NEW PODCAST – Is it Possible to Double My Church in a Day?

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.

How to Spark Immediate Growth in Your Church – Countdown to Ignite

The time is almost here!

I’ve been told that my new book, Ignite: How to Spark Immediate Growth in Your Church, is set to ship by September 26 (just four days from now) so pre-order now.

This book is a how-to manual for your church to reach more people.  I lay out a step-by-step, Biblically grounded, proven plan for creating immediate church growth by utilizing a “Big Day” to mobilize the church for evangelism.

I am excited about all of the encouraging comments you have been sending me already and can’t wait to hear what you think after reading it, so…

Click here to pre-order your copy of Ignite today!

Ignite – Available on Kindle

Just a quick post today –

Thanks to so many of you who have been asking about my next book lately, Ignite: How to Spark Immediate Growth in Your Church.

Many of you have already pre-ordered at Amazon.com and I wanted to let you know about one more development on that front:

Ignite is now available for the Kindle reader!

To pre-order your copy of Ignite for Kindle, CLICK HERE.

4 Questions – How to Handle New Believer Follow-up

If you’ve been reading this blog for any length of time, you’ve probably noticed that I am a stickler for follow-up.  Many of us in church leadership are heavy on good intentions and light on follow-up.

One follow-up question that just about every pastor I know has wrestled with is “how can we most effectively follow up with those who have indicated a commitment to follow Jesus?”

To this question, I’d say that a good follow-up process for new believers will answer the following 4 questions.

What do you want a new believer to do or experience during:

1. The first hour? At The Journey want them to mark their decision on their connection card and pray the prayer with us.
2. The first day? We send them an email confirming and affirming their decision.
3. The first week? We send them a new believers book I wrote that is a  seven day new believers study.
4. The first month? We want them to get baptized and be involved in a small group.

How you answer these questions will vary depending on your tradition, style and/or your preferred resources, but that you answer these questions is essential if your church is going to effectively make disciples of those who choose to follow Christ through your ministry.

P.S. To raise the evangelistic temperature of your church, check out The Evangelism Seminar.

Bad Situation, Great Opportunity (Video)

When we talk about advertising/promoting your church in my coaching networks I often mention that, while advertising can get very expensive quickly, news releases can be an effective and inexpensive way to get the word out (especially when the topic is compelling).

And when God is involved, the impact of such a release can be multiplied exponentially.

Case in point:
I got an email a few weeks ago from one of my Advanced Coaching Alumni, Dan Plourde. He’s the Lead Pastor of Calvary Jupiter Church in Florida.

The church had a truck stolen (full of equipment) and they had the wisdom to handle the situation in a way that honored God and presented their church in a good light to the community.

In fact, the local news picked up the story and ran it as the lead on the evening news:

Way to go God!

And great job to Dan and his team for staying focused on the big picture in the midst of a bad situation!

P.S. Are you loading in/out of a truck or trailer each week?  Check out The Portable Church Challenge.

Will I see you in San Diego?

It seems like there are more conferences for church leaders popping up every day and I think that’s great.  The more training and equipping, the better, as far as I’m concerned.

But in the midst of ALL the choices, there are only a few conferences that stay on my “can’t miss” list.  The National Outreach Convention is one of them.

I have the privilege of being a part of the National Outreach Convention coming up in November.

I’m really looking forward to leading a breakout on Ignite (based on my new book) and a discussion group about Assimilation.

The question is, will you be there?

NATIONAL OUTREACH CONVENTION
(click here for more info)
November 4-6, 2009
San Diego, CA

P.S. I’ve received a lot of questions about the release of Ignite, so here’s the link where you can pre-order your copy (or copies) from Amazon:

Ignite: How to Spark Immediate Growth in Your Church

Multi-Site Q & A – Equipment?

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.

Q & A – Servant Evangelism +

Be sure to read all the way to the bottom of today’s post (there’s a reward). Here’s a recent servant evangelism question that I answered for a pastor:

Q: Hey Nelson,  we’re doing a bunch of servant evangelism this summer and I know you guys do a lot too. I have a question for you: When you give away bottled water, do you just go to Sam’s Club (or a comparable store) or do you get your church’s logo and website printed on the bottles? If you get your logo printed, etc. what company do you use?

A: Hey, congrats on your commitment to use this summer to plant seeds in your community. Here at The Journey, we’re in the middle of making 1 million servant evangelism touches this year.

