Overcoming Worship Leader Challenges (Free E-Book)

My Worship Pastor here at The Journey, Jason Hatley, just recently released a brand-new Free E-Book for worship leaders called “Overcoming the Seven Challenges of a Worship Leader.”

Every Worship Leader faces challenges – seven major challenges to be specific.

Once you identify these challenges and build a systematic approach to overcoming them, you and your worship ministry can thrive!

In this brand-new report from Jason Hatley, you will discover the secret to building a successful, systematic and God-honoring worship ministry.

Download your copy of this E-Book (in PDF format) immediately by clicking the link below:

Overcoming the Seven Challenges of a Worship Leader
by Jason Hatley

While you’re at it, check out Jason’s brand new Worship Leader Tele-Coaching Network, which starts in only two weeks (Thursday, March 19)!  Click here for more information and to download your application now.

P.S. When you apply for Jason’s Worship Leader Coaching Network, be sure to note that you read about it on my blog and I’ll put in a good word for you to get “priority consideration”

Your Preaching Calendar Questions – Summer Sermon Series?

Q: You mentioned doing a series during the summer that isn’t sequential.  Can you elaborate on what that looks like?

A: The basic concept is to do a number of messages that can be combined under the same title, but that don’t build on one another from week to week.

Essentially, you should do a series that is made up of standalone message topics, with the understanding that people are most likely going to miss church at least a time or two during the summer.

Leadership often involves entering the conversation that people are already having in their mind.  By doing a series like this, you’re taking away the “well we missed last week, so…” reasoning.

Example: We do a series each summer called “God on Film,” where we choose 6 or 7 of the summer’s biggest movies and address the spiritual issues that each one raises.

The entire series is titled and branded as “God on Film,” but we will address 6 or 7 unique, standalone topics over the course of the series.  By doing so, we’re able to attract new people, keep our regulars attending in spite of their vacation plans and help people grow in 6 or 7 different areas over the summer.

P.S. – Still looking for a few series to fill in the gaps in your 2010 Preaching Calendar? Click here for some proven Sermon Series!

P.P.S.- If you missed the “How to Plan Your 2010 Preaching Calendar” Webinar, you can listen to a replay of the audio at: www.ChurchLeaderInsights.com/preachingreplay

Your Preaching Calendar Questions – What to Promote

Q: How do you balance promoting a new sermon series with the current sermon series?

A: I use the word “promotion” to refer primarily to external promotion, or promoting a message series to the people in your community. Most of this type of promotion is reserved for your Attraction series (or at least those with attractional titles).

Think from the mindset of the unchurched in your community as you decide which series to promote externally and how to promote them. You definitely want to go all out in promoting the Attraction series that begin on your Big Days (just remember that for Easter, you should promote Easter Sunday itself as the primary draw).

Once you determine which series you’ll be promoting heavily in the community, you shouldn’t have much overlap in your advertising/promotion efforts between current and upcoming series. In any case, be sure that your promotion is focused and includes a clear call to action (what do you want people to do?).

In your internal promotion (to the people in your church), you will need a little more balance. We all let people know what’s going on each week through email updates, before- and after-service announcements, weekly bulletins, etc.

As you build towards a new series, you can use those same means (and then some) to get them geared up for what’s next. You may consider sending a postcard to everyone in your database for each new series.  There’s no reason to choose promoting one or the other – let them know about both.

And don’t forget to look for opportunities in your current messages to get people thinking about the next series. Example: In a message with one point about honoring God with your finances, you should take the opportunity to let your people know about the Financial Freedom series you’re starting on [[date]]. This helps build anticipation.

P.S. – Still looking for a few series to fill in the gaps in your 2010 Preaching Calendar? Click here for some proven Sermon Series!

P.P.S.- If you missed the “How to Plan Your 2010 Preaching Calendar” Webinar, you can listen to a replay of the audio at: www.ChurchLeaderInsights.com/preachingreplay

Your Preaching Calendar Questions – “Splitting” a Series?

