One of the greatest benefits of using technology to equip church leaders is that distances that were insurmountable just a few years ago are crossed instantaneously today via the internet.

The Church Leader Insights Family has been growing more and more internationally over the last couple of years.

It’s exciting to see how the systems and principles that we teach are being used to make a Kingdom impact far beyond North America.

I received an email earlier this week from Edward Wells, Tele-Coaching Participant and Senior Pastor of Church Alive (if you don’t read German, you might use Google Translate to view Edward’s site) in Switzerland, sharing his Easter Postcard.

Check it out:

Will you join me in praying for God to move in a mighty way in all of our churches this Easter – all over the world?

I’m praying that this Easter will be an example of what God will do when we cooperate with Him to go all out to reach the people of our communities for Jesus!

P.S. Are you ready to help your Easter guests become a part of your church, long-term?

Today and tomorrow only, you can order my bestselling resource, The Assimilation Seminar for $27.00 Off – Click here to Download Your Copy Immediately.

One of the best parts of being a member of the “Church Leader Insights Family” is that each month you receive the CLI Newsletter, packed with the best church leadership content I can find.

Here’s an article from Steven Furtick that was included in this month’s newsletter (in case you missed it):

COUNT WHAT COUNTS

“Here’s the distinction: it’s good to be concerned with numbers.  But we’ve got to be concerned about the right numbers…for the right reasons.  We’ve got to make sure we’re measuring ministry numbers to measure our effectiveness and enlarge the Kingdom of God…not simply to placate our ego…I want to count what counts.  It matters to me how many people show up for a worship experience.  But it also matters to me how many of those same people are plugged into community and embracing Christ-centered generosity.  It matters to me how much money we take in.  But it also matters to me…” Read the full article here…

The Church Leader Insights Newsletter is designed to bring the best and latest thinking on Church Growth, Evangelism, Leadership and Church Planting directly to your inbox every month!

If you’re not already subscribed, you can click this link to sign up right now.

A number of you have already let me know how my new book Ignite has helped you and your church.

That’s always encouraging to me, so keep ‘em coming! Feel free to use the “Ask Nelson” button on the right side of this blog to send me your story.

One such email that I recently received from Clark Frailey, member of the CLI family and Pastor of Coffee Creek Baptist Church in Edmond, Oklahoma.

He took what he learned from Ignite and created a PDF Whitepaper to share with his Leadership Team, then he gave me permission to share that document with you here.

This document takes the Big Day principles from Ignite and applies them to their church’s four Big Days.  It’s a great example of one way to create excitement and buy-in in your leadership team.

Download your copy here:
Coffee Creek 2010 Big Days Strategy (PDF)

Thanks so much for your feedback Clark and especially for sharing your hard work with us!  Keep up the good work!

P.S. To learn even more about developing a local church strategy for each of your church’s systems, including Evangelism, check out The Strategy Seminar.

Thanks so much to all of you who joined me last week for the Maximizing Easter 2010 Webinars!

I mentioned that I’d share some sample invitation tools that we have used at The Journey, so here they are (right-click and choose “Save As…” to download now):

2009 Samples:

• Easter Mailer #1 – Front (PDF)
• Easter Mailer #1 – Back (PDF)
• Easter Mailer #2 – Front (JPG)
• Easter Mailer #2 – Back (JPG)
• Easter Tent Fold Card – Outside (PDF)
• Easter Tent Fold Card – Inside (PDF)

2010 Samples:

• Easter Ticket (PDF)
• Easter Tent Fold Card (PDF)

P.S. For more information on how to make the most of Easter (and ALL of your church’s Big Days), check out The Ignite Seminar.

Wow!  I’ve been blown away by all of the response to my newest book Ignite: How to Spark Immediate Growth in Your Church, but this one is pretty amazing.

I recently received the following email from Jonathan Bilima, Lead Pastor of Kairos Church in Riverside, California.  Jonathan is in my brand new Tele-Coaching Network and here’s the Ignite testimony he shared:

Hey Nelson

Just wanted to thank you for all the valuable insight you give in your resources. Reading Ignite really pumped me up for having a big day at our small church plant. We run about 65-70 people a Sunday.

After reading Ignite, we organized a Big Day centered around our Christmas Eve service and had 300 people come out for our service. That’s huge for us being that we are a new church plant.

I look forward to learning more and implementing the strategies you teach.

In Christ alone,

Jonathan Bilima

That’s awesome to hear Jonathan – thanks for sharing! I look forward to seeing how God will use our Coaching Network together to grow you and Kairos Church in the coming months.

Do you have a story of how God has used Ignite to spark immediate growth in your church?  Click on “Ask Nelson” to the right of this blog to share your story.

P.S. If you still haven’t picked up your copy of Ignite, you can order it now from Amazon by clicking here.

Last week I shared one of the most common mistakes that churches make when it comes to allocating the annual advertising/promotion budget (click here to read that post).

Today I want to share Advertising Mistake #2…

Advertising Mistake #2: Spending your advertising funds on “branding” messages without a clear call to action.

“Branding” is a great word for two groups: multi-billion dollar corporations and people who sell advertising.

I can say definitively that in all but a few rare cases, your church doesn’t have the funds to compete to become a “household name” and all of those branding efforts rarely lead to unchurched people in the seats anyway.

Solution Principle #2: Focus your spending on direct response, call to action advertising.

