Some of our most popular resources at Church Leader Insights are those that deal with pastors and church leaders personal growth.

Many of you have requested that we put together some sort of “Pastor’s Personal Life Package” of resources.

So here it is – your 2010 Stimulus Package!

By investing in this one package (up to $100.00 in savings), you’ll receive:

• Setting & Achieving Godly Goals
  This new 3-hour seminar will teach you how to set and achieve Godly Goals in your leadership, your church and your personal life.

• Time Management for Busy Pastors
  With this 3-hour seminar, you will learn 34 proven time management principles that you can apply immediately to save yourself up to 60 hours each month.

• Leadership Skills for a Growing Church
  In this 3-hour seminar, you’ll learn the 6 “secret skills” that every leader can develop to help you lead your church to greater growth and effectiveness.

P.S. Hurry, Package Special Ends 11:59PM this Monday, January 4th!  CLICK HERE

Are you planting a new church?

Following God’s call to start a new church is a heroic task and I have a standing offer to give you more than $85.00 in church planting resources for FREE!

Your free resources include:

	The Call of a Church Planter ($23.95 Value)
	Funding Your Church Plant ($23.95 Value)
	Launching Large ($13.95 Value)
	Starting Small Groups from Scratch ($23.95 Value)

To sign up for your FREE Church Planting Resources, simply click on the link below and follow the directions:

FREE STUFF FOR CHURCH PLANTERS

Since I’m pretty sure that there won’t be too many of you reading my blog over the next couple of days, I wanted to pause today to wish you and your family a Merry Christmas.

As for my own family, Kelley and I are looking forward to celebrating together with our son Alex.  He is about 3 1/2 years old now, and he’s understandably excited about Christmas!

You’re a part of the Church Leader Insights family and I thank God for the opportunity to partner with you to maximize your leadership and grow your church!

Have a safe and enjoyable Christmas.

Your friend,

Nelson

P.S. Don’t forget about the big CLI Christmas Sale going on now through January 4!  Click here for details.

I want you to join me on Tuesday, January 12, from 1:00pm – 3:00pm Eastern time for The LIVE Fusion Webinar.

This will be my first webinar training of 2010 and it deals with a system (Assimilation) where you can see almost immediate results after even the smallest improvement, so it should get your church off on the right foot toward maximum growth in the new year.

The Fusion Webinar is all about helping you become the best possible steward of the guests that God sends your way.

Best of all, you (and your entire Assimilation team if possible) can join me for this training without ever leaving your office or home!  You just need a phone and a computer with internet access to participate.

To help you make it worth your while, I’m giving you some of my most helpful assimilation resources as bonuses (worth far more than your $39 registration fee) just for signing up!

You’ll learn:

• Principles to help you create an inviting environment for first-time guests
• How to ”wow” first-time guests into wanting to come back
• The Journey Church’s ”Assimilation System,” used to follow up with the 30+ first-time guests who attend the service each week
• How to turn first-time guests into second-time guests
• How to turn second-time guests into regular attenders and then fully-engaged members
• How to drastically increase the number of guests who give you their contact information
• How to use a Connection Card (Including what to put on it – and what not to put on it)
• How to get people to turn in a Connection Card
• Plus much more!

P.S. To learn more or to register now for The LIVE Fusion Webinar on January 12th, CLICK HERE.

I know most of you are making final preps for your Christmas Eve services, putting the finishing touches on your 2010 preaching calendar or maybe even out and about Christmas shopping, but I wanted to be sure you know about something special that Church Leader Insights is offering right now.

Today through January 4th, we’re giving you a chance to pick up 4 of my most powerful, comprehensive resource packages at savings of hundreds of dollars (one of them saves you over $1000.00)!

To find out more and secure one of these packages at a price you won’t see again, go to:

www.ChurchLeaderInsights.com/christmas-sale/

It seems like this is the time of year for you to share what you’ve been learning and putting into practice with me and the Church Leader Insights team.

Here’s a note I recently received from Pastor Kevin Yandell, of New Community Christian Church in Morris, Illinois about some of the changes he’s made to his church’s Assimilation System:

Hey Nelson,

We have made several changes that I know are going to bring tons of great results.

We changed our Connection Card and that change has increased the number of people completing the card.  I have received many positive comments from regular attenders about the Next Steps on the back of the card.

I also wrote out my Welcome and Closing scripts.  The first few weeks, the devil was laughing, because we had no 1st time guests.  But this past Sunday we had 7 1st time guests.

I email those who give me email addresses and thank them for coming and invite them to write back their thoughts about their time here.  I have received a couple of very helpful responses.

I also started writing notes to 1st and 2nd time guests and including a gift card with each.   We are giving 1st time guests “How Good is Good Enough”, along with a mug and other stuff in a gift bag.

I am excited about these changes and I know that God is going to use these changes to allow us to reach many more people.

