Management is efficiency in climbing the ladder of success;

leadership determines whether the ladder is leaning against the right wall.

Steven Covey - author of the best-selling book, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.

by Nelson Searcy and Tommy Duke

We began a looking at a series of posts yesterday about “Bootstrapping” a Church Plant, and the lessons learned in doing so. (CLICK HERE FOR YESTERDAY’S POST)

Here are the next two lessons:

8. EXCEL: YOU’LL BE FORCED TO STRIVE FOR EXCELLENCE, BUT NOT PERFECTION
If the bank account was overflowing and the monthly support checks were rolling in, you might be tempted to spend three times as much on a projector or sound system for a negligible increase in quality.

After all, you want your service to be perfect, right? Wrong.

As a bootstrapping church planter, you’re going to learn that getting everything perfect for Sunday is not your goal. (Even the attempt will drive you insane.) You’ll learn instead to strive for excellence by always doing the very best you can with what you have.

For example, if by chance Chris Tomlin isn’t available to lead your worship this week, don’t fret. Help your worship leader do his best; help him develop his abilities as he strives to become more like Christ. In every area, always be on the lookout for areas of improvement, but don’t let perfectionism sidetrack God’s calling for you and your church.

7. SYSTEMATIZE: YOU’LL DEVELOP EFFICIENT SYSTEMS
Sadly, some of the sloppiest church systems exist in some of the best funded church plants.

Why? Because no amount of money can make a system that is inherently bad any better. Money may mask the effects of a bad system for a while. After all, if you’ve got the funds available to hire a staff member to handle a broken assimilation or small groups system, those areas may appear healthy in the short term. But without a well-developed, scalable system in place, the cracks will begin showing soon enough.

Thankfully, as a bootstrapper, you’ll be forced to hone in on making your systems highly efficient so you can maximize every ounce of ministry effort.

To Be Continued (check back tomorrow) . . .

P.S. If you’re looking for some help in starting a new church or with growing your church plant, I’d like to invite you to join me at the upcoming One Day Launch Conference in Orlando on July 13th.  Register soon as space is limited.

SIGN UP FOR THE UPCOMING LAUNCH CONFERENCE TODAY!

by Nelson Searcy and Tommy Duke

As we gear up for our Launch Conference, I wanted to share a set of blogs we did for Church Planters dealing with the reality of finances in a new Launch.

You’ve probably heard the old saying, “Money makes the world go ‘round.” While those of us in ministry understand the skewed nature of this adage, one thing is for sure: Money is critical to the work we do – especially when that work involves launching a new church.

Every idealistic, would-be church planter must come face to face early on with the reality that starting a church takes a lot of financial resources. In fact, if you are preparing to launch a new church and have been trying to ignore the importance of money to its success, I suggest you do one of two things:

1) Get over your hang-ups and start asking.
If God has called you to start a church, then he has people out there ready and waiting to support it… but you have to ask!

or

2) Find a safe, comfortable job on an existing church’s staff.
At least there you know you’ll have a guaranteed paycheck.

If you’d prefer to go with Option 1, keep reading….

Starting your church plant with healthy financial support is a tremendous indicator of how successful your new church will ultimately be. Make sure you get as much information as possible on how to raise the resources you need to fulfill the God-given vision you have for your church. (Click here for over $149.00 in FREE Church Planting Resources.)

That said, there are times in launching a new church when money is nowhere to be found. Whether this dearth of funding is due to the lack of a strong network, poor asking skills, or to just not knowing any better, the fact is that many (if not most) new churches launch painfully underfunded.

If you find yourself in this position – i.e. if you have already launched without adequate resources – don’t get discouraged. You can still raise support. In fact, there are some potential partners out there who will equate the fact that you are already meeting with more reason that your church is a “viable investment” of their missions budget. So, don’t give up. Keep asking.

But here’s the best news for those of you in the midst of the “rolling but under-resourced” struggle: Valuable lessons can be learned as you go through the tough process of post-launch fundraising.