As for the water bottles, we purchase them from Sam’s (or wherever we can buy in bulk for wholesale prices). There’s really no need to go to the extra effort of custom printing as people toss the empty bottles in the end anyway.

Instead, we make sure to give out an invite card with each bottle (at least then there’s a chance that they’ll slide the card in a pocket or a purse for later).

In the spirit of today’s Q & A, I want to give you $5.00 OFF of my Reaching Your Community through Servant Evangelism resource.

To receive your $5.00 OFF, CLICK HERE, click “Add to Cart”, and enter and apply the special code SEBLOG when you’re checking out

Keep reading the blog each day for more deals like this.

Thanks!

Impromptu Baptisms?

Here’s a note a got this week from Lon Dean (one my coaching alums from the Albany, NY area):

Nelson,

After attending a coaching network meeting where you talked about spontaneous baptisms, I began doing calls for people to be baptized on the spot.

It’s gotten larger each time.  The last baptism we had 8 people signed up but baptized 21!

We’re blessed to have a large baptistery in the sanctuary so we challenge people to invite their friends to the service.

This has worked great but Jimmy Britt’s story (from this month’s podcast) has got me thinking we need an outdoor, public baptism also…

I’ll let you know how it works out.

If you haven’t heard this month’s brand new Church Leader Insights podcast – “50 Baptisms in 10 Days” – click here to listen now.

P.S. If you’re ready to grow yourself and your church like never before, now is the time to apply for my upcoming Tele-Coaching Network for Senior Pastors (it starts in August). For more info and to download your application, CLICK HERE.

Ignite – A sneak peek at my next book

I’m excited to announce that my next book – Ignite: How to Spark Immediate Growth in Your Church – is now available for pre-order at Amazon.  I wanted to take a moment this morning to share a little sneak peek into what it’s all about.

Here’s the write-up:

Ignite is the ultimate how-to book for church leaders who want to reach more people for Jesus Christ. Pastor and founder of Church Leader Insights, Nelson Searcy, will provide practical, inventive guidelines for bringing first-time guests through the doors.

This book sets forth a step-by-step, biblically grounded, proven plan for creating immediate church growth by utilizing a “Big Day” to mobilize the church for evangelism. This user-friendly guide will show church leaders what they need to do to reach the unchurched in their communities and break through the debilitating growth barriers that are holding them back.

Through the inspiration of testimonies and stories, combined with the down-to-earth, applicable teaching that Searcy readers have come to expect and appreciate, Ignite will give church leaders the tools they desperately need to reach and keep modern-minded, unchurched people to create and sustain growth momentum.

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

Summer’s Coming!

When I first started The Journey, a long time Pastor in NYC said, “Take the summer off, you can’t grow in the summer.”

I followed that advice our first year and our church almost went under.

The next year, I determined to “plant as many seeds” as possible during the summer months.

And guess what?

We grew during the summer and even more that fall.

I’m going to say more about this in an email blast to our entire network family next week.

But since you’re a friend and “CLI Insider” I wanted to give you advance notice.

I have a new report called “How to Maximize Summer” that contains my lessons about growing through the summer.

Snag it now, before the rush at:

http://www.churchleaderinsights.com/summer/

No-cost. No strings.

I think you’ll find it helpful.

Your friend,
Nelson

P.S. Feel free to forward this link to your friends (or put on your blog or Twitter). Here’s the link to my free “How to Maximize Summer” report:
http://www.churchleaderinsights.com/summer/

P.P.S. Here’s another “insider” advance notice – applications for my new Tele-coaching network are now available. Best to apply now. Learn more at:
http://www.churchleaderinsights.com/coaching/telecoaching.php

FREE E-Book: “How to Maximize Easter”

I just released a brand new e-book called “How To Maximize Easter.” It’s breaking all of our records for report downloads (nearly 1000 people in two days!).  If you haven’t grabbed your copy yet, get it now (Easter Sunday is only a few weeks away) – it’s FREE:

FREE “How To Maximize Easter” E-Book

If you’ve already downloaded the report (and assuming you found it helpful) will you send this link to a friend or let the pastors in your network or on your blog know about it? I want it to help as many people as possible.

The CLI team and I are committed to doing everything we can to help you and your church reach more people than ever this Easter.  That’s why we’re giving away this free e-book AND why we’re offering 5 different “Maximizing Easter” Tele-Seminars (we just added the 5th because so many of you have already signed up).