Q: Is there ever a need to split a series (maybe for a guest speaker)?

A: In most cases I would say no.

Rather than “split” a message series, see if the guest speaker’s message will fit into the series that is scheduled during that time (this may be as simple as changing the title of their message so that it matches the series terminology).

Another option is to utilize your “expansion joints” or open dates on your calendar to shift your series so that the guest speaker can bring a standalone message between two series. For example, move the start of the previous series up a week earlier so that the guest can speak the week after that series ends and before the next begins.

There are some times, however, when God opens up just the right opportunity and none of these techniques will work. In those times, you can hit the “pause” button on a series and consider it a God-inspired audible.

P.S. – Don’t miss the big Church Leader Insights Thanksgiving Sale going on now – click here to see all the deals!

Your Preaching Calendar Questions – Full Church Campaigns?

Q: You recommended doing a “full church campaign” in the fall. That just looks like an extra long series on the calendar – can you explain further what is involved in a campaign like this?

A: I do recommend doing a full church campaign each fall. The concept behind the campaign is to take your entire church through the same study and teaching topics at the same time.

It will be a powerful time of spiritual growth for your people and provides a measure of church-wide momentum that is sometimes hard to come by.

During this campaign the Sunday messages and Small Group curriculum are coordinated, and we typically put together a daily devotional for all of our people, so that everyone in the church is learning, stretching and growing in the specific area that we’re focusing on.

For example, this fall we’re going through “The Relationship Principles of Jesus,” so our people are learning how to apply Jesus’ relationship principles in the weekend service, in their small group and in their daily quiet time. It takes planning and work to do a full church campaign, but the resulting life change that we have seen is worth every minute.

P.S. – Two proven full church campaigns that will ramp up the spiritual growth at your church are The New Testament Challenge and Financial Freedom.

Your Preaching Calendar Questions – Open Dates & More

Last week’s “How to Plan Your 2010 Preaching Calendar” Webinars were a great success and I’ve enjoyed hearing from so many of you about how your planning is going.  Here are my answers to more of your frequently asked questions.

Q: Once I have my preaching calendar together, who should I share it with?  Should I share it with other leaders in my church?

A: You want to share the entire preaching calendar with everyone in leadership that it will help to do their jobs.  In other words, you definitely want to share it with your Worship Leader, Pastors on staff, Creative Team, and anyone else you think will find it helpful in doing their job.

Once you have the calendar together, you can intentionally give your people a sneak peek from time to time about something that’s coming up.   For example, in a message where one point is about dealing with relationships, you may want to mention that they don’t want to miss the _________ series that we’re doing in February that’s all about relationships.

There is no reason to make the calendar secretive, but if you place it in the hands of too many different people too early it can become confusing as blanks are filled in, titles are changed, etc.

Q: I noticed that you have 2 open dates/standalone messages planned in the first half of your calendar, but none in the last half of the year?  How many should we aim for?

A: Really this just depends on how the calendar comes together as you’re planning.  For us, as we looked at our Big Days and the timing of holidays and special weekends, it just so happened that we filled in each week from June through the end of the year.  There is no right or wrong answer when it comes to how many open dates.

The goal in planning the preaching calendar is to seek God’s will about what to teach and when to teach it, and sometimes as you go through that process there will be weeks that just don’t seem to fall into place.  Those are good to leave as standalone messages.

Also, you may consider the weekends before your Big Days (most notably Easter) to be standalone weekends where you can specifically teach about and challenge your people to invite their friends the following week.

P.S.- If you missed the “How to Plan Your 2010 Preaching Calendar” Webinar, you can listen to a replay of the audio at: www.ChurchLeaderInsights.com/preachingreplay

Your Preaching Calendar Questions – How Far in Advance Should I Plan and More

Last week’s “How to Plan Your 2010 Preaching Calendar” Webinars were a great success and I’ve enjoyed hearing from so many of you about how your planning is going.  I have also received a number of recurring questions that I’d like to address, starting today, here on the blog.