In the business world, starting with little to no outside assistance is known as “bootstrapping,” so borrowing from this bit of lingo, here are:

The Top 10 Lessons Learned from Bootstrapping a Church Plant:

10. HAVE FAITH: YOU’LL LEARN TO BE THANKFUL FOR GOD’S PROVISION
Where God guides, he provides. Nothing is a better reminder of this truth than looking at your bank statement at the end of the month and wondering how everything got paid. Fair warning: when bootstrapping your church plant there will be dark days, financially speaking and otherwise. But God’s light shines brightest in the darkest situations. You’ll learn to recognize and give thanks for all those times when God shows up in just the nick of time.

9. PRIORITIZE: YOU’LL LEARN WHERE YOU SHOULD AND SHOULDN’T CUT CORNERS
When your young church’s cash flow is more like a drip and the outlook seems bleak, you may be tempted to shut down as much as possible and wait for brighter days. But if your church is to survive long enough to thrive, zeroing out critical areas is never the right solution.

Evangelism is one area where you should never cut corners, for the sake of your church’s long-term health. Skimping on your missions giving (yes, even in a brand new church) will not make you a better steward either. Save money on office supplies? Sure. Negotiate a better rental rate for your meeting place? Definitely. Carve money away from activities that directly relate to fulfilling the Great Commission? Don’t do it!

To Be Continued (check back tomorrow) . . .

P.S. If you’re looking for some help in starting a new church or with growing your church plant, I’d like to invite you to join me at the upcoming One Day Launch Conference in Orlando on July 13th.  Register soon as space is limited.

SIGN UP FOR THE UPCOMING LAUNCH CONFERENCE TODAY!

The great folks over at Leaders Book Summaries Inc just recently did an 8 page summary of my bestselling leadership book “Fusion: Turning First Time Guests into Fully Engaged Members of Your Church.”

They did a great summary of the important areas of the assimilation system and key points of the book – its a true unbiased summary that gives you meat – not just a review of what is good/bad but a point by point leaders summary.

You definitely want this summary for your library and to use in your church or with your staff or volunteers.

So, I purchased the rights to offer the summary as a one time download to the Church Leader Insights family til Friday. FREE for you to download and use as you like.

Grab your FREE 8-page summary of “Fusion” go here:

http://www.churchleaderinsights.com/index.php/free-stuff/fusion-book-summary

Here’s five ways you can use this summary in the next month:

1- Read it personally for your own review and benefit.

2- Read it with your staff or volunteer team (yes, if you download it from the link above, you can copy it for ‘local church’ use)

3- Use it to decide if you want to purchase the book (I suggest you read the book as a team).

4- Impress your friends at Starbucks by leaving it on top of your Mac (OK, so maybe not)

5- Take the summary and teach it to your first impressions team on Sunday.

and I’m sure you can think of other uses.

The point is to grab it ASAP because I can only make this summary available for free til Friday. Let me know if you have any questions.

Your partner in ministry,

Nelson

P.S. If you find this summary helpful (or think you will), please post the link above on your Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Google+ or blog – as long as your friends get it thru my link, its free!

P.P.S. In conjunction with this free download, I’ve decided to add a series of free webinars on Assimilation after the 4th, called “The Top 3 Assimilation Mistakes” – you can register for those when you download the summary. Nothing impacts the growth and health of your church quicker than improvements to your assimilation system.

Not sure if you heard yet, but I’m leading a FREE Conference Call today at 2:00pm – The 2012 Mid-Year Conference Call.

This call is for Senior Pastors Only and I really hope you’ll join me (there’s no cost for the call).

What’s this call about? Well, the year 2012 is already halfway complete and I’ve heard from several pastors that they’re not where they hoped they’d be by now toward the goals they set for themselves and their churches this year.

So I’ll ask you…

Are you halfway to accomplishing your 2012 personal and church goals?

On today’s 75-minute call, I want to help you recap the first half of 2012 and set a course to make the most of the rest of the year!