Please join us me in praying that this Easter will bring glory to God in a powerful way in all of our churches’ Easter services and that He will work in and through us to impact more unchurched people than we even thought possible!

Thanks,

Nelson

P.S. There was so much more that I wanted to share about leveraging Easter to maximize your church’s Kingdom impact this Easter, but I couldn’t get it all into the e-book.  To get even more info (and more than $100 of FREE Bonus Resources) sign up for one of our “Maximizing Easter” Tele-Seminars!  Here’s the link to register:

https://nelsonsearcy.infusionsoft.com/cart/store.jsp?view=1&i=51&navicat=51

Easter’s On Its Way

It’s hard to believe but Easter is only six weeks away, coming up on Sunday, April 12th.

Easter Sunday has more potential to make a massive Kingdom impact through your church than any other single day of the year and I would like to help you make this Easter bigger than ever at your church.

Over the last 7 years I’ve coached hundreds of pastors (and held my fair share of Easter services here at The Journey) to prepare for Easter and I’ve learned that there are about a dozen simple, but not necessarily obvious, ways we can maximize our impact on Easter.

I wrote down a few of these in a brand new “How to Maximize Easter” e-book that I’m going to give you and everyone else in the CLI family next week but there’s a lot more I would like to teach you.

As I prepared the e-book I realized there was a ton of other things I’d like to share but didn’t have the space to include in the e-book.  So I talked with the CLI team and we decided to do something we’ve never done before…to really go all out to help you and your church.

I would like to invite you to join me for a very special… (drumroll, please):
“How to Maximize Easter” tele-seminar

What is a tele-seminar? It’s simply me training you via telephone instead of at a live event.

I’m doing this tele-seminar four different times over a one week period at various times throughout the day so that regardless of your time zone or work schedule you can join me.

As you may recall from my Evangelism Seminar, it’s been proven that people are most likely to come to church when they are:

1. Under tension
2. In transition
3. In trouble

With the current state of uncertainty in the US, I believe more people than ever are open and ready to attend your Easter services.  What if you could break all previous attendance records this Easter?  I’d like to help you do just that with my 90 minute tele-seminar.

Once you register for the tele-seminar that best fits your schedule, I’ll train you (and all your staff and volunteers if you gather them around the speaker phone) on “How to Maximize Easter” this year.

Here’s a taste of what I will cram into our power-packed, nuts and bolts 90 minutes together:

- How to promote Easter for maximum effectiveness
- How to mobilize all your members to invite their friends on Easter
- What to preach on at Easter (and what not to preach on…its not what you think)
- The biggest mistakes most people make in planning Easter
- How to get people to come back the month after Easter
- How to lead your staff and key volunteers to spiritually prepare for Easter
- How to do a church wide spiritual survey on Easter.
- How to get a 100% connection card completion on Easter.
- Easter and your volunteers (you may be hurting your attendance by having too many volunteers, yep, too many)
- Choosing the times of your Easter service (the wrong times can keep the unchurched away).
- How you can leverage Easter to grow your church in the fall.

You can join me for this brand new training opportunity by clicking here:

https://nelsonsearcy.infusionsoft.com/cart/store.jsp?view=1&i=51

If you’re interested, I encourage you to go ahead and register now.  Due to telephone constraints we only have room for 99 people on each call (we have 100 phone lines but I have to save one for me!).

Remember, your registration is per church - so as long as you only call in from one phone, you can have your entire staff or volunteer leaders around the speaker phone.

This tele-seminar (like all CLI events and resources) has a 100% no hassle guarantee – if after listening to the entire call you believe I didn’t give you your money’s worthy, just let us know and we’ll immediately refund your investment.  There’s really nothing to lose.

Register now at:
https://nelsonsearcy.infusionsoft.com/cart/store.jsp?view=1&i=51

P.S. I almost forgot to tell you – the investment for each church is only $39.95 BUT when you complete the tele-seminar training we are going to GIVE YOU over $120 in free resources including an entire sermon series by itself goes for $69.95.  In other words, you’ll get FOUR TIMES your investment back in free resources.

P.P.S. Will you be in prayer for all the Easter services that will be conducted this year?  Pray for your church and mine here in New York City. Pray that this Easter is one that brings the most glory to God and impacts the most number of unchurched people ever!  It’s an exciting time to be in ministry.

7 Days of Servolution

We are big fans of servant evangelism here at The Journey.  In fact, we’re trying to make a huge impact on the people of metro New York in 2009 through S.E.  We recently signed up to be a part of something that has the potential to make a big difference in your church, your community, and in the lives of a lot of individual people and their families.  It is called 7 Days of Servolution. 

