How to Make a Good Decision

How does your church make decisions? Who makes the decisions? How timely are decisions made?

What we experience in many churches is that making decisions is difficult and that many churches do not have a process that helps them. In fact, the decision-making process is so poor that I now ask churches, "What is your process for making decisions?" Most often these leaders do not have an answer.

Here's a decision-making tree to help you and your church make better, more timely decisions:

Step 1: Values
Your core values are the foundation that gives your church its sense of individual identity, provides direction, and are foundation upon which decisions are made. Run the decision through your core values. Your goal is to determine the consistency of the decision with your core values. The values decision answers the question can we say yes to this decision? Ask these two questions:

1. Is this decision consistent with and connected to our core values?

• If yes, write a statement that describes how it is consistent and connected to your core values, then move ahead.
• If no, stop. Write a clear statement of why the decision does not meet your core values test and clearly communicate the reason to the person who brought the decision in question.

2. Do our core values warrant spending dollars on this decision?

• If yes, are those dollars available in the regular budget or would it require extra-budget funding?
• If no, what is it about the decision that makes it not reach the level of importance for funding? Write your statement and present it to the person bringing the decision

Step 2: Mission
Now you are looking at how this decision connects with your church's mission, that statement that describes why your church exists. Your mission statement answers the question should we say yes to this decision?

• If yes, write a clear statement of how this decision moves you ahead in your mission.
• If no, stop. Write your statement describing why it does not connect with your mission and communicate the reason.

Step 3: Vision
Your vision is what you wish to see come to being in the next few years. Ask the question: does this decision contribute to accomplishing our vision? At this step you are answering the final question of will we say yes to this decision?

• If yes, write your statement that describes how a positive decision substantially contributes to accomplishing your vision. Clearly describe what you will gain by a positive decision.
• If no, write your statement describing why it does not and clearly describe what you will lose by making a negative decision.

This decision-making process runs your decisions through your core values, mission, and vision and by writing your reasoning at each step it will help you be more clear and more certain about your decision as well as having clear communication to give to your church.

SEED TEAM - Gathering the Right People

They used to be called a core team. Sometimes people speak of a launch team. But we're talking about your seed team: the four to six committed Christians (or families) who are going to bring their giftedness to the task of gathering new people together to become a new church.

In our Kairos strategy lab training we speak of both a seed team and a launch team. The seed team is your original group of people who will do the hard work of gathering your launch team. The seed team are those ten to fifteen adults who are going on mission you.  Your first missional communities will form around these seed team members. The launch team are the next thirty or so people whom your seed team will gather into their missional communities to give you the bulk you need to launch your regular Sunday worship experiences.

In our experience the planters who have had the easiest time have also had strong seed teams. Here are the kinds of people who make strong seed team members:

1. Christians of good Character. They are going to be the first faces of the new church. You want them to show Jesus well.
2.  Competent to be ministry leaders. You are going to depend on these people to carry leadership in the work. They need to know how to do ministry and to do it well.
3. Good Chemistry with the vision God has given you. Everyone will come with their own set of expectations and wishes, but your seed team members should be willing to follow your lead over and above their expectations.
4. Sacrificial givers. You will ask and lead your seed team to tithe to this new church. This money will be your primary source of working funds for the new church.
5. Reaching out to and inviting their friends and relationships into relationship with Jesus in the new church. They need to be(come) evangelistic bringers.

 Learn more about gathering a seed team from these videos on the Kairos website:

• Jared King, Gathering Your Seed Team
• Tim Blair, Seed Team Development

KEYSTONE HABITS FOR CREATING RENEWAL ENERGY

Last week I listened to Andy Stanley's Leadership podcast on keystone habits (by Charles Duhigg) as a culture changing/energizing action. A keystone habit is a critical action that creates and rearranges other habits for the potential to dramatically energize your church's culture. Keystone habits are able to create this new energy and culture because:

1. they provide a focal point for action; 
2. they serve as the soil from which other habits grow; and 
3. they give you energy and confidence to do more

Stanley described how North Point staff identified the habit of "inviting people to church" as their keystone habit. If they could help their people begin to practice regularly inviting people to church they saw power to energize their mission to create a church unchurched people would like.