Q: How far in advance does the preaching calendar planning process need to start?

A: The short answer is as far in advance as you can get started.  As I mentioned at the end of the webinar, planning ahead 6-8 weeks is better than nothing.  However, you’re typically going to be wrapping up the past year and looking ahead at this time of year anyway, so I’ve found that November is a great time to get started.

I would encourage you to carve out some time and get to work on planning your preaching calendar as soon as possible.  If you have never done it before and you saturate the planning process with prayer and fasting, you will be amazed at how clearly 2010 will begin to come into focus as you plan.

Q: You mentioned collecting ideas from your congregation about sermon topics for the next year.  Do you leave it open ended or have a list of topics for them to pick?

A: Like I said in the webinar, I’m not sure you want to solicit ideas from everyone who attends your church (unless you can clearly explain it), but you may ask for ideas from members, small group leaders and other key leaders.  I would place this type of input in the early “information gathering” phase of planning your preaching calendar, so it will probably be pretty open ended.

This information combined with the topics your teaching team comes up with is a great starting point, but again, you definitely want to hear from God on what to include in the upcoming year and what to hold off on for the time being (and be sure to save all topics that may work at a later time).

Q: I’m a church planter, where do I start? My leadership team is all volunteer and aren’t “pastors”, do I still give them the full weight that you are giving your team to help create series?

A: Early on in your church plant (especially if you’re the only teaching pastor), planning your preaching calendar can seem like a massive undertaking – no “teaching team,” limited time to work on it, etc. – but let me encourage you to make the time to pray, fast and plan out your preaching in advance.  You can still collect ideas from others, but the bulk of the responsibility for putting together the preaching calendar will fall on you.

However, by planning ahead you will be able to 1) involve more people in the creative process, 2) be more strategic about your Big Days & when to address specific topics, and 3) be more intentional with your promotional efforts.  On top of all that, you will be able to lower your stress by knowing far in advance what messages you will need to prepare.

Q: Did you state that you plan your preaching calendar with your staff?

A: If you have multiple teaching pastors on staff, they are a natural preaching calendar planning team.  Each person has a vested interest in the preaching calendar and will bring valuable ideas to the table – both about what series to include and how to best approach them.

Involve the people that you believe will be helpful to the process.  You are certainly free to include others (beyond the teaching team) in the planning process, but no matter who is involved, remember that the ultimate responsibility of the preaching calendar belongs to the Senior Pastor.

P.S.- If you missed the “How to Plan Your 2010 Preaching Calendar” Webinar, you can listen to a replay of the audio at: www.ChurchLeaderInsights.com/preachingreplay

P.P.S. – For a set of resources that will upgrade all aspects of your Worship Planning, check out The Worship Planning Premium Package.

Did You Miss the 2010 Preaching Calendar Webinar?

Thanks so much to the almost 2,000 of you who joined me last week to walk through the 2010 calendar in my “How to Plan Your 2010 Preaching Calendar” Webinars.

Whether you were able to be a part of the webinars or not, I’m giving you another chance to listen.

We have set up a special page where you can listen to an audio replay of one of the webinars from last week.

It doesn’t include my slides or the bonus resources that I gave to everyone who joined me in the live webinars, but you can get all of the content from the audio to help you plan your 2010 Preaching Calendar!

You can listen at:

www.ChurchLeaderInsights.com/preachingreplay

Also, I’ll be posting some of the frequently asked Preaching Calendar Questions from the webinars here on the blog later this week.

P.S. Feel free to share this post with anyone who might find it helpful.  I am excited to see and hear about all that God is going to do in and through our churches in 2010.  Thanks again for your support!

LAST CHANCE – Free Preaching Calendar Webinars

I can’t wait to get started with my series of 4 “How to Plan Your 2010 Preaching Calendar” Webinars today!

The first of the 4 is today, from 1:30 – 2:45pm EST.  Then, I’ll be leading 2 tomorrow and 1 final webinar on Thursday.