I’ll also take a few minutes to share with you how my new Renegade Pastors Network and my upcoming Tele-Coaching Network for Senior Pastors can help you in the rest of 2012 and beyond.

This is a FREE call, but I do need your RSVP (we only have a limited number of lines on the conference call).

Click this link to RSVP Now for Today’s Call:

http://www.churchleaderinsights.com/index.php/free-stuff/mid-year-call

Have a great Sunday!

Nelson

P.S. Here are all the details:

FREE 2012 MID-YEAR CONFERENCE CALL
with Nelson Searcy

** NEW for Senior Pastors Only **

Would you like to accelerate your Kingdom impact in the second half of 2012?

Could you benefit from specific insights on how to achieve more of your personal and church goals in the coming months?

Let me help you learn what you can from the past 6 months and prepare to finish out 2012 stronger than ever!

REGISTER NOW AT:

http://www.churchleaderinsights.com/index.php/free-stuff/mid-year-call

Who Should Attend?
This webinar is for Senior Pastors who are serious about making maximum Kingdom impact in the second half of 2012.

Note: The conference call number is a long distance call, so you may want to pick up a cheap calling card.

Do you have questions? Prefer to register by PHONE?

Call my assistant, Kimberly, at 561-921-8488, Ext. 1, and she’ll get you registered and make sure you get the conference call number.

It seems like 2012 just arrived and it’s hard to believe, but the year is half way over! The 6 month mark is a great time to take inventory and see where you are in relations to you goals.

Why should you focus on goals? Because LIFE-CHANGE can happen when you begin to set goals. Why? Because setting and achieving goals is a matter of TIME STEWARDSHIP. The more we begin to evaluate where we want to be, the easier it is to manage and make the best use of our time.

When we take a little time to look into our goals, we find that it is actually a BLUEPRINT for DESIGNING the life God has for you. Goals become the measuring stick to determine if we are on the right course.

I am putting the final touches on my 2012 Mid-Year Conference Call and thought you might find it helpful to consider the benefits of evaluating your goals.

Many pastors minimize the results of setting goals but here are a few benefits I’ve found over the years:

1.  Goals will bring FOCUS to your life.

2.  Goals bring ACHIEVEMENT.

3.  Goals bring BALANCE.

4.  Goals will bring HARMONY in your RELATIONSHIPS.

5.  Goals will bring FAITH.

“According to your faith will it be done unto you.”  Matthew 9:29

So, take time this week to focus on your goals and if you’re not working towards a written set of goals today, it’s time to start!

Ultimately, goals bring HONOR to God.” Let’s honor God today by setting goals!

Nelson

PS – Will you join me on the FREE Conference Call tomorrow at 2:00pm – The 2012 Mid-Year Conference Call.

This call is for Senior Pastors Only and I really hope you’ll join me (there’s no cost for the call).

On Tuesday’s 75-minute call, I want to help you recap the first half of 2012 and set a course to make the most of the rest of the year!

This is a FREE call, but I do need your RSVP (we only have a limited number of lines on the conference call).

Click this link to RSVP Now for Tuesday’s Call:

http://www.churchleaderinsights.com/index.php/free-stuff/mid-year-call

** NEW for Senior Pastors Only **

Who Should Attend?

This webinar is for Senior Pastors who are serious about making maximum Kingdom impact in the second half of 2012.

Note: The conference call number is a long distance call, so you may want to pick up a cheap calling card.

Do you have questions? Prefer to register by PHONE?

Call my assistant, Kimberly, at 561-921-8488, Ext. 1, and she’ll get you registered and make sure you get the conference call number.

No institution can possibly survive if it needs geniuses or supermen to manage it. It must be organized in such a way as to be able to get along under a leadership composed of average human beings.

Peter Drucker, Writer, Consultant and Social Ecologist

From time to time, I enjoy bringing in a guest blogger – especially when they can bring you something new or different than what my personal experience allows for.

To that end, I’ve asked Don Ross to share some posts on Church Revitalization (or Turn-Around Churches). Don is an Advanced Coaching Alum, Renegade Pastor and the Lead Pastor of Creekside Church in the Seattle, Washington Area.