What was so attention grabbing to me was that last weekend I think Gena and I saw a keystone habit discovered at the church we were facilitating a StratOp weekend with. What was their keystone habit?

Spiritual Conversations

For the past three years we have worked with this church as they learned how to be a church whose members were comfortable with having spiritual conversations. They are still early in the process of turning the concept of spiritual conversations into a keystone habit, but they are already seeing the results. Their baptism rate went from 0 three years ago to 21 baptisms last year.

If you want to know more about how to have spiritual conversations with others order our Sharing Faith workbook.

LEADING YOUR CHURCH TO MISSIONAL LIFE: Shawn Lovejoy

"Culture eats strategy for breakfast." While this quote may or may not have come from Peter Drucker, the truth of it is indisputable. While strategy gives direction and guidance, culture tells us how we do life.

So how does a church change its culture? How do we dig down to the bedrock of how we do life as a church and change it?

Shawn Lovejoy, founding pastor of Mountain Lake Church, began Mountain Lake in 2000 as an attractional, Sunday morning, worship experience based church. God blessed this infant which which became a mega church of almost 3,000 people. Yet Shawn felt something was wrong, something was missing. Their worship was great. People were inviting their friends and networks. By many standards Mountain Lake was a successful church plant. Yet deep within Shawn's heart was a disquieting seed of doubt. Were they growing a church or were they making disciples of Jesus?

This doubt led Shawn to rethink Mountain Lake. For the past four years Shawn has been working with missional thinkers like Alex Absalom, Hugh Halter, Alan Hirsch and others to answer this question:

How can we move an attractionally based church towards missional action without blowing it up?

Shawn walked our Multiplying Church Cohort through "9 Steps to Culture Change." The audio portion of this presentation with video notes is available for you to view on the Kairos
website. Shawn gives practical, down to earth advice based on their experience at Mountain Lake. You'll be blessed,  encouraged, and informed by Shawn.

A Culture of Generosity

How's your church doing financially? At this time of year most churches are hoping that the Christmas spirit and tax incentives work together to motivate their people to give the year-end gifts that will balance their cash flow.

Tim Spivey (newvintage.org) brought his research and experience on developing a culture of generosity in churches to our final Multiplying Church Cohort meeting of 2014. Here's some highlights:

• Generosity is a big, bold biblical theme
• Generosity is a leadership driven outcome
• Rule of thirds: 1/3 of your people give $10/week or $500 or more per year, 1/3 give less than $10/week, and 1/3 give nothing
•  What it takes to raise money is a worthy cause and a worthy asker
• Don't plow under your own field by de-emphasizing giving with statements such as, "Separate and apart from" or "you may choose to give your time"

Tim suggests a 2-year process to develop a culture of generosity in your church.

You can view Tim's presentation at the Kairos website.

3 Seasons of Planting

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The Kairos Strategy Lab is designed around three seasons of Planting: Groundwork, Launch, and Grow. Each season has its own set of objectives and purpose. We use this picture board to illustrate these three stages and the key tasks of each season.

Groundwork

Groundwork is the preparation time, beginning from Discovery Lab until the planter is on the field and at least 75% funded. The purpose of Groundwork is for the planter to lay a strong foundation for his work.

Goals of Season One: GroundWork

1.     Develop a ministry plan

2.     Gain a partner church

3.     Raise funding up to 75%

4.     Practice casting vision by organizing 3 large group events

5.     Initiate two prayer teams (mass and personal)

6.     Move onsite

Launch

Launch begins when the planter is on the field and continues through the first year after the launch of the regular Sunday worship experience.

Goals of Season Two: Launch are to accomplish the launch benchmarks, those tasks that will raise the planters probabilities of success:

1.     Seed Team committed (five to six family units)

2.     Tithing (by seed team)

3.     Financial team is in place

4.     Cast vision to 1,000 people who are added to the cultivation database

5.     Missional Communities (three with twenty people each)

6.     10 Baptisms

Grow

The Grow season usually begins about the third year of the church’s life. At this point the planter has experience under his belt, real people in the church, and all the challenges that come with church life. It’s easy at this point for the planter to settle into an “as usual” way of doing things that puts a brake on growth. The Grow season is designed to keep the church growing.

