If you haven’t picked up my new book Ignite yet, you can do so here.

“Service to others is the rent you pay for your room here on earth.”
– Muhammad Ali, boxer

Today marks two weeks since the release of my latest book, Ignite: How to Spark Immediate Growth in Your Church. I always say that leaders are readers – and thanks to leaders like you, Ignite has already begun to impact communities around the world. So, thanks for your passion and commitment to expanding God’s kingdom!

I am kicking off a six-week blog series today, called “Igniting Growth In Your Church.” If you haven’t gotten your copy of Ignite yet, this Thursday series will give you a sneak peek into its pages and uncover some key concepts for sparking your church’s growth. If you are one of the many who have already started studying Ignite, this series will provide you with some bite-sized reminders and reinforcement.

My hope is that these posts will leave you all with something to think about as you go through your day… and drive you even deeper in your study of how to spark immediate growth in your church.

Today’s Topic: Why Should I Do A Big Day?

First of all, let me define what exactly a big day is. A big day is an all-out push toward a single Sunday for the purpose of breaking the next growth barrier and setting an attendance record, in order to reach as many people as possible for Jesus.

Why should you worry about pushing past your next growth barrier? Why do a big day? Here are four reasons to consider:

1. Do a big day to reach new people – The biggest reason to do a big day is to cooperate with God in reaching the most people possible for the kingdom while we still can. We have a responsibility to do as much as we can to bring people to Christ and grow them up into spiritual maturity. Isn’t that why we do what we do?

Reaching our communities is not going to happen without intentional effort on our part. We can’t just stick to the status quo and assume that the people in our churches are going to be filled with a passion to reach others for Jesus. We have to make a concerted decision to put time and energy into connecting with the world beyond our doors. That’s where the vision for a big day begins – with a heart for the community and a heart to reach new people before God’s final big day.

2. Do a big day to make the devil mad – Okay, this shouldn’t be your primary reason for doing a big day, but every once in a while it’s good to do something that will irk Satan. If he’s not bothered by what you are doing, you must not be doing much against his cause. Or as a pastor/mentor of mine once advised me, ‘If you haven’t met the devil head on lately, maybe its because you are moving in the same direction!’

3. Do a big day to grow the Christians in your church – There’s nothing like doing a big day to ignite some passion in your people and mobilize them for service. When you share your vision for reaching a new level through a big day, you will find people more than willing to give extra time and energy to the cause. They will be eager to reach out to their friends, family and co-workers. You will spur them on to greater spiritual growth by giving them the opportunity to take part in something bigger than themselves.

4. Do a big day to build momentum in your church – I run into a lot of churches who say, “We feel like our momentum is beginning to wane.” If you can relate, that’s all the more reason to do a big day. Big days build momentum by uniting your people in a common goal, attracting buzz from the community, and propelling you to the next level of growth.

For more information on planning and executing a big day, make sure to pick up your copy of Ignite: How To Spark Immediate Growth In Your Church. You may also want to check out my audio resource, The Big Day. Just click here.

Now that you’ve discovered some of the strongest “whys” for doing a big day, you definitely won’t want to miss next Thursday’s installment of “Igniting Growth In Your Church.” We’ll be looking at the “whens” – the four most effective times of year to do your big day. In the meantime, take some time to envision the effects that a well-planned big day could have on your church…

- Nelson

P.S. I’m have upcoming Ignite Seminars in New York City, Charlotte and Raleigh – follow this link for more info

Announcements.  Not a big deal to most people, but to those of us in church leadership “announcements” can be equivalent to a four-letter word.

You’ve probably had the same experience that I have: You’re having an amazing worship service – the music is just right, the message is spot-on, the Holy Spirit is moving and you can see on people’s faces that God is dealing with them – until… it’s time for the dreaded announcements.

We’ve eliminated announcements from our worship order at The Journey for this very reason.  Any time I mention that, I get email after email from pastors asking how we’re able to do that and still have people show up for our various events and activities.

Here are a few ideas to help you eliminate Sunday morning announcement time:

- Announcement slides before and after the service (similar to what you would see in a movie before the movie previews)

- Email blasts – Send an email blast each week or every two weeks depending on what events are on the schedule.  www.ConstantContact.com is a great resource for this, but there are dozens of similar mass email companies that will help out immensely in keeping people in the loop.