For example, develop a checklist that you use to evaluate every ad or promotion that your church puts together.  Be sure that it spells out in crystal clear fashion:

• What you want them to do (You’re Invited to Easter Sunday at ______ Church!)
• Who you are ( ___________ Church)
• Where you are (the physical address of your meeting location)
• When this event takes place (Sunday, April 4th, at 10am)
• How to find out more (phone number, web address, etc.)
• Any other pertinent information (childcare, etc.)

Over the years I’ve observed more promotional pieces (direct mail, email blasts, invite cards, billboards, radio ads, etc.) than I choose to recall that leave me thinking, “That’s great and creative… now what do they want me to do about it?”

I guarantee that if you employ these two principles in your church’s advertising this year, you will serve as a better steward of the available funds AND you’ll see a much higher rate of return for your efforts.

P.S. For more information on planning, preparing, promoting, executing and following up on “Big Days” at your church, check out The Ignite Seminar.

I shared some thoughts on how to set up your church’s budget a while back (click here for that post), and today I’d like to give you the first of two “hard-learned” tips about how to spend that budget.

I want to address specifically how you spend the line item in your church’s budget marked “advertising” or “promotion” or whatever you have chosen to call the funds that you have set aside to spend on getting the word out about your church.

You do have an advertising budget, don’t you? If not, that may be a topic for a different post…

Too often I see well-meaning church leaders take their already scarce advertising budget and make two painful (and completely avoidable) mistakes that lead to very few, if any, results in their churches.

Here is the first of those two painful mistakes (and how to avoid it):

Advertising Mistake #1: Spreading the advertising funds so thin that none of it makes an impact.

I see this all the time.  Your church carves out a few thousand dollars to spend on advertising for the year and then tries to streeetttccchhh those funds to do something each month.

The end result is that very few people are even presented with your advertising message (whatever media you choose  to use) and you end up disillusioned about the whole process.

Solution Principle #1: Focus every dime of your advertising budget on your church’s Big Days.

Like I teach in The Ignite Seminar, I believe churches can maximize their evangelistic efforts by building to four “Big Days” each year (one in February, Easter Sunday, one in the summer, and one just after school starts).

By focusing your advertising on these special Big Day opportunities, you can afford to touch more people with your ads AND you can boldly avoid….

Advertising Mistake #2 (which I’ll share in Part 2 on Monday)

P.S. For more information on planning, preparing, promoting, executing and following up on “Big Days” at your church, check out The Ignite Seminar.

If you’re a frequent reader of this blog, you already know that I’m convinced that NOW is one of the greatest times in our lifetime to reach more people and grow our churches!

Combine that with the fact that Easter is the most likely day of the year for unchurched people to attend your church, and Easter 2010 has tremendous potential to expand God’s Kingdom!

That’s why today I’m releasing my revised and expanded Maximizing Easter 2010 E-Book!

I went back and updated this new version with information we couldn’t fit into last year’s Easter e-book, plus a lot of what we learned from your feedback.

Download your Free Copy of the Maximizing Easter 2010 E-Book (PDF) here:

www.ChurchLeaderInsights.com/easter

I want to do even more to help you make the most of Easter this year, so I’ve put together a brand new Maximizing Easter Webinar that I’ll be leading for you next week.

In this 75-minute webinar I’ll walk you, your staff and your volunteers, step-by-step, through implementing the most important ideas from the E-Book and give you many more impactful ideas that were not included.

Best of all, you and your entire team can participate without ever leaving the office!

We’re offering the Maximizing Easter Webinar at 4 different times to be sure that you can attend one of them, PLUS - just for registering you’ll receive over $190.00 in FREE BONUSES (more than 4 times your investment for the webinar).

For more info and to Register Now for the Maximizing Easter Webinar:

www.ChurchLeaderInsights.com/webinar

I‘ve found that February is one of the best times each year to reach new people, so ’tis the season for Big Days!

I just received a great report from Jamey Stuart, Senior Pastor of Believers Church in Chesapeake, Virginia.

Jamey is a two-time coaching alumni, an advanced coaching grad and one of our great CLI-certified trainers – he gave me permission to share this report with you:

Hi Nelson,

Our Big Day was BIG!

If a Big Day is an all out push towards a specific Sunday in order to break an attendance record and reach as many as possible for Jesus, then we did pretty good.

Average attendance at Believers has been around 585 recently. Sunday we had 796! Our previous non holiday attendance record was 694, so we smashed some records and created a lot of buzz and a lot of momentum.

We had 5 people make decisions for Christ, but I had some very significant spiritual conversations with folks who are clearly getting close and even got a couple of them connected with a small group. It was a GREAT Big Day!

Thanks for your leadership and teaching to make it happen. Felt like I implemented the plan and had a textbook big day. In saying that, I don’t want to discount God. He kept the bad weather north of us, he touched peoples’ hearts, he brought them in. Grateful just to be a part of it.

Anyways, thanks for your impact on Believers Church in Chesapeake, and thanks for your friendship!

Blessings,

Jamey

That’s an awesome report Jamey – Go God!

And great job cooperating with Him to “smash some attendance records.”

P.S. Time is running out for you to apply for my new Senior Pastor Tele-Coaching Network (it begins next Thursday) — click here for more information and to apply now!

P.P.S. To learn more about planning and executing a Big Day in your church, check out The Ignite Seminar.

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.