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Leadership: Energy

We all love people with energy. We like people who seem to do a lot of things very well because they seem to have boundless reserves of energy. We all would love to be people that have this energy but can we all have it?

I think the answer is yes and it is all about changing our attitude and doing less not doing more.

Attitude
How do you see your life? Are you grateful for all the opportunities in your life God has given you? Many of you have the opportunity to be at least one of the following: parent, spouse, teacher, leader, lawyer, pastor, musician, nurse, student, friend, activist, blogger, preacher, etc. You get to go for walks with those you love, work in an air conditioned environment, watch movies, read books, play sports, learn, cook great meals, go out to eat meals, etc.

Do you thank God for all of the things you get to do? Because of your place in the west you are privalleged more almost all the world so is your day filled with thankfulness?

Attitude is so important, if we have an attitude of thanks for the great things God has put in our lives we will enjoy life more and when we enjoy things they give us energy!

How is your thankfulness?

Do less not more
One of the problems we have in our fast paced culture is that we feel we need to do more and more and more. But the result is we do things that we hate and that drive us down or we do things we love doing but we take too much on and then we are despondent when we know we are doing a sub par job on most of the things we are doing.

The thing is we need to do less but do what we do better. We also need to choose the things we do better.

What are your main responsibilities? Do they get the lion’s share of your time?
How many things do you do each week that energize you?
How many things do you do each week that drain you emotionally?
How many things do you do that you could get other people to do?

If a leader lacks energy, he or she will not inspire people.

If a leader is not inspirational are they really a leader?

Leadership: Passion

You can see what a person is passionate about.

Take some ministers to the footy and they will scream their lungs out. Put them in the pulpit and get them to preach about the cross and it sounds like they are reading from a shopping list.

You can see what a person is passionate about

We are in a time where people are more concerned with how you say it rather than what you say. This decline in our culture is unfortunate at best and downright dangerous at worst. But it says to the leader that they need to figure out how they will communicate what they need to communicate. In short the communicator needs to be visibly passionate.

This especially goes for preaching. If you want to preach and be engaging be visibly passionate.

Tips on communicating passion:
1) Make sure what you are communicating hits your heart. If you want to be communicating with passion are you passionate about what you are communicating? My worst sermons have been when I have not taken time for the message to freshly inspire, correct or rebuke me. I find that if the text has done work on me I will communicate the text far better than if I hadn’t.

2) Choose your words carefully It always cracks me up when I hear some ministers talk about their wives. Because their description of their wives are the worst advertisement for marriage ever!

This is a direct quote from a minister about his wife. (I have changed her name though) “This is my wife, her name is Wanda and we have been married for 15 years now and she has been really helpful as a ministry partner. The way she organizes our family is really commendable.”

This quote communicates no passion at all because of the words he chose. Words like helpful and commendable aren’t even okay when you are talking about a book let alone your wife! Also, notice how there are no words which display affection. The words love, like, beautiful, etc. are replaced with helpful and commendable which are just boring and tepid. (By the way if anyone calls something I do “helpful” I really find it hard to know where I am going to hide their body!)

If we want to communicate passion we need to choose our words carefully.

3) Speak with passion. Use your voice to show you are angry/sad/scared/happy/etc. If you speak in a monotone it will make people switch off.

4) Prepare, prepare , prepare. I have found that when I am really confident with what I am communicating I am more passionate. However, when I am not confident passion is the first thing to go. So to be passionate I need to prepare whatever I am communicating well. In fact the more I prepare the better I communicate with Passion.

So what things this week do you need to communicate with Passion? How will you prepare yourself and your message to passionately communicate?

Leadership: Candor

“That was very helpful”
“You are being inappropriate!”

What the hell do these sentences mean?

Nothing

One of the biggest issues Christians face is a lack of candor, I define candor as:

Clearly communicating what needs to be said when you need to say it.

I think we lack candor because we want to be nice and we do not want to hurt the other persons feelings.

This is gutless.

And not loving.

Loving people means saying the hard things, whereas being nice means you will make them feel good.

If you want to love people be candid.

Candor is not just used when you need to say the hard thing, it is also used in giving specific feedback.

We could say “that sermon was very helpful/lovely/etc.” and thereby not really say anything about the sermon. Or you could say “What I really dug about the sermon is that you made me clearly see X by showing me Y. I also loved your illustration about the dog it worked because of A. Also, what your application did was highlight this area of weakness in my life by applying what was aid in verse 6 this way.” See how this communicates far more but requires far more thought from us.

In short, candor informs better, it communicates more, it allows people to have their say and it if you start using it people will be candid with you which will help you make better calls.