The Grow season begins when the new church is at least twelve months past the initial Sunday launch.

Goals of Season Three: Grow

1.     Begin using Natural Church Development to build and maintain healthy systems

2.     Establish a 3-deep leadership

3.     Recognized as an active, contributing part of community, the city gov’t and key community partners know and value you

4.     Reach an average worship attendance of 200 people

5.     Initiate plans for a daughter church plant

Kairos Planters at Exponential West 1014

Last week a good Kairos crew of staff and planters spent the week together at the Exponential West planters' conference hosted by the Saddleback church. We were treated to a feast of presentations and classes on evangelism.

After Exponential we took a few days together at Manhattan Beach in a men's retreat. We got to pray, play, eat, talk, walk, bicycle and play on the beach together. It was a great time of refreshment.

Exponential Reflections

Here are a few key nuggets from Exponential:

• Ed Stetzer: No real researcher believes Christianity is dying in America. However, there is a radical shift of influence. Where in the 20th century non-believers looked towards Christians for influence in the 21st century they are looking towards the cultural  for influence. The 50% of Americans who are non-practicing religious  are moving into the category "nones," not having faith.
• Jeff Vanderstelt: "People don't know how to share the gospel with unbelievers because they don't know how to share Jesus with each other. " 
• Alex Absalom: "Discipleship is imitation more than information." 
• Hugh Halter: "Evangelism is changing the assumptions people have about us and God."
• Shawn Lovejoy: "Becoming missional is moving people along the discipleship journey to become a disciple making people." 
• Larry Osburn: "Come and See evangelism (inviting people to church) works. It: 1) lets people see how Christians worship and work, 2) provides instant and built-in followup and 3) everyone can do it 

 

 

Strategy Lab for New Planters

Today was the final day for the tenth Kairos Strategy Lab. Six new planting projects trained for new churches in Seattle and Kennewick, WA; Phoenix, AZ; Temple, TX; Memphis, TN; and a new campus ministry at the Univ of Arkansas Little Rock (UALR).

Strategy Lab Prep
Fundraising: Kairos sends all our planters through the fundraising bootcamp taught by Support Raising Solutions. Most planters go through the SRS bootcamp before coming to Strategy Lab.

Pre-SLab Workbook: Strategy Lab is the first creation of a new church. What will this church be? Who will it serve? How will it connect with new to share the blessings of Jesus together? Planters develop answers to these questions as they work on their Basic Biblical Beliefs, mission, vision, and core values prior to lab. The lab workbook helps them develop their Kingdom Concept  (Will Mancini). The Kingdom Concept ties the planter to the reality of their planting site rather than the love affair that exists only in their own minds (see Easum and Griffith, chp. 3).

During Strategy Lab
Our Strategy Lab training helps the planters develop their ministry plans. We work the planters throught the three seasons of planting: Groundwork, Launch, and Grow.

Groundwork is the preparation work as the planter develops their vision, assesses their spiritual rhythms, fundraises, gains partners, and engages in coaching.

Launch is the season when the planter is on the field and raising their seed team, developing their financial system, engaging their growth engines, and developing their missional communities.

Grow is distant, three to four years in the future, so we just touch on this season. Since our goal is to see these new churches reach an average worship attendance of 200+ the grow season focuses on solving problems, developing 3-deep leadership systems, Natural Church Development, StratOp, and implementing Beyond 200 activities on a regular basis.

Post Lab
In the next thirty days the planters write their quarter million dollar ministry plan. One mantra we repeat over and over is this:

If it's only in your head it's just an idea, it's not a plan until it is written

Planter Classes in Video from Pepperdine Bible Lectureships 2014

Kairos planters and staff presented six classes, a public dinner, and a network dinner at this year's Pepperdine Bible Lectureships. These planters are innovative, practitioners and they share from their best practices in the field.