In each of these webinars, I’ll be walking you step-by-step through the 2010 Calendar, pointing out the pitfalls and possibilities that are already built in.

Last week I gave away my bestselling Planning a One Year Preaching Calendar resource for FREE (nearly 1,500 of you took me up on that offer).  That one hour resource taught you the “principles” of planning your preaching calendar.

This week – through these 75-minute webinars – I want to help you APPLY those principles to the 2010 calendar to reduce stress, increase creativity and maximize the effectiveness of your preaching in the coming year.

It’s not too late for you to sign up, just CLICK HERE for more information and to Register Now!

FREE Preaching Calendar Webinars (next week)

Planning your preaching calendar in advance is one of the absolute best ways I’ve found to reduce stress and increase creativity as a pastor.  And I’m determined to help you implement this practice for 2010!

Hopefully, you’ve already seen and downloaded a FREE copy of my “Planning a One Year Preaching Calendar” Resource that I’ve been giving away this week and that’s just the beginning of how I want to help.

Next week, I’m doing a series of FREE WEBINARS for teaching pastors called “How to Plan Your 2010 Preaching Calendar,” where I will literally walk you through the 2010 calendar over the course of our 75 minutes together and help you plan what you’re going to preach over the next year.

I don’t remember being more excited about any of the webinars we’ve done than I am about these!  Here’s the information:

FREE – Register Now!		Join Nelson Searcy in this 75-minute webinar without ever having to leave your office or home! Nelson will walk you, step-by-step, through the actual planning process for your 2010 preaching calendar. Once registered, you will simply need a phone and a computer with internet access to participate. This is a great opportunity to train your entire staff with this webinar.
4 Convenient Times to Choose From! Tuesday November 10, 2009 1:30PM – 2:45PM Eastern Wednesday November 11, 2009 3:00PM – 4:15PM Eastern Wednesday November 11, 2009 7:00PM – 8:15PM Eastern Thursday November 12, 2009 4:00PM – 5:15PM Eastern In each of these webinars, Nelson will walk you through: When to plan your 2010 Big Days (and when not to plan them). How to make the most of people’s natural seasonal patterns. The best times in 2010 for each of the 3 different types of sermon series (attraction, growth & balance). How to make Easter in 2010 more effective than ever at your church. Which days you can expect fewer people and how to best use those days. Plus much more! These Webinars are FREE! Space is limited – Register today Tuesday November 10, 2009 1:30PM – 2:45PM Eastern 12:30PM – 1:45PM Central 11:30AM – 12:45PM Mountain 10:30AM – 11:45AM Pacific Wednesday November 11, 2009 3:00PM – 4:15PM Eastern 2:00PM – 3:15PM Central 1:00PM – 2:15PM Mountain 12:00PM – 1:15PM Pacific Wednesday November 11, 2009 7:00PM – 8:15PM Eastern 6:00PM – 7:15PM Central 5:00PM – 6:15PM Mountain 4:00PM – 5:15PM Pacific Thursday November 12, 2009 4:00PM – 5:15PM Eastern 3:00PM – 4:15PM Central 2:00PM – 3:15PM Mountain 1:00PM – 2:15PM Pacific

Church Leader Insights exists to help you maximize your ministry and this webinar is my virtual opportunity to sit down across the table from you and walk you through this planning process.

I hope you’ll sign up for one of the 4 times we have available AND pass this information along to any other teaching pastors you know.

Download Your Free Preaching Calendar Training (Free MP3 Resource)

NOW is the time to plan what you will be preaching in 2010!

To help you plan your 2010 Preaching Calendar, I would like to give you a FREE copy of Planning a One Year Preaching Calendar (one of my best-selling resources).

By planning your preaching calendar in advance, you can lower your stress, increase the creativity of your team and leverage the calendar more effectively than ever before!