How candid are you?

Leadership: Communication

Hypocrisy alert! One of the things that my team is constantly telling me to work on is communication, so I feel hypocritical blogging about communication but I think good leaders communicate so here it goes:

Here is why communication matters:

Communication says that you matter. If I forget to tell you the things I needed to tell you or should have told you this communicates something. It communicates that you are not important enough for me to tell you what I need to tell you.

Communication lets everyone know where the team is at. If I very rarely communicate I run the risk of people getting off mission or just plain thinking that what they are doing does not matter to the rest of the team. I try to communicate once every two weeks to every volunteer that what they do is Important and how grateful Resolved as a church is for them helping out. I also remind them of where their contribution fits in at Resolved.

Communication shows I am willing to say what needs to be said. A person whom communicates is far more likely to have the hard conversation that no one likes having but we all know needs to happen

Communication allows the leader to hear how their people are going. If I do not talk with my people How can I be their leader/pastor? So I need to be communicating with them

Things I am trying to do to communicate more effectively:

Replying to every text, voice message, email, facemail, twitter message even if it is just replying with “Cool” or “I got it” or “Paul Liao is not part of the Christian Music scene he is the Christian Music scene!”

Writing a list at the start of the day of people I need to communicate with for that day and designating the best form of communication (email, phone call, face to face meeting, etc.) to communicate what needs to be communicated and then communicating!

Every phone call or meeting I have I write out what I want to say on piece of paper and if possible have it in front of me when I am having the phone conversation or the meeting. This is so that I do not miss out on anything I wanted to say or ask. Now I do not do this in pastoral situations where a person needs to chat. But in those situations I do write down what I want to talk about before hand (if there is anything) just so it stays in my head. I also write down anything I need to do after the meeting is done.

I pray before and after ever significant bit of communication. I tend to screw things up so I always ask for Gods help in leading me to say the right things especially when difficult things need to be said or talked about.

Have you got any tips for me on how to communicate better?

Leadership: Vision

When Martin Luther King stood on the steps of the Washington monument and said I have a dream the World stopped.

And the world still remembers

But why does the world still remember?

Was it his eloquence? Sure

Was it the time in history? Definitely

Was it geographic location? Probably

But I think it was one thing more than all these. Martin Luther King’s famous speech is still remembered and quoted today because of His vision.

He is some of his speech:

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal."
I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.
I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.
I have a dream today.
I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification; one day right there in Alabama, little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.
I have a dream today.
Did you notice what he was saying? He was talking about a dream that in the future America could be a a different place.

He had a vision.

One of the things some leaders lack is vision. Vision is just a a picture in your head of where your church or organization will be in an allotted amount of time.

If you don’t have a vision you are just treading water.
Without a vision the the diffeent things that happen in your organization don’t have any unifying purpose.


What is your vision?
Can you say it one clear sentence?
Do the people around you know the vision?

Do you have a Dream today?

Leadership: Do you do what you say you will do?

How many times have you heard someone say they will do something and then not deliver?

One of the easiest ways for a leader to lose credibility is to keep saying that they will do something and it doesn’t get done.

When was the last time you said you would do something and it didn’t get done?
Have you apologized for this oversight?

Ask the people around you are you one who can be relied upon to do the things you said you would do or are you a person who can talk a good game but cannot walk it?

Because people are looking for a leader that does what they said they would.

Leadership: Character

I love Larry Bird! Partly because he is white and I am white and it gives me hope as a basketball player!

My favorite story of Larry Bird is when his team, the Boston Celtics, were at Seattle playing the Seattle Supersonics. The Celtics were two down with six seconds to go and they had the ball. They called a timeout.
Larry walks to the huddle and says ‘Guys, here is what we are going to do. You get the ball to me, get the hell out of the way and we will win!’
The Coach, KC Jones said ‘Hey Larry, I am the coach I call the shots! Ok guys here is what we are going to do. Get the ball to Larry, get the hell out of the way and we will win!’
After the timeout, Larry walks over to the guy who was marking him, Xavier McDaniel, a guy who was 6’7 and who could go bear hunting with a twig and come back with seven carcasses. Larry looked McDaniel in the eye and said ‘X we both know what’s going to happen, I am going to get the ball here I am going to fake left dribble right and shoot a three in your face. It will go in swish and I will look you in the eye and say I told you so!’
The ref blows the whistle, Larry gets the ball, he fakes left dribbles right and shoots a three in McDaniel’s face. It goes in swish and he looks McDaniel in the eye and says ‘I told you so!’
After the Game KC Jones is asked is he ever nervous when the Celtics are in that situation? There are a few ticks of the clock left down by two and Larry is taking a shot that will either make or break the whole game, is he ever nervous?’ KC Jones smiled and said ‘ No, cause Larry always comes through’

I think the essence of Character is someone who always comes through. Who always does what they say they the will do. As a leader, character is essential, the Bible speaks of leaders of the church having great character (1Timothy 3). So what about you have you got great Character?