This year we've created video summaries for you so you can catch the best of what these men and women shared. Click on the links provided to view these videos.

Answering the Call of God's Lost People
Shaun and Marci Dutile, Laconia, NH

Growing a Mobile Church
Tim Blair

Learning from the Inside Out: Ethos Apprentices
Jared and Laura King


The Challenges and Future of Campus Ministry
Chris Buxton and Neil Reynolds

What Churches Can Learn from New Churches
Kevin Woods
Brenda Woods

Lean and Mean or Running on Empty
Vancouver Church of Christ with Gena Granberg, Craig Brown, Stan Granberg, and DeAnne Perrigo

Kairos at Pepperdine Bible Lectures 2014

Are you planning to attend the Pepperdine Bible Lectures next week? If you are, we'll see you there!

Here is where you can meet Kairos church planters, dreamers, and doers:

Answering the Call of God's Lost People
Shaun and Marci Dutile, Laconia, NH
Wednesday, 8:30 AM
AC 280

Growing a Mobile Church
Tim and Lisa Blair
Wednesday, 9:30 AM
AC 280

Kairos Church Planting Dinner
Speaker: Jason Locke
Wednesday, 4:30 PM
Hahn Fireside Room

Learning from the Inside Out: Ethos Apprentices
Jared and Laura King
Thursday, 8:30 AM
AC 280

The Challenges and Future of Campus Ministry
Chris Buxton and Neil Reynolds
Thursday, 9:30 a.m.
AC 280

What Churches Can Learn from New Churches
Kevin and Brenda Woods
Friday, 8:30 AM
AC 280

Lean and Mean or Running on Empty
Vancouver Church of Christ with Gena and Stan Granberg
Friday, 9:30 AM
AC 280

You are also invited to join us in prayer on behalf of God's lost people Thursday at 7:45 a.m. on the South Balcony off the dining hall.

Or you can always drop by our table in the Firestone Fieldhouse.

See you in Malibu!

The Kairos Staff
Stan, Gena, Scott, Kim, Bruce, Laura, and Patty

The Monday After Easter by James Emory White

Amongst church planters Easter is what is called a "BIG Day." That means it's a day when we expect to see more people at our worship experiences. We expect our people to actively invite their friends, neighbors, and co-workers to join them. We expect to end the day tired yet fulfilled. Sometimes these things happen. Sometimes they don't.

What BIG days do show us is what I call "reach." Big days show us not the new people visiting for the first time but the people who are sometimes with us and sometimes not. We see the reach of our influence in the lives of people with whom we're connected.

The following blog post is from James Emory White and well worth the read.

[Editor’s Note: This blog was first published in 2012. It has received so much positive feedback that we have decided to offer it again.] 

This is a blog with a very specific audience. I know it may exclude some of you, but it may be healthy for you to eavesdrop.

 

This is for all the church planters and their volunteers on post-Easter Monday, struggling to make it from week-to-week, as well as the leaders and members of established churches which are anything but “mega” – well below the 200 threshold in terms of average attendance.

 

I don’t know how Easter Sunday went for you, but I have a hunch. 

 

It was bigger than normal, but less than breakthrough. It was good, but not great. Your attendance was large, but not staggering; worth being happy about, but not writing home about. You are grateful to God, but now that Easter is over, there’s a bit of a letdown. You wanted so much more.

 

It was, in the end, a typical Easter Sunday.

 

And you are normal.

 

When you lead a church, you can't help but dream, and dream big. I think that’s one of the marks of a leader. But for most, it’s not long before the dream comes face to face with reality.

 

When I planted Meck, I just knew the mailer I sent out (we started churches with mailers in those days) would break every record of response, and that we would be a church in the hundreds, if not already approaching a thousand, in a matter of weeks or months.

 

Willow Creek?  Eat our dust. Saddleback? Come to our conference.

 

The reality was starting in a Hilton hotel in the midst of a tropical storm with 112 dripping wet people, and by the third weekend – through the strength of my preaching – cutting that sucker in half to a mere 56.