To receive your Free “Planning a One Year Preaching Calendar” resource, click the link below and sign up for yours:

http://www.churchleaderinsights.com/preaching

P.S.  While you’re at it, be sure to sign up for one of the FREE “How to Plan Your 2010 Preaching Calendar” Webinars that I’m doing next week – 4 times to choose from!  You can sign up when you sign up for your resource at the above link.

How to Handle Announcements without Making Announcements

Announcements.  Not a big deal to most people, but to those of us in church leadership “announcements” can be equivalent to a four-letter word.

You’ve probably had the same experience that I have: You’re having an amazing worship service – the music is just right, the message is spot-on, the Holy Spirit is moving and you can see on people’s faces that God is dealing with them – until… it’s time for the dreaded announcements.

We’ve eliminated announcements from our worship order at The Journey for this very reason.  Any time I mention that, I get email after email from pastors asking how we’re able to do that and still have people show up for our various events and activities.

Here are a few ideas to help you eliminate Sunday morning announcement time:

- Announcement slides before and after the service (similar to what you would see in a movie before the movie previews)

- Email blasts – Send an email blast each week or every two weeks depending on what events are on the schedule.  www.ConstantContact.com is a great resource for this, but there are dozens of similar mass email companies that will help out immensely in keeping people in the loop.

- Point people to your website. Stop right now and check your church’s website.  Is it up to date? If you’re like most churches, you probably take great pains to keep your website updated.  Make sure you use that as a tool to communicate your events.

- Small Groups – No matter what’s coming up, have your small group leaders announce events and remind people of what’s going on.

- “Preach Your Announcements” – this is the biggest tool of all!  When you’re preparing your message, ask yourself, “What events are we preparing for that will help people apply this message?”  This will also make sure that your church activities have a purpose.  Churches can have greater effectiveness by reducing the number of events to only those that help people apply what’s being taught.

- Over time, you can also train your church to look for the announcements in the bulletin.  This may take some time, but it will happen.  You may also want to have event info at your resource table so that if someone is looking for more information they can pick it up there.

- When you preach, tell stories of how previous events have impacted people’s lives.  Example – share a testimony on how small groups impacted someone and then briefly announce the sign up.  Or tell the story how someone was impacted by community event and tell people why they need to be involved in the next event.

- Have your ministries take responsibility for getting people involved in the event or activity.  Let them know that the stage is for communicating the weekend message not publicizing events.  Have them take ownership of getting people involved in the activities by personally inviting people.  A personal invitation is more effective than an announcement.

Lastly, people don’t need the announcements as much as we think they do.  The goal is not how much we communicate but how effective we are at communicating it.  Preaching an announcement is far more effective than actually announcing it.  Telling a story about an event is far more effective than announcing it.

I hope that helps.

P.S. For more on planning dynamic, powerful Worship Services, check out Planning Worship Services for Life Transformation.

New Worship Leader Insights Podcast

Jason Hatley over at Worship Leader Insights, our partner site for Worship Leaders, has a brand new podcast entitled:

Your Worship Team Can Grow … Today!
Click Here to Listen

If your worship leader isn’t on Jason’s list, be sure they sign-up at www.WorshipLeaderInsights.com (or better yet, take a moment and just sign them up yourself).

Nelson

P.S. For more from Jason, check out his brand new resource on “How to Double Your Worship Arts Team” by clicking here.

Free Sermons

Quick post this morning – I just wanted to share some free stuff with all of you.

Here’s a link for you to download 3 of my sermon transcripts for FREE.

These three sermon transcripts are designed to help you lead your church to be obedient to God, to live a life that makes a difference, and to focus on what’s most important:

• Pausing for What Matters Most
• What Drives My Life
• How to Get the Most Out of Life

Here’s the link:
http://www.churchleaderinsights.com/resources/free_sermons.php

P.S. For complete Sermon Series packages (messages, graphics, etc.), CLICK HERE.