We’re going to make 50,000 Servant Evangelism touches during this week.  I think it’s a great idea and I hope you will take a look, here’s more information from the folks at Healing Place Church:

“Servolution” is simply a revolution through serving.  When we serve others who are in need, who look different than us, who may be hurting or poor, we have the opportunity to start a revolution of hope in their lives.

April 3-9, 2009 Healing Place Church will be partnering with great churches to ignite a Servolution in communities everywhere. We are calling it 7 Days of Servolution – the seven days leading up to Easter weekend.  You can take all seven days to serve your community like never before, or simply pick a time during the 7 days and set out to serve people in your community in some way – an afternoon water outreach or a car prep or visiting widows or a neighborhood clean-up, or any other of a million ways you can serve. There’s no charge to participate, so what you do, how you do it and the cost involved is entirely up to you. No servolution is insignificant and there is no limitation to the potential of what can be accomplished.

You are invited to join the movement. It’s a revolution of serving others…a servolution. The troops are followers of Christ, the companies of soldiers are churches, and the weapons are towels for service. Once you have experienced the intoxication from serving someone who is less fortunate than you with every bit of energy, time  and resource you possess, you will be hooked. You’ll be a servolution junkie ready to plunge in to the movement for your entire life.

Through our lives, through our families, and through our churches God is about to touch the lives of others in ways we never dreamed possible.

Visit www.servolution.org/7days to register your church, ministry or group (it’s free). You will be given access to printed materials like posters and fliers, web graphics, promotions plans and we’ll also be posting several video teachings with practical tips and ideas for you to use as you plan. All of this is completely free.

We are so excited to see how God is going to move during 7 Days of Servolution to strengthen His Church and show His love to the world. When the Church comes together to serve, we are much more useful in God’s purpose than we could ever be on our own.

For more information about 7 Days of Servolution, contact us at 7days@servolution.org, or at 225-753-2273 ext. 223 or visit www.servolution.org/7days.

P.S. – If you’re new to Servant Evangelism, or are just looking for some help in getting started, download a copy of Reaching Your Community Through Servant Evangelism.

One in a Million

Looking for a mission trip for your church this summer? I want to invite you to bring a team to New York City this summer for a Servant Evangelism Mission Trip!

The Journey has launched our ONE IN A MILLION project to touch the lives of ONE MILLION New Yorkers through Servant Evangelism in 2009 and I want you to be a part of it!

God has blessed our church tremendously through Servant Evangelism since 2002.  We’ve made hundreds of thousands of touches during that time, leading to literally hundreds of people coming to our church and taking the step to follow Jesus and be baptized, all through Servant Evangelism.

What does it look like?

We simply serve New Yorkers with an act of kindness, like handing out free granola bars, along with an invite card to The Journey.

What would it look like to do one million servant evangelism touches in one year?
How many people could come to Christ in New York City?

The results will be incredible and this trip is sure to create a great deal of momentum in your church as well!

We can’t do it alone and we want you to help reach people for Jesus in New York City!

We’re looking for teams who will come to NYC and serve with The Journey Church for one week (Saturday – Friday). We have secured affordable accommodations throughout the months of June and July for incoming mission teams at the David Dean House in Brooklyn, NY. However, space is limited and weeks are already starting to book up, so I would like to confirm your group as soon as possible!

Are you wondering about the investment?

When your team comes to NYC, each person will receive six nights of quality accommodations at the David Dean House, breakfast each day, linens and all of your ministry supplies for the entire week. The total investment is just $500 per person!

We believe that your team members will find this cost to be well worth the investment and I guarantee that your team will have a blast while making an incredible impact on the people of NYC!

What’s the next step?

If you want to bring a team to NYC this summer, contact Mark Rouse at mark@journeymetro.com or give him a call at 212-730-8300 x 211. He can provide you with more details about your trip and answer any questions that you may have.

We look forward to hearing from you soon and serving with you this summer!

PS – If you contact Mark about this Servant Evangelism Mission Trip, he’ll give you a FREE copy of my Servant Evangelism resource!!

Are You Reaching Non-Christians This Christmas? (Part 4)

This week, we’ve been thinking about how you can work with the natural surge that God has built into the Christmas season to influence those who don’t yet know Jesus.