 

Actually, not even 56, because our total attendance was 56. This means there were fifteen or twenty kids, so maybe thirty or so people actually sitting in the auditorium. 

 

(As a good church planter, I think we also counted people who walked slowly past the hotel ballroom doors in the hallway.)

 

Yes, we’ve grown over the years. 

 

But that’s the point. 

 

It’s taken years.

 

It usually does.

 

I know the soup of the day is rapid growth, but please don’t benchmark yourself against that. It’s not typical. It’s not even (usually) healthy. So stop playing that dark, awful game called comparison. It’s sick and terribly toxic. 

 

Really, stop it.

 

I don’t care who you are, there will always be someone bigger or faster-growing, so why torment yourself? Or worse, fall prey to the sins of envy and competition, as if you are benchmarked against other churches?

 

(Rumor has it the true “competition” is a deeply fallen secular culture that is held in the grip of the evil one. Just rumor, mind you.)

 

The truth is that on the front end, every church is a field of dreams. After a few months, or a year or two, it's morphed from a field of dreams to a field to be worked, and your field may not turn out as much fruit – much less as fast – as you had hoped.

 

That’s okay.

 

You can rest assured that it probably has little to do with your commitment, your faith, your spirituality, your call, or God’s love for you. 

 

I know it’s frustrating. We’ve got a lot of the world in us, and thus look to worldly marks of success and affirmation.

 

But what matters is whether you are being faithful, not whether you are being successful. You’re not in this for human affirmation, but a “well done” from God at the end.

 

Did you preach the gospel yesterday?

 

Then “well done.”

 

Did you and your team do the best you could with what you had?

 

Then “well done.”

 

Did you and your church invite your unchurched friends to attend?

 

Then “well done.”

 

Did you pray on the front-end, have faith, and trust?

 

Then “well done.”

 

Ignore the megachurches that tweet, blog and boast about their thousands in attendance.

 

Yep, even mine.

 

It’s not that we don’t matter. We do, and we’re very proud of the hard work of our volunteers and the lives we have the privilege of changing. There’s a place for us.

 

It’s just that you matter, too.

 

And you may need to remember that.

 

And perhaps most of all on the Monday after Easter.

 

James Emery White

Multiplying Church Cohorts

How do we minister as relevant, effective, life-giving churches in this drastically changing world of ours? This is the challenge of our times as a fellowship and congregations.

This year Kairos is organizing groups of churches into what we're calling multiplying church cohorts. For a year these churches will work together on some aspect of multiplication: increasing attendance, adding worship experiences, or starting multi-sites or new churches. By working on these multiplying projects as a group we get to learn from each other and share the resources, as well as becoming good friends together.

We'll be starting other cohorts as this year moves along. Your church may be ready to get into one of these. Let me know.

Discovery Lab this month at Camp Manatawny, PA

This week four couples and two single men will be engaging in the Kairos Discovery Lab, our premier church planter assessment process. This is often a life changing event. Please pray for both those people coming to investigate their possible future in church planting and the interview team as we seek to listen to God and give valuable insight to these people for their future and God's use in the his kingdom.

A New Christian Responds
Recently I received a letter from a man who is supporting a church planter because of the impact this planter has had on his life. Here's a short excerpt from that letter:

I was raised a Roman Catholic and attended French Catholic Schools. The French Catholic God was an Old Testament God with a long laundry list of "don'ts" enough to choke a mule. There was no love, compassion or tolerance. When I eventually made my own way into the world, I gave up Catholicism, and God entirely.

I met (the planter) at the gym we were frequenting at the time, and one thing led to another, I studied and was baptized. I experienced the most fantastic feeling as I emerged from the water. It was as though the weight of the entire world had been lifted from my shoulders, after a long life of sin. WOW.

Father of heaven and earth. You pursue your people for your name's sake. Thank you for letting us be involved in your mission of grace. Amen.

How Do We Share Faith in Post-Christian America?

Last week I was in Memphis working with a church leadership team on Natural Church Development and teaching an intensive course--21st Century Missional Strategies--at Harding School of Theology. It was a powerful week as both groups were discovering a change in paradigms for what they are about.