Are Your Passionate About Sunday (A Sunday Quote)

“Only passions, great passions, can elevate the soul to great things.”
– Denis Diderot, French Philosopher

A “Wonder”-ous Opportunity

I have been invited to lead the Teaching Track at the Willow Arts Conference on June 10-12. The theme is “Wonder” and it’s definitely a wondrous opportunity for me.

In fact, with big names like John Ortberg leading this track in the past, it’s got me scratching my head… everyone else must be out of town that week.

Seriously though, it is a tremendous honor and I hope you will consider joining me. The folks at Willow put together a powerful conference each year and this one won’t disappoint.

Here’s the link if you’re interested:
http://www.willowcreek.com/events/arts/2009/index.html

Either way, I hope you’ll pray for me as I prepare.

Thanks!

P.S. If you don’t already have it, I encourage you to invest in my Planning a One Year Preaching Calendar resource by clicking here: https://nelsonsearcy.infusionsoft.com/cart/store.jsp?view=4&i=p93&navicat=35

Q & A – Baby Dedication

This is Kerrick Thomas – I’m the Executive Pastor at The Journey.  Nelson asked me to share my answers to the following question:

Q: What do you guys do for a baby dedication? What do you read? Do you give anything away?

A: For our Baby Dedications we try to make it very simple and straight-forward.  After our worship team does the first song – we invite the parents and babies to come up front.  We talk about how special a day it is and how God is blessing our church.

Then we go down the line introducing each parent and each child. Trying to focus on the babies.  If you are videoing it or doing imag – be sure to keep the cameras on the babies and not on you or the parents.

After the introductions we talk about the meaning of the Baby Dedication.  How it’s not really about the babies – but about the parents and the church.  How the baby is too young to make a decision to follow Jesus today – but as parents we can commit to raise our child in a godly way in the hopes that they will grow to make the decision for themselves and as a church we will make a commitment to support and pray for the families.

Then the pastor will read a commitment for the parents (and the parents say “we do”) and then a commitment for the church (and the church says “we do”).  And then the pastor reads the certificate that each child receives and prays a prayer of blessing.  It usually takes 5 or so minutes total.

Each child receives a certificate, a baby bible, and we email them with a picture of their family from that day.

Here are a couple of the documents we use for Baby Dedications (right-click and choose “save as” to download to your computer):

• Child Dedication Commitments
• Pastor’s Notes for the Dedication

Hope this helps!

Blessings…

Kerrick

Keep it Simple (A Sunday Quote)

“Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler.”
– Albert Einstein, Theoretical Physicist

Managing Wealth

Today I’m co-teaching a message entitled “How Do I Manage Wealth?” at The Journey – Manhattan. This is the first time I’ve ever addressed the subject of wealth.  Should be fun.  I’m co-teaching with Adam Bishop, our Groups Pastor (for some thoughts on co-teaching, click here).

In part of the sermon, I reference www.GlobalRichList.com – if you think your salary is too low, check out this eye-opening site.

After the 1:00pm service I’m hosting a newcomers reception (read more about the strategy behind this by clicking here).  We are expecting about 75 newcomers.  Should be fun!

All in all, I’m expecting a great day!  Hope its a great day at your church.

Off to the first service!

Nelson

Church, Technology and the NY Times

The Sunday Edition of The New York Times featured a story about church and technology.  Yours truly was quoted and The Journey was highlighted. While I might take exception with the statements that I quote the bible ‘here and there’ and only mention Jesus ‘occasionally’ in my preaching,  the article was well done overall.  I learned a lot from what the other folks had to say.  Read the entire article by clicking here. I would be curious to hear your response.

On a side note, I rarely give press interviews even though we receive requests weekly.  My advisors suggested I comment on this article and, frankly, I’m glad I did.  Maybe in a future post I’ll address the issue or working with the press.  This is definitely been a growth area for me.  But since I can see The NY Times building from my office window, its probably an issue that isn’t going away any time soon.

If you have a moment, pray that God will use the article for His purposes.

Nelson

P.S. Yep, that’s our own Jason Hatley on the big screen in the pic above from the Times article.