7 ways to leverage Easter to reach MORE People

 Church, Church Planting, Faith, Jesus, Leadership, Missional  2 Responses »
Feb 112012
 

I took part in an online webinar with the outreachninja.com guys led by Bob Franqiz and it was excellent with ideas for leveraging Easter to reach more people.  My wheels have been turning and here are some ways to prepare to make Easter huge in getting the gospel of Jesus to more people

 

1.  Pray

There is nothing more effective than praying that the Lord of the Harvest will work on your behalf to reach more people with the gospel in and through your church.  As Pastor/Leader, start with yourself and then enlist your leadership and church to pray for people to engage, invest and invite their friends to join you for worship at Easter.

 

2.  Communicate

Easter is different than most holidays in that it doesn’t happen on the same day every year.  Sometimes it’s not even in the same month!  Most people in your church are thinking more about Spring Break than Easter right now.  You must communicate early and often WHEN Easter is on the calendar.  By the way, Easter is on April 8 this year.

 

3.  Creatively promote

Utilize fun, creative ways to promote Easter as an opportunity for people to invite their friends and family to hear the gospel of Jesus Christ. Troy Gramling of Potential Church in Florida utilizes the INVITE Bunny in “on the street” interviews to “stoke” the creative “fires” and to get people to invite their friends.

 

4.  Put something in their hands

Give the people in your church an “invite” card that they can give to their friends, family or people they come in contact with in the community.

 

5.  Equip people on how to invite their friends

Shawn Lovejoy of Mountain Lake Church teaches the people in his church how to invite their friends and neighbors AND he makes the evangelistic temperature in his church “white hot” leading up to Easter.

 

6.  Schedule Community Service through Your Community Groups

Nelson Searcy from Journey Church and Church Leader Insights encourages his Small Groups to do outreach events leading up to Easter to get the word out to the community about Easter Sunday.

 

7.  Utilize Lent Calendar for Prayer and Fasting

Mark Batterson of National Community Church utilizes Lent as a season of fasting and prayer to prepare his church for Easter.  They organize prayer walks and prayer lists to prepare people to reach out to their friends and family prior to Easter.

 Posted by at 11:08 am

Five Reasons we are launched Church at the Grove Social Circle

 Bible, Church, Church at the Grove, Church Planting, Faith, Jesus, Leadership, Missional, READ THIS!  No Responses »
Feb 062012
 

Our Social Circle campus pastor Nathan Boyd (via Perry Noble) shared this with our launch team a few months back in preparation for launching our second campus in Social Circle.  We must continue to advance the gospel through church planting and multiplying movements!

1. Because we understand that found people find people…and we will not stop doing whatJesus commanded us to do.

  • Matthew 28:18-20- “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.  And surely I am with you always, to the very end of age.”
  • Matthew 9:35-38 – “When he (Jesus) saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, ‘The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field”

2. Because we understand that saved people serve people…and we will not stop doing what the Bible commands of us.

  • 1 Peter 4:10 – “Each of you should use whatever gifts you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms.”
  • Matthew 20:28 – “…just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

3. Because we understand that growing people change…and we will not stop praying for Jesus to change us.

  • Psalm 139:23-24 – “Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.”

4. Because we understand that we can’t do life alone…and we will obey what the Lord has instructed us to do in Hebrews 10:24-25.

  • Hebrews 10:24-25 – “And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another – and all the more as you see the Day approaching.”
  • Ecclesiastes 4:9 – “Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their labor.”

5. Because we understand that we cannot out give God…and so we will obey what God’s Word teaches.

  • Malachi 3:6-12- ‘”Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this,’ says the LORD Almighty, ‘and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that there will not be room enough to store it.”
  • Proverbs 3:9-10- “Honor the LORD with your wealth, with the first fruits of all your crops; then your barns will be filled to overflowing, and your vats will brim over with new wine
 Posted by at 1:20 pm

The Hidden Life of a Leader

 Church Planting, Faith, Leadership  No Responses »
Feb 032012
 

God often takes us into a dessert experience to do a deep work in private before he performs a broad work through us in public.

A life that is characterized by spiritual depth is most often cultivated in time spent in solitude, quietness and obscurity.
Paul experienced this dessert obscurity and solitude immediately following his Damascus Road conversion.

Galatians 1:15–18 (ESV)
15 But when he who had set me apart before I was born, and who called me by his grace, 16 was pleased to reveal his Son to me, in order that I might preach him among the Gentiles, I did not immediately consult with anyone; 17 nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me, but I went away into Arabia, and returned again to Damascus.
18 Then after three years I went up to Jerusalem to visit Cephas and remained with him fifteen days.