21st Century Missional Strategies is answering the question that titles this blog: How do we share faith in 21st century America? Here's the big revelation that came from my students:

We know we ought to share faith but we keep suppressing that impulse so it won't bother us.

Do you feel like that too? You know sharing faith should be part of your life but you just keep suppressing it and putting the thought out of your mind so you don't have to feel guilty?

Here are a couple of thoughts about this. First, this way of thinking is still guilt based. OK, Matthew 28:18-20 sits like a pretty big stone mountain out there that we can't ignore. Jesus does say get out in the world and make disciples of all nations, which, as I read the text, pretty well means EVERYBODY. But why the guilt? Why do we work from the assumption that sharing faith is so gruesome, so intimidating, that to do it is an onerous task and not a grace-filled joy? We've got some reorienting to do as God's people so that we actually experience and believe that Jesus is the good news he claims to be.

Second, why isn't sharing faith the grace-filled experience of joy it seems like it should be if Jesus is in fact good news? Two parts to this answer. First, if Jesus is the resurrected Lord he presented himself to be (Mark 16; 1 Cor. 15:3-11) that's a game changer! It changes everything we do. Paul puts it very succinctly, if Jesus was raised from the dead then we win and death loses. There's a new book, a small one of just a hundred pages, that's a great read on the implication of the resurrection: Raised? by Jonathan Dodson and Brad Watson. We need to wrestle with our doubts until we too become convicted believers.

And what makes sharing faith so difficult as well is that we do live in a post-Christian context where it's not acceptable nor politically correct to be a "proselytizer." That means it takes more than a bit of courage to open our mouths and make sort of confession of faith. In fact, experience demonstrates that when we meet someone new and don't let our faith out of the closet the next time it will be twice as hard and after our third meeting the only way that person will discover we're Jesus followers is by accident.

If you really want to explore sharing faith you need to order the workbook Sharing Faith. It's not a read, it's planned activity that course that could just possibly release in you the joy of sharing faith that you long to experience. God bless you in that direction.

A Culture of Leadership Development

The U.S. military is one of the most prolific leader developing institutions in the world in part because each promotion provides a new set of skill competencies and increases the number of people being led. Early officer promotions are almost certain but the higher the rank the more stringent the promotion requirements.

Most of the time I've heard leader development in churches made as an announcement: Hey, we need some people to volunteer to teach, or lead a small group, or  be an usher, etc., etc.

What if we began to think of developing leaders in a more consistent, intentional manner? Could it be possible to provide, through increasing levels of responsibility and numbers of people, a pathway for leaders to follow that provided them personal development, experience, and a sense of confident growth?

Kairos is working with a number of churches to create leader development pathways. Here's the general model:

Across the bottom are personal leader development stages. Any person can move through all five of these stages at whatever level of leadership of which they are capable.

Emerging: these are people who are developing a self-identity as leaders. They move in and out of leadership roles as they explore the fit of being a leader.
Developing: these people view themselves as leaders and they are developing their leadership skills in small groups, Bible classes, and performing entry level leadership tasks. They are learning what is required of leaders and developing basic leadership skills.
Recognized: these people have gained enough skill and experience so that others, those they lead and those who lead them, recognize their leadership abilities and give them ongoing leader responsibilities.
Experienced: these people have become effective leaders in their roles and have a well developed set of leadership behaviors, skills, and experience.
Mature: these people lead confidently and capably at their level of leadership.
Up the side are four levels of leadership. Levels are based on both the capacity and capability of leadership with which any given person is gifted.

Doing: technically this is not a leadership level because a person may be doing a task yet not leading other people. This level sets below the heavy line which distinguishes between personal leadership and leading others.
Directing: this is where the leader begins leading others, providing them the direction they need to accomplish the doing tasks.
Planning: leadership becomes more complex at this level as the leader now leads not just people who are doing, but other leaders. At this stage a leader is involved in higher function planning and organizing that requires more complex leader ability.
Generating: leaders at this stage now work in abstract areas of creative thought. They are able to bring solutions to organizational problems. They create new ministries, activities, and events that do not yet exist but that will propel the organization forward. Leaders at this level may also create entirely new organizations.