Hope you find this helpful:

Beyond Courageous Decisions - By Dr. Donald E. Ross

Tough decisions create lasting memories.  Here are three of mine.

1.  I walked into the boardroom and felt the tension.  Half of the elders wanted me gone, the other half were supportive. Sometime during this evening I would walk out in victory or be out of a job.

2.  I did not want to fire him, but biblical ethics were violated and the situation couldn’t be ignored. As a pastor, he had to be fired and I had to be the one to do it.

3.  We were in an 8 million dollar campus project and I’d just been told we needed $170,000 cash now.  I did not want to ask our church for money again, the third time in eighteen months.  To top it off, it was now December 2 and we needed the money by January 1. 

Each one of these stories is true.  So before I tell you how I survived each victoriously, let me say none of them were pretty.  I wasn’t fired, I did fire the Worship Pastor and we raised the money in time.

As a turnaround pastor, leading a declining church to reverse its trend, you and I are called to take risks. These risks take courage yes, but they take something even deeper, and that is my focus here.

Andy Stanley says, “Courage will establish you as a leader, but fear will hold you back.”  I agree, but of course the only times courage is ever needed is in fearful situations.  Go figure.

So what is the “deeper issue” here?  What is even more important than courage in fearful situations?  Thanks for asking.

For pastors leading turnaround churches, courageous decisions are not made because of superior knowledge, skills or even experience.  Those elements all help, but the fear factor remains.

We make courageous decisions because it boils down to simple obedience.  God has told us to do something and we will either do or not.  It is just that simple.

I’ve been through a few struggles in nearly two decades of leading my church.  It dropped from 2000 to 600 when I came.  Then I rode it from 600 to 150, and now I’m riding it back up again.  It is no easy chore.  I’ve had people say, “Wow, you’ve really made some courageous decisions to get where you are.”

I say, “not really”.  And I’m not being falsely humble.  I honestly know that every courageous decision boils down to being obedient, or not.  So I let the back slappers move on. I know if I had stopped being obedient, nothing courageous would have ever happened.  It really isn’t about us.  It is about simple obedience.  It always is.

What “courageous” decision is Jesus asking you to do in your church?  You know the one I mean, because you’ve been putting it off.  But it won’t go away.  It may comfort you to know that all leaders struggle with them.

So take courage, because even Jesus asked if He could get out of a courageous decision in the garden.  But he didn’t.  He was obedient and we all benefited.  When you decide to obey, many others will benefit too.  So get after it.  You’ll look back and be glad you obeyed.

For information on the Turn Around Church Coaching Network, see www.turnaroundchurch.org

P.S. Are you ready to take a “courageous” step? Join with a group of Renegade Pastors just like Don who are no longer content with average but are ready to be “obedient” to what see their churches grow.

Make a decision to join the Renegade Pastors Network today and begin to go beyond average!

We have just finished our overview of the impact that the 8 systems had on Fall Creek Baptist Church.

If you missed it, Here is the link to all 3 parts:

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

We have been taking a multiple part blog series to evaluate a recent story sent to me from  John Newland, a 3 time coaching participant and the impact he saw on his Big Event because of all of the systems.

Today we’ll look and see the results of all his implementation of the 8 systems:

Our average worship attendance for the six weeks leading up to our event was: 263. 

The flu took away 15% of our workforce on the day of the event…but NO ONE panicked or even worried about anything. 

God showed up with PERFECT WEATHER to bless our prayers and planning. 

We had 715 people at our event. 

Our initial estimates are a minimum of 250 legitimate prospects as we feverishly work through the Connection Cards this morning. 

Our event is totally paid for, with about $3,000 more than we needed to cover the costs, some of which we will use to expand our initial plans for follow-up. 

Our morale was/is totally amazing throughout the entire church for the entire day until the last group left…after sitting around telling cool stories of what happened throughout the day. 