Do you always come to places on time?
Do you confront people or talk behind their back?
Do you own up for your own mistakes when it is your fault?
Do you tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?
Do you look after your family well?
Are you accountable to people?
Do you work hard or bludge a lot?
Do you always do what you say you will do?

As a leader Character is essential!

Leadership: do you have the right people?

I once had a dinner with a very well known leader who had just retired as the CEO of one of the biggest companies in the world ever. Here is a brief part of the conversation:

Me: Leadership is hard
Him: It is
Me: It is lonely being at the top
Him: Hans you aren’t a leader
Me: What? Why?
Him: Because a lonely person is not a leader. A leader is a person who gathers a team and leads them somewhere. If you are alone you have no followers and therefore you aren’t a leader!

These words floored me! Partly because an oft quoted leadership maxim ‘It is lonely being at the top’ is seen for what it is: absolute crap.

If a leader is someone who, through influence and example, inspires, motivates, rebukes, trains and teaches a group of people to reach a goal or destination.

It is all about people and who you have around you.

Would Michael Jordan have won all those championships without his teammates?
Without Scottie Pippen and his all round play?
Without Horace Grant or Dennis Rodman providing the muscle down low?
Without the three point shooting of Kerr, Paxson and Kukoc
Without a coach like Phil Jackson who mastered the art of taming fragile, overpriced egos?
I think not

You show me a great leader and I will show you a person who can pick the best people for then job, motivate them, train them and inspire them to be the best they can be for the organization, church, team or whatever they are a part of.

What kind of people do you want?

Jack Welch the CEO of general electric said he looks for people who have four E’s and one P

Welch says he wants people with Energy, people who have the ability to Energize those around them, those people who Execute and get things done and those who have the Edge to make tough calls under fire. All these are useless if they don’t have Passion that is the P.

I am blessed with the right people around me in my church plant. People who love me enough to say the hard things to my face, who execute on things we need done and who are passionate people with energy.

Have you got the right people around you? Or do you just get the first people who put their hand up for the job? If you get the right people your job will be made mostly easier but if you get the wrong people you will probably go nowhere.

As a leader, who is surrounding you?

Leadership: do they love you?

‘A leader always touches a heart before he asks for a hand’
John C. Maxwell

I once went into a meeting with a bunch of youth group leaders at a previous church I was at, I was the student minister responsible for running the youth group and I had a brand new vision that was going revolutionize the way we did the youth ministry. In fact, because of this strategy, so many people were going to come to youth group that we would have to hire a fulltime youth minister!! That is how good the plan was.

I gave my spiel and then asked them what they thought.

‘I think its crap!’
‘What’s wrong with the way we do it now?’
‘Dude, you are only here for a year, what do you care anyway?’

I am not sure how good the strategy was (I don’t even remember it), but that was the day I learnt that no one would follow me just because I had a title. The biggest reason people were going to follow me is if they loved me. If I wanted people to buy into a vision they must first buy into me. They must first love me and trust me.

Have you got a vision?

Do you think people will buy into your vision?

Firstly have they bought into you?

The minister at my home church is a great example of the buy in. From what I was told, when he got there he did not make any grand plans or sweeping strategies.

He loved them.

He ate with them, he cried with them, he laughed with them, opened the bible with them, helped them with anything he could, opened his house to them, etc.

Now my friends at my home church will follow him almost anywhere, because they have bought into him.

Have your people bought into you? Have you wept, listened to, apologized to, laughed, ate, drank, played, sat, read, helped, sung, danced, xboxed, warcrafted, footballed, watched movies, went to bands etc. with them?

Have you shown by your time that you love them

Do they love you?

‘People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care’
John C. Maxwell

Leadership: Do you love them?

I had a conversation with a friend who was trying to lead a bunch of people at his workplace through a difficult time. He said he tried everything to get them onside but it hasn’t worked and then he dropped the bombshell. This is how the conversation rolled
Him: ‘I guess I just don’t like them.’
Me: ‘You don’t like them? What do you feel towards them?’
Him: ‘Good question! I guess not much at all. I don’t really like them and I don’t feel anything for them.’
Me: ‘Do you love them’
Him: ‘Hell no.’
Me: ‘Would you do anything for them outside of your job?’
Him: ‘Hans, you are the pastor I am