Thanks for all you are doing.

Pastor Kevin Yandell
New Community Christian Church

Good work Kevin – and thanks for the update!

As you’re wrapping up 2009 and moving into 2010, I encourage you to take a realistic inventory of your church’s systems and make plans to upgrade.  One thing is for sure, if you keep doing what you’re doing you will keep getting the results you’re getting!

P.S. To upgrade your church’s Assimilation System, check out The Assimilation Seminar.

“Pressure is a word that is misused in our vocabulary. When you start thinking of pressure, it’s because you’ve started to think of failure.”
– Tommy Lasorda, baseball manager

Any of you who have listened to The Stewardship Seminar or The Stewardship Intensive know that I am a firm believer in creating custom offering envelopes for your church and including them in each week’s program/bulletin.

In fact, I shared our latest envelope design from The Journey (including our Christmas Offering info) in a post a few weeks ago (click here to download).

Since there are so many different styles of offering envelopes out there (including those tiny ones that can barely hold a quarter) and methods associated with receiving the offering , the transition sometimes leaves churches with a few questions.

One such question is about using an Offering Envelope Service, with personalized printed envelopes for all of your church members, typically distributed annually or quarterly.

Many churches have been using these services for years and ask me about whether they should discontinue because of their new system.

Honestly, I don’t think there’s a reason to stop the envelope service.  The cost of these services is typically very inexpensive, so just do both!

In fact, we do both at The Journey – we have envelopes in every program each week and we mail out envelopes to our members and regular givers.

Some people who get the mailed ones asked to be removed from the mailing and said they would use the ones we provide on Sunday, but we have a lot of people who appreciate the convenience.

That said, we saw a much bigger increase in giving when we went to envelopes in the program compared to when we add people to the mailed envelope service.

P.S. Is your church’s Stewardship System due for an upgrade?  Check out my most comprehensive stewardship resource, The Stewardship Intensive.

Among the responses I’ve received to Ignite: How to Spark Immediate Growth in Your Church is this note from Rob Huffman, Senior Pastor of Clearview Church in Chesapeake, Virginia and one of my Coaching Alumni:

Nelson,

Thanks for the insight in the new book. I read it the first day I got it in about 2 hours.

I am already working with my Associate Pastor to focus on our 4 big days for next year.

It’s funny you would write about the calendar and the big day, because the Sunday before we got the book we put 4 big days on the calendar for next year.

So reading the book helped reinforce that.

Thanks!

Rob

Isn’t it great how God seems to bring just the right book or resource at just the right time to equip us to do what He’s leading us to do!

I am far from the first person to write about using “Big Days” to help grow your church, but in Ignite I tried to give a solid explanation of how Big Days tie into your overall Evangelism System.

Thanks for the feedback Rob!

P.S. You can order your copy of Ignite: How to Spark Immediate Growth in Your Church by clicking here.

One of the new resources we released in 2009 is The Ministry Seminar. It is our newest systems seminar and it’s all about getting the maximum possible number of volunteers involved in serving at your church.

Here’s a recent email I received from my good friend Roy Mansfield, Small Groups Pastor at Northstar Church in Panama City, Florida (and former CLI Director of Training Events), about how they were able to use The Ministry Seminar in their church:

Hey Nelson,

We hired a Marketing entrepreneur in our congregation to work three days a week to oversee our “Front Lines Ministries” (greeting, ushers, cafe, parking, child check-in etc…).

I had him listen to The Ministry Seminar and worked with him to design the process and ministry ladder for the Front Lines.

Marty and I team taught our version of “You Were Shaped to Serve” in our 40 Days of Purpose campaign (I climbed a “leadership ladder” and everything) and we had 171 people sign up to serve for the first time!

By Thursday, Mark and his team had everyone contacted to schedule their first serve opportunity.

It was a great day (we even had 9 people become Jesus followers and 11 more request info about making that decision) and I think the law of spiritual preparedness was a big part of the effectiveness.

The Ministry Seminar was a great tool for me to give to Mark!

Pray for us as we’re kicking off our “LOL: Discovering the Joy of Service” series in two weeks and our plan is to challenge people in one service to walk out of the service the are attending and stay and serve in the next service.

Thanks again for your investment in so many churches.

Roy

171 People signed up to serve for the first time in ONE DAY! That is unbelievable – way to go!

Roy also sent over some of the documents they’re using with all of the new people serving, and gave me permission to share them with you, so here they are (right-click and choose “Save As…” to download each of them):

• Front Line Ministry Opportunities & Commitments
• Front Line Service Sign-Up
• Ministry Leader Covenant & Commitments
• Weekly Server Covenant & Commitments
• Service Leader Covenant & Commitments

P.S. What are you going to do in 2010 to get the most possible people involved in serving at your church? Check out The Ministry Seminar for a comprehensive look at how to build your church’s ministry system.