- Point people to your website. Stop right now and check your church’s website.  Is it up to date? If you’re like most churches, you probably take great pains to keep your website updated.  Make sure you use that as a tool to communicate your events.

- Small Groups – No matter what’s coming up, have your small group leaders announce events and remind people of what’s going on.

- “Preach Your Announcements” – this is the biggest tool of all!  When you’re preparing your message, ask yourself, “What events are we preparing for that will help people apply this message?”  This will also make sure that your church activities have a purpose.  Churches can have greater effectiveness by reducing the number of events to only those that help people apply what’s being taught.

- Over time, you can also train your church to look for the announcements in the bulletin.  This may take some time, but it will happen.  You may also want to have event info at your resource table so that if someone is looking for more information they can pick it up there.

- When you preach, tell stories of how previous events have impacted people’s lives.  Example – share a testimony on how small groups impacted someone and then briefly announce the sign up.  Or tell the story how someone was impacted by community event and tell people why they need to be involved in the next event.

- Have your ministries take responsibility for getting people involved in the event or activity.  Let them know that the stage is for communicating the weekend message not publicizing events.  Have them take ownership of getting people involved in the activities by personally inviting people.  A personal invitation is more effective than an announcement.

Lastly, people don’t need the announcements as much as we think they do.  The goal is not how much we communicate but how effective we are at communicating it.  Preaching an announcement is far more effective than actually announcing it.  Telling a story about an event is far more effective than announcing it.

I hope that helps.

P.S. For more on planning dynamic, powerful Worship Services, check out Planning Worship Services for Life Transformation.

Launching a new church is a process full of decisions and potential pitfalls that threaten to stunt your new church’s growth.

Many of these decisions fall into a category we would call “church structure.”  Since it’s one of the 9 Growth Barriers that all churches face, today I’m beginning a series of posts on Church Structure.

A lot of times, people email me or ask in coaching networks if I can send them a copy of our by-laws from The Journey because they want to see “how we did it.”

I can’t do that, but I can give you one big principle when it comes to writing your by-laws AND the name of some people who can help.

Early on in the life of a church, you have to realize that no matter what you have in place, the overwhelming majority of the responsibility and liability belongs to the pastor.

Sometimes young churches stipulate so much in their by-laws – whether because of their tradition or past experience or bad advice – that they effectively tie their hands when it comes time to make decisions down the road.

The key when it comes to writing By-Laws for your new church is found in the term itself, “by law.” “By law,” what are you required to have in writing?  What is the minimum requirement “by law” for your church to operate?

Keep the by-laws basic and don’t include anything that you don’t absolutely need to include.

How do you write legal by-laws that won’t threaten to limit your church’s growth?  Ask people who know.

When it comes to church legal advice, I recommend Church Law Group. They are the lawyers and corporate structure experts that we use at The Journey.  We consult them before doing anything that may have legal implications.  They’re the best in the business!

P.S.  For more on the 9 Growth Barriers that every church faces, check out The Growth Barriers Workshop.

Wow! October has been a busy month already (and we’re not even halfway through it yet). With that, you may not have had a chance to listen to this month’s Church Leader Insights podcast yet.

In this month’s stretching podcast, I challenge you to dream about what God can do in your church through the proven evangelism process called “the Big Day.” Based on my new book, Ignite: Sparking Immediate Growth in Your Church, this podcast will encourage and challenge you to dream God’s dream for your church.

Click Here to Listen Now

P.S.  Did you know that you can subscribe to the podcast, so that you’ll automatically get each month’s CLI Podcast?

We recently had some problems with our podcasting feed, but everything is back in working order now – for more info on Subscribing to the Podcast, click here.

“It’s the little things that make the big things possible. Only close attention to the fine details of any operation makes the operation first class.”
– J. Willard Marriott

This is the last call to take me up on the over $140.00 in Bonus Resources that I’m giving away for ordering my new book, Ignite: How to Spark Immediate Growth in Your Church.

So many of you jumped on my one day bonus offer last week, that I decided to extend the offer until October 10th.

So, if any of you may have been putting it off (surely there are no procrastinators in the Church Leader Insights family) or if you just found this offer, click here now to read the instructions, order your book, and get your Bonus Resources:

http://tinyurl.com/ignite-bonus

To help me get the word out one last time, would you mind sharing this link on your Twitter page, Facebook, blog, whatever means you have available:

http://tinyurl.com/ignite-bonus

Thanks again!

Nelson