This simple pathway provides a way to visualize how leaders can be developed.

3 Growth Challenges to become a Multi-Site Church

Multi-site churches, that is one church meeting in multiple locations, are a growing trend across America. Ed Stetzer’s

research has identified over 5,000 multi-site churches in America. In our fellowship of Churches of Christ there are not many multisite churches. Oak Hills in San Antonio, The Hills in Fort Worth, The Branch and Highland Oaks in Dallas are examples of churches with heritage in Churches of Christ that have become multisite.

Over the past year Kairos has worked with a small number of larger churches in our fellowship whose leaders are exploring the option of becoming multisite. In 2013 we invited Geoff Surratt to conduct a multisite workshop and this year we are working with several churches in a multiplying church network where we can plan and pursue multiplying activities together.

This month some of these churches met together to envision what multiplying projects would look like and engage in some vision development. As we worked together 3 critical growth challenges emerged that churches in our fellowship of Churches of Christ will face when moving to a multisite expression:

Multisite Challenge #1: Family Identity

Our heritage works from a nuclear family identity, that is, we all expect to see everyone when we gather together for worship. If your church has ever tried to go to multiple services you’ve experienced the lament, “But we won’t ever see everybody.” It’s this expectation that in our family we all gather around the dinner table together that makes multiple services so difficult. It’s also the first critical challenge for multisite. We find it hard to envision “one church in multiple locations.”

To address this challenge we need to change our identity from nuclear family to extended family. An extended family still loves one another and cherishes those times when we can get together, but we don’t expect to see everyone at every meal. Pushing this analogy a bit further, we need to see ourselves as uncles and aunts, nephews and nieces rather than brothers and sisters. We understand the emotional challenge of this change when, as in the congregation in which I grew up, one of their identifying songs says, “You’ll notice we say brother and sister ‘round here.”

Multisite Challenge #2: Expanding Geography

Distance and number of sites has a multiplying impact, not an additive one. A surprising insight gained by early adopting multisite churches is they thought having one administrative system across multiple sites would give them an economy of scale. Paid staff could manage volunteers at multiple sites, multiplying both themselves and their impact. What they found was the distance and number of sites actually multiplied the complexity needed to manage and maintain the site ministries. Multisite churches are matrix organizations. It takes well-defined connections, communication patterns, and reporting to manage a multisite. Planning and decisions must be communicated up and down the reporting line. There is no central water cooler in a multisite church around which news, emotions, and relationships are naturally shared and developed. Intentionality becomes critical.

Multisite Challenge #3: Intentional Leader Development

How do you deliberately identify, train, and deploy leaders from within your church? Even with my association with many congregations across our country I could not come up with one good example of a church that had a systematic process to develop their leaders for the multiple leadership roles that exist in a church. Most churches tend to look for who has developed leadership skills in their vocations that are usable in the church context and hope that they can translate the use those skills well in the church setting. Successful multisite churches have well defined pathways for leader development for volunteers and paid staff.

Changing from a congregation with one worship service to one church with multiple congregations in multiple locations requires meeting these three challenges as major steps in their evolution as a church body. The process won’t be for every church. For those whom God has prepared and is calling for this journey their promises to be a lot of work with the potential for rich, kingdom rewards.

Do you live in a post-Christian city?

Where you live makes a difference in your faith. Do you believe that? let's say you lived in Knoxville, TN. Most people you know are likely to believe the Bible is true, helpful, and a positive influence in their lives. But if you live in the northeast, say Burlington, VT, more than half of every adult you knew would be unchurched.

If you lived  in Jackson, MS chances are better than 50/50 that you not only worshiped this weekend, you also attended Sunday School. If you lived in Albany, NY, however,  59% of people who say they are Christians have not made a commitment to Jesus (from the BarnaGroup).