We started by making sure we are outwardly-focused this season. Then, we talked about how to increase the number of guests at our Christmas services. Yesterday, we learned how to make sure that those guests feel welcomed and want to come back again and again. If you’ve missed any of these posts, you can check them out below.

Today, we are going to wrap up this mini-series by exploring the importance of follow up. When your Christmas service is over and the pre-New Year lull hits, how will you follow up with the first-timers God gives you this season?

The way you follow up, or follow through, on the guests who come to your church will impact whether or not those guests choose to return. With your follow up, pay attention to the three Fs. Make sure it is Fast, Friendly and Functional:

FAST – Don’t underestimate the power of a quick follow up. Today, people are used to a whole new level of immediacy, thanks to technology. I suggest getting an email in your guest’s inbox within 36 hours of her visit.

FRIENDLY – Your follow up needs to reach out in a warm, personal way. Make your guests feel valued as individuals, rather than sending them something that resembles a mass form mailing. At The Journey, we send a handwritten note from me (or that week’s teaching pastor), along with a small, relevant, free gift within 96 hours of a guest’s visit. Handwritten notes seem to find their way to the top of everyone’s mail pile!

FUNCTIONAL – Follow up with your guests in a way that meets them where they are. Be simple and straightforward. Use the opportunity that follow up gives you to extend a clear invitation for them to come back to your church. I mentioned the free gift… you might include a $4 gas card and say something in the note like, “We’d love to see you again. This trip is on us!” Be creative!

This Christmas, God will bring millions of unbelievers into our churches. We can either let the opportunity to influence them with his truth pass us by, or we can make some decisions now that will help us reach them effectively.

Let me challenge you to make this the year you focus on non-Christians at Christmas. Enjoy the celebration of our Lord’s birth but while you do, make sure you do your part to introduce him to those in your community who don’t yet truly understand the significance of the season.

- Nelson

P.S. – For more on creating a follow up system that will keep your guests coming back, check out Fusion: Turning First-Time Guests Into Fully-Engaged Members Of Your Church.

Are You Reaching Non-Christians This Christmas? (Part 3)

Yesterday, we learned how you can have more first-time guests than usual at your Christmas service. But what do you do with your guests once they arrive? How can you make them feel comfortable? Is there anything you can do now to make sure they’ll want to keep coming back to your church in the new year?

Turning first-time guests into fully-engaged members of your church is what assimilation is all about. In my book, Fusion, I detail a plan for creating a system that will help you keep the newcomers who come through your doors. If you haven’t had a chance to study that system, let me encourage you to do so. In the meantime, here are a few things you can do to make sure your first-time guests have a great experience this Christmas:

1. Spiff your church up – make it look as good as it can look.
2. Have signs in place to point people where they need to go. (For example, have signs pointing the way to the children’s area, the restrooms, and the main sanctuary.)
3. Make sure each guest is properly greeted, directed, treated and seated. Let’s look at this one in a little more detail…

First impressions are very important to your first-time guest. One of the best ways to make sure he feels welcomed and gets a good first impression of your church is by creating a strong pre-service – one where he is:

Greeted – Welcomed with a friendly smile by someone at the front door
Directed – Simply and politely shown where he needs to go (preferably by a sign and a volunteer)
Treated – Happily surprised with comfort food/drink (Offering hot coffee and donuts in your service will speak volumes to the new people who show up.)
Seated – Led to a comfortable, appropriate seat by a volunteer

The first-time guests you’ll have this Christmas will be making gut-level judgment calls about your church from the minute they hit the parking lot. What they see, before your service even begins, will determine whether or not they’ll ever come back.

Take some time today to think about what you can do to make your first-time guests feel welcomed this Christmas season. Put some time into polishing up your method of Greeting, Directing, Treating and Seating.

If you put some intentional focus on your assimilation efforts as you prepare for your Christmas services, you will see many more of those first-time guests become second-time guests, then regular attenders and ultimately, fully-engaged members in 2009!

- Nelson

P.S. – If you’d like to learn more about how to keep the first-time guests God brings you, check out Fusion or take a look at these tools and resources. Have a great Thursday!

Are You Reaching Non-Christians This Christmas? (Part 2)

Welcome to Part 2 of the “Are You Reaching Non-Christians This Christmas?” mini-series. Yesterday, we talked about the importance of making sure your church is outwardly-focused, especially during the Christmas season. If you missed that post, you can check it out below.