 

Paul spent 3 years in dessert obscurity for the purpose of preparing him for the ministry to which Jesus had called him.
I am reading Paul: A Man of Grace and Grit by Charles Swindoll, and I cannot remember EVER being taught about Paul’s 3 year journey into the dessert.  Why did he spend 3 years in the dessert prior to his public ministry?
Before we answer why, let’s take a look at who else spent time in obscurity before their ministry went public:
  • Moses fled to the plains of Midian and tended sheep for 40 years before God used him to free the Israelites from Egypt.
  • David spent 13 years as a fugitive in the caves of Engedi where many of his Psalms were born before assuming the throne of Israel he was anointed for when he was a boy.
  • Joseph spent time in jail unjustly accused in Egypt before he ascended to a place of authority that would allow God to use him to protect his family from famine.
  • Elijah spent time hiding in the wilderness being fed by ravens.
  • John the Baptist ate locust and honey for most of his ministry.  He announced the public ministry of the Messiah and he was beheaded as a reward for going public with the truth of a political leader.
Here are 3 areas that God often works on while we are in the dessert:
  1. God often desires to forge in us a work of lasting transformation and character.  To do the work of God in ministry we must have a heart for people, we must craft our theology and we need to cultivate an identity solely in Christ.
  2. Often it takes time to discover what REALLY matters.  In the dessert experience we learn that to be great leaders we must lead in areas that truly matter to God!
  3. When we are so busy and fixing everyone else at breakneck speed, we simply can’t hear God’s voice clearly.  God takes us into solitude in order to slow down, get quiet and listen to his still, small voice.
I spent some time in the dessert under a pastor that lacked integrity and leadership.  It was in that experience that I learned to depend on God.  My relationship with my wife grew stronger during this time as we leaned into God and one another.

The church I planted and now pastor went through a very difficult period two years into the plant.  It was a bit of a dessert experience where I learned what really mattered.  

Have you spent some time in the dessert?  What did you learn?
 Posted by at 5:57 pm

Don’t Give Up; Think Long!

 Church at the Grove, Church Planting, Faith, Leadership  No Responses »
Jan 272012
 
In February of 2008 I was ready to quit.
We had planted Church at the Grove in September 2006 and had an exciting launch and quick growth in the first year and a half.  There were several disappointing circumstances at the end of 2007 that led some families to leave the church.  Our attendance was stagnant and I was simply tired and discouraged.  Our financial support would be ending later in the year and the numbers did not add up for us to be self-sustaining.  I spent some time on more than one occasion looking at the classifieds in the paper thinking I could get a “regular” job and be a great volunteer leader to a pastor somewhere.
I called one of my most encouraging friends, Mike Linch, pastor of NorthStar Church in northwest Cobb County where I had served almost 5 years as student pastor.  I knew Mike understood what I was going through after planting NorthStar several years earlier. He shared with me some of the ups and downs he personally had experienced and then gave some simply, yet profound advice.
Don’t Give Up! Hang in there!  Give it some time!  Think Long!
I listened and God has blessed my “Thinking Long”!  I am in this for the long haul!  I love church planting!  I love Church at the Grove.  I intend to honor God and spread the gospel through a long term commitment to a local church that plants churches!
I am reading Mark Batterson’s book, The Circle Maker: Praying Circles Around your Biggest Dreams and Biggest Fears.  In the book Batterson issues a challenge to “Think Long” in our prayers, dreams and ambition to see God move.
He states,
“We live in a quick-fix, real-time culture. Between the news ticker and Twitter, we’re always in the know, always in the now. We don’t just want to have our cake and eat it too; we want the instant brand. We want to reap the second after we sow, but this isn’t the way it works with dreaming big and praying hard. We need the patience of the planter. We need the foresight of the farmer. We need the mindset of the sower.”
Batterson goes on to tell this incredible story about “Thinking Long”:

“On the Swedish island Visingsö, there is a mysterious forest of oak trees; mysterious because oak trees aren’t indigenous to the island, and its origin was unknown for more than a century. Then in 1980, the Swedish Navy received a letter from the Forestry Department reporting that their requested ship lumber was ready. The Navy didn’t even know it had ordered any lumber. After a little historical research, it was discovered that in 1829, the Swedish Parliament, recognizing that it takes oak trees 150 years to mature and anticipating a shortage of lumber at the turn of the twenty-first century, ordered that 20,000 oak trees be planted on Visingsö and protected for the Navy. That is thinking long. For the record, the lone objector was the Bishop of Strängnäs. He didn’t doubt that there would still be wars to fight at the end of the twentieth century, but he was the only one who anticipated that ships might be built of other materials by then.”
Chances are some pastors and church planters reading this might be in the midst of some discouragement and doubt about continuing on.  Listen:
Don’t give up! Hang in there! Give it some time! Think Long!
 Posted by at 7:10 pm
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