While we were at it, God showed up in incredible ways at our Fishers church plant and our Hispanic church plant with record weekends for both! 

Our teams were so thorough and amazing, that our property looks better than it does after a typical Sunday and the follow-up teams are busily working, while I thank God for everyone…and YOU. 

Your systems aren’t magic. They require a lot of work and attention. But mostly, your systems have helped us think through how we strategically partner with God to advance His Kingdom and enjoy the fruits of radically transformed lives. 

Thanks isn’t enough, but my thanks is genuine and deeply felt.

Dr. John Newland, Senior Pastor, Fall Creek Baptist Church, Indianapolis, IN

It is always amazing to hear stories like that. All I can say is “Go God!”

If you have not yet been able to implement the systems in your church, I would like to invite you to consider joining my Senior Pastor Tele-Coaching Network.

My brand new Senior Pastor Tele-Coaching Network begins in August. But the Super Early Bird Deadline is only 2 weeks away!

I need to receive your completed application by June 30 to lock in your best rate ($1,200.00 Savings!) AND receive Over $1245.00 in Bonuses (see below).

If you’re ready to maximize your potential and grow your church, click the link below and download your application right now (or better yet, Apply Online):

www.ChurchLeaderInsights.com/telecoaching

If you are just joining this Blog, we have spent the last few days looking at how all 8 of the Systems play such a vital role in all that we do in ministry.

We’re taking a multiple part blog series to evaluate a recent story sent to me from  John Newland, a 3 time coaching participant and the impact he saw on his Big Event because of all of the systems.

Today we’ll look and see how the last 4 of our systems really helped make his Family Festival a huge success and then Tomorrow I will share the results of all the implementation!

* We used many of your strategies for WORSHIP ministry from your systems to focus people for six weeks leading up to this day. 

First, we set our calendar months in advance (didn’t learn about annual planning until we were six months out of this event, but we worked hard to play catch-up). 

Second, we designed a sermon series that would systematically prepare people to launch out for a harvest in the Kingdom of God. 

* We used many of your strategies for SMALL GROUPS contained in your book Activate to reinforce the need for unified service to our church and community. 

First, each small group was assigned the task of coming up with a unique and significant giveaway for our guests. 

Second, each small group “sponsored” an area of ministry to provide oversight responsibility for pre-event projects, during event projects, and post event projects. 

* We used many of your strategies for LEADERSHIP from your systems to keep our people on target for the purpose of our event. 

First, our leaders defined the purpose of the event and the sub-purposes of each constituent part of the process, by forging agreements beforehand to prevent disagreements during the “game.” 

Second, we had enough meetings to provide adequate communication, but not so many that we were micro-managing the key players. 

* We used many of your strategies for STRATEGIC SYSTEMS from your systems to set us up for real, quantifiable data for strategic improvement for our next event. 

First, we set up a way to track our outreach strategies with the Connection Card. 

Second, we had pre-production meetings that went back to our previous events and thoroughly examined what we liked and what we didn’t like about other events and strategized how to get what we wanted through metrics rather than just have an event with no way of knowing what happened. 

Dr. John Newland, Senior Pastor, Fall Creek Baptist Church, Indianapolis, IN

—

Now that you have seen how Fall Creek Baptist Church used all 8 systems, join me tomorrow as I give you the great outcome! After looking at all 8 systems, You can see that systems really cover every aspect of church life.

It is not a matter of if you do or do not have systems in your church, the question is “How healthy are your systems?”

If you have not yet been able to implement the systems in your church, I would like to invite you to consider joining my Senior Pastor Tele-Coaching Network.

My brand new Senior Pastor Tele-Coaching Network begins in August. But the Super Early Bird Deadline is only 10 days away!

I need to receive your completed application by June 30 to lock in your best rate ($1,200.00 Savings!) AND receive Over $1245.00 in Bonuses (see below).

If you’re ready to maximize your potential and grow your church, click the link below and download your application right now (or better yet, Apply Online):

www.ChurchLeaderInsights.com/telecoaching