Now that you realize how important it is to focus your attention on non-believers this season, let’s jump into the best ways to do just that. We all know that God will bring more first-time guests than usual to your church this month, simply because it is Christmas. People who rarely darken the door of a church will often show up for a holiday service. You already have some natural momentum working in your favor. So what can you do to maximize that momentum?

You can work with the Spirit in prompting people to your Christmas service – through evangelism! Evangelism is critical throughout the year, but at Christmas it takes on particular significance.

Servant evangelism is one of the easiest and most effective forms of evangelism – and one that you can get your members and regular attenders involved in. It’s a simple way to serve the people in your community as you invite them to church.

Around The Journey, we are big fans of Servant Evangelism. Throughout the year, we mobilize our people to stand on street corners and hand out granola bars, packs of gum or bottles of water along with an invitation to church. In fact, 30% of the first-time guests who show up at our services say that they discovered The Journey through a Servant Evangelism touch.

At Christmas, you can take advantage of the power of Servant Evangelism to invite the people in your community to your Christmas service. Here is a brief overview of the steps you need to take to initiate an SE outreach before Christmas:

•    Have some postcards printed that advertise your Christmas service. Make sure you include your church’s location, meeting times and some information on the message you’ll be preaching.

•    Buy several dozen (or several hundred!) boxes of candy canes.

•    Pick a date, time and place for the SE project. Choose a busy downtown area or maybe a location near a popular shopping mall.

•    When your volunteers arrive, hand each person a couple of boxes of candy canes and a stack of postcard invitations. Coach them to hand a candy cane and an invitation to each passerby as they say, “Would you like a free candy cane?” or even just “Merry Christmas!” Then, spread your people out over the area and let the evangelism begin!

Not only will this Servant Evangelism project bring non-Christians to your Christmas service, it will also stir your members’ passion for the unchurched. Engaging your people in evangelism at Christmas-time reminds them what the season is all about.

Check back tomorrow for some tips on how to make your first-time guests feel comfortable when they arrive for your Christmas service!

- Nelson

P.S. For more information, tools and resources on Servant Evangelism, click here.

Are You Reaching Non-Christians This Christmas? (Part 1)

Is your church doing a Christmas play? Hosting a church-wide party? Inviting all of the couples to a Christmas reception? Holding a Christmas Eve service? I hope you are doing at least one or two of these things. Christmas is a time for celebration! But as you go about your usual holiday festivities, let me challenge you to think about where your focus is this Christmas…

Are you simply focused on celebrating the season with your members and regular attenders? Or are you making the most of the opportunity Christmas gives you to reach those who are not yet Christians?

For the rest of this week, I will be giving you some ideas on how to reach out to your community this Christmas season, how to treat the guests who visit your church for the first time and how to follow up with them after the fact to make sure they keep coming back in 2009.

For now, let me challenge you to think about this question… How can I ensure that my church stays outwardly-focused this Christmas season?

You’ve probably heard me discuss the importance of making sure that your church is and remains an outwardly-focused church. In case you aren’t familiar with the concept, an outwardly-focused church is one that makes an intentional effort to keep its energy and focus on the people who need Jesus outside its doors. The outwardly-focused church realizes that it is all-too easy to become consumed with the concerns of its members and regular attenders to the exclusion of reaching new people, so it protects itself from allowing that to happen.

People are more likely to visit your church around Christmas than any other time of the year (except maybe Easter). If you take some steps now to make sure you are focused on reaching those newcomers, you can pave the way for them to meet Jesus as we celebrate his birth.

Spend some time today thinking about where you’ve been focusing your energy… and then check back tomorrow! I’ll be giving you a great tip on how you can get even more first-time guests than usual to your Christmas service.

- Nelson

It’s Baptism Day!

In addition to the 6 services we conduct on a Sunday (four in Manhattan, one in Jersey City and one in Brooklyn), we are holding a special baptism service this afternoon. Pastor Taylor Field of Graffiti Community Ministries and East 7th Street Baptist Church graciously allows us to use his church (check out his books about Lower East Side Life here). Our two churches couldn’t be more different, but I love doing baptisms at Graffiti because so many in our church support his community ministries to those in need.

Baptism is my favorite event in the life of our church. It reminds me how much I love being a pastor. I never get tired of hearing the stories of life change. We’ve baptized 103 people so far this year and today I’m hoping we’ll top 130. 130 stories of life change… that’s what keeps me going.

It’s going to be a great Sunday. Hope it’s a great Sunday at your church, too!

Nelson