If you live and are a member of church somewhere in the southern portion of the US you probably feel faith is pretty strong, that most people you know are Christians, and that your church is doing pretty well. If you live in the northeast or the west coast you know it's not cool to talk about faith, most of your neighbors are not Christian believers, and you may be worried that your church won't be around many more years.

Where you lives makes a difference in how you experience faith. We could take these numbers and get depressed. Or, we can choose to be proactive. Is your church helping to expand the influence of Christian faith in our country? Do you share your faith with the people God has put around you?

Planting new churches is about influencing our country for God and sharing faith as individuals. If your church is not helping new churches begin, would you champion that cause to your leaders?

Stan Granberg, 360-609-6700

Christmas Blessing: The Bible in 10

Click photo to go to YouTube

Kevin Woods, church planter of Renovatus Church of Christ in Vancouver, WA, asked me to deliver the story of The Bible in 10 minutes. It was a wonderful experience for me to read and think through God's story to condense into something coherent yet full enough to draw novice and mature Christian again through the biblical text.

There is a Prezi to accompany the text, available at: http://goo.gl/ohPCoU.

During this Christmas season I pray this video provides you and yours a blessing and a reminder of God's faithful love to us all.

MERRY CHRISTMAS

Stan Granberg
Kairos Church Planting

A New Scorecard for Your Church Members

The idea of a church scorecard has been around a long time. Typically we church leaders count nickels and noses, but lately the talk of a new scorecard has grown. In Transformational Church: Creating a New Scorecard for Congregations Ed Stetzer and Thom Rainer define a Transformational Church as one that “transforms people to look like Christ” (p. 33). Well of course that’s what we all want. The perplexing question is how do we get there?

There is a reinterpretation of our more traditional measures that is occurring that I think is quite healthy. Think of these changes as “moves.” Here are three big moves:

1.     Membership to Discipleship. A member may have relatively little expectations made of them, and what expectations are made are generally minimal. Discipleship, on the other hand, is the maximum oriented approach of Phil. 3:14, “I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”

2.     Attendance to Activity. With attendance as the criterion the punch card approach is what’s active. People come to services to get their cards punched. Christian action is relegated to a few hours at the church building. With activity as the criterion the field of involvement as well as the time span becomes infinite. “Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord” (Col. 3:23).

3.    Giving to Generosity. When we work on giving we end up talking about an activity. Giving becomes a matter of counting. With generosity we are working on a lifestyle. “As for the rich in this present age, . . . They are to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share (1 Tim. 6:17-19).

Last week I asked a younger minister what a personal scorecard for church members might look like from his vantage point. His answers were simple and specific. As you read them think of how your church might use these as part of your year-end reviews and challenges to your people. What?! You don’t do such reviews? In my life I’ve never been part of a church that did. I think this kind of scorecard could make a huge impact. Let’s try it.

#1    Worship Experience: How have you engaged in your worship and experience of God?

·       We expect our people to be part of our community worship experiences 75% of Sundays.

·       Our goal is 100% of our people making community worship a life priority for themselves and their families.

#2    Relational Community: How have you developed your relationships with others in this body?

·       We expect our people to be part of a relationship building community.

·       Our goal is 100% of our people taking part in our relationship groups.

#3   Financial Generosity: How have you contributed to the mission and ministry of this church through your giving?

·       We expect our people to be generous givers, using a tithe as a keystone point.

·       Our goal is 50% of our people tithing.

#4    Body Service: What have you done to serve and add to our church body?

·       We expect our people to use their gifts and abilities to bless the life of our church.

·       Our goal is 75% of our people sharing their giftedness with our church.

#5    Community Service: What have you done to serve our community as a witness of Christ in the world?

·       We expect our people to do good in the world, not just in the name of Jesus, but to express the name Jesus with those whom they serve.

·       Our goal is 75% of our people sharing their faith as witnesses of Jesus to our community through word and deed.

#6    Personal Life: What spiritual disciplines have you practiced this year that have helped you grow in the life of faith?

·       We expect our people to grow in their abilities to be mature Christians, able to handle well the word of truth.

·       Our goal is 75% of our people are deliberately developing their spiritual lives in a planned, intentional way.