For this month’s book recommendation, I spent a few minutes with Steve Reynolds (Pastor of Capital Baptist Church and a Coaching Alum) to discuss his book, Bod 4 God.

Here’s my September book recommendation video:

September Book Recommendation:

Bod 4 God by Steve Reynolds

P.S. Have you read a book recently that you think I would enjoy? I’d love to hear your feedback — you can send it using the “Ask Nelson” button on the right side of the blog.

“The real winners in life are the people who look at every situation with an expectation that they can make it work or make it better.”
– Barbara Pletcher, author

Don’t miss this month’s Church Leader Insights Podcast, where Steve Reynolds and I discuss how your physical health (or lack thereof) could be limiting your leadership.

I interview Steve, author of “Bod 4 God” and coaching alumni, about the importance of the health of the Senior Pastor.

This practical podcast will challenge you to examine your physical health and its impact on your leadership and spiritual health.

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?

For more info on Subscribing to the Podcast, click here.

I’m so excited about my new books – Maximize and The Generosity Ladder.

Together, they’re designed to help you lead a fully resourced church - in other words, to help you cooperate with God to see your people embrace the concept of God-honoring generosity and to reach your church’s ministry potential.

Maximize is geared toward toward church leaders, and it lays out a step-by-step Stewardship system that you can implement in your church to help people move from first time givers to extravagant giving.

The Generosity Ladder is written to laypeople, to help them realize God’s plan for their finances and to chart a course toward fully honoring God with their money.  I wrote it as a tool that you can use to help your people embrace solid biblical stewardship.

And today I wanted to give you a link where you can pick up BOTH BOOKS for ONLY $11:

www.Direct2Church.com/Maximize

That’s right, Direct2Church is offering both Maximize and Generosity Ladder together for the regular price of each one!

But hurry, I’m sure this offer won’t last long!

My prayer is that these books provide you with practical help to boldly tackle the topic of money in your church.

Last Thursday, I led The Fusion Webinar and have received a great deal of positive feedback and questions – I wanted to address one more of these questions today.

Any time I start outlining the Assimilation process that I teach and use at The Journey (including weekly Connection Cards, pens on every bulletin, handwritten notes for newcomers, etc.), inevitably I’m asked…

How am I supposed to afford all this for our First Time Guests?

Well, I’m glad you asked.  I have a few answers:

First of all, remember that your Assimilation System is nothing more than biblical hospitality (that’s one reason why this system works in so many contexts, church sizes and styles).

Second, why not spend a little money to keep newcomers around long enough to experience serious life change.  I mean, we all agree that spending money on evangelism is OK – why wouldn’t you spend a little more to help those people plug in and grow spiritually.

Finally, money spent on Assimilation is not an expense, it’s an investment.

Assimilation spending is an investment in:

• Taking care of the men and women that God prompted to attend your church
• The future health of your church (by helping others move toward membership)
• The spiritual growth of the people and families you’re reaching
• Eternity!

So in short, you may be asking the wrong question.  The right question is…

How can I afford NOT to invest in the people God is sending our way each week?

P.S. For all the details of implementing, evaluating and improving your church’s Assimilation System, check out The Assimilation Intensive Workshop.

We had a great crowd for The Fusion Webinar last Thursday and I wanted to follow up with a couple of the more frequently asked questions from participants.

Probably the most asked question any time I lead an Assimilation training has to do with the handwritten notes that you should be sending to all of your First Time Guests.

And the actual question is: Who writes all those notes?

I get this question from pastors of small churches, megachurches and every size church in between, and to them I say:

You do!

Yes, there is something powerful about the Senior Pastor’s involvement in the Assimilation System, most notably when it comes to First Time Guest follow-up.

On the practical side, it gives newcomers another point of connection with the person who was on stage on Sunday.

And spiritually, it give you (the pastor) a time to handle each person’s note and pray for them by name.

Full disclosure here – now that we have 70-80 first time guests each week at The Journey, I’m no longer able to write each note personally.

I have assembled a team that helps me complete these cards nowadays, but I still make it a point to write some of them and to pray over all of the names each week.

We’re in the middle of what is typically a busy ministry season in our churches, so don’t miss out this fall…

Take some time over the next few days to evaluate and upgrade your church’s Assimilation System, starting with sending a handwritten note to every one of your first time guests!

P.S. If you’re looking for the most comprehensive Assimilation training available, check out The Assimilation Intensive Workshop.

I can’t tell you how excited I am about this weekend… Sunday is the very first monthly service of the newest campus of The Journey Church – in Boca Raton, Florida.

I’m personally on the scene giving hands-on leadership to the start of this new campus and I have two quick requests for you today:

1) Please join us in praying for a great first Sunday – both in terms of a good crowd and especially for God to change lives!

If you’ve read Launch, you’ll recognize our strategy for this new campus: we’ll meet monthly this fall and winter, then launch in February 2011, so Sunday’s service is a big step in the process.

2) Please help us get the word out about this brand new church in Boca Raton.

If you know anyone in South Florida (friends, family, etc.), please let them know about THIS SUNDAY.  Feel free to use Facebook, Twitter, email, phone calls, text messages, homing pigeons, messages in bottles…. well, you get the idea!

You can point people to the Boca website for more information at:

http://www.BocaJourney.com

P.S. I’ll be focused on Boca, so please excuse the lack of posts for the next few days – I’ll be back on Monday.  Thanks for your help (and for being a faithful reader)!

It’s Jason Hatley here again – Pastor of Worship Arts at The Journey and Founder of www.WorshipLeaderInsights.com - and today I’m concluding a series of posts about how you can help your Worship Leader succeed.

In Part 1 and Part 2 of this series we discussed how to set clear expectations and provide constant feedback for to your worship leader.

Why?  Because you want your worship leader to succeed and as the Pastor you can help!

Here’s #3 and it’s vital . . .

#3 – Continuous training

“Effective leaders are life-long learners.”

No doubt you agree with that statement.  After all you are taking part in a learning opportunity by reading this blog.

Learning is an activity, not a hobby.  It is something that we must actively pursue.  Yet so many worship leaders find themselves consumed by the week-to-week mentality and never free themselves to become anything more than they already are.

They reach the end of a year of ministry, look back and realize they are more or less the same person with the same challenges going through the same motions as they were a year ago.

The team is the same size.  The quality of the worship service is the same.  The weekly frustrations are the same.

That’s a terrible place to be in ministry.  After all, God didn’t call me to be the Pastor of Worship Arts @ The Journey so that I could keep it the same or run it into the ground.  He knows that the team’s ability to grow is directly proportionate to my ability to grow.

As a pastor, you can help your worship leader grow by providing continuous training.  Here are three ways:

1) Create a learning culture.

Read books together as a staff. By reading and learning together, you will be able to double your efforts in overcoming challenges.

2) Find monthly training opportunities. Have your worship leader look for monthly training opportunities.  A seminar, webinar, free podcasts.  It’s out there, it’s easy, and cheap!  (Go to http://www.worshipleaderinsights.com for more).

3) Find a Coach.  The best lessons that I have learned in life, I have learned from someone who has been through what I’m facing, and succeeded through it!

A coach comes alongside you, is committed to your success, provides instruction, and offers a better way to accomplish a difficult task.

I wish I had more coaches when we started at The Journey.  Almost everything I learned in the early days I learned the hard way!

But I learned to capture what worked and build systems around it so that I wouldn’t fail at it again.

That’s how our team grew from 2 to 200 people.  How I developed my personal leadership abilities.  How our worship services are planned months in advance.  How we’ve built a healthy and thriving team.  We’ve done it, but it was much harder than it had to be – if I had only had a coach!

Now, I’m a coach.  I give those systems back to other worship leaders through the Tele-Coaching Network.  In these networks, the average worship team doubles.

The worship leader develops a one-year personal growth plan and doubles his effectiveness.  The pastor emails me and says what a difference the network is making in their worship leader.

The Worship Leader Tele-Coaching Network is a way for you to invest in your worship leader’s growth through a 12-month training experience. Over 125 worship leaders have already experienced the benefits of these systems, and your worship leader can to.

My last network for this year begins on October 15 and is already 65% full.  Learn more and apply online at http://www.worshipleaderinsights.com/coaching.

If you’re a regular reader, you know I believe that First Time Guests who attend your church are gifts from God.

As such, I’m a stickler for following up with these “gifts” as thoroughly as possible to invite them to come back, get plugged in and ultimately become fully committed members of your church.

One of the pieces of the follow-up puzzle is a “one month later” letter to all first time guests.

This letter is designed to remind people of their first attendance one month ago, offer them a gift to help them grow spiritually (we typically send a message CD), and let them know about any timely opportunities to get more involved.

As for logistics, we send this letter each week to every first time guest who attended four weeks ago (whether they’ve attended again since then or not).

This letter requires a bit of thought, but is a vital step in being the best possible stewards of the “first time gifts” that God sends to your church each week.

Here’s a recent sample of this letter from The Journey:

One Month Follow-Up Letter (.doc)

P.S. To learn all about The Assimilation System that I teach from the comfort of your own office or home, check out The Fusion Webinar - This Thursday at 2pm.  Click here to read more and Register Now!

If you’ve been paying close attention to the blog in recent days, you may have noticed a couple of small changes that I want to bring to your attention today:

1) Comments have been turned on – This means that you can contribute your thoughts and/or experiences about each post as we move forward.

Please note that these comments are moderated, so your comments won’t show up instantly.

2) We’ve added a Facebook “Like” button – Any time you read a post that clicks with you or you think might be useful for others, you can simply click the “Like” button just below the title and you can share it with your Facebook friends.

Let me know what you think and when you “learn” something about what I’m talking about on the blog, please “return” it to me and the other readers by sharing what’s working at your church.

Thanks for being a part of the CLI Family!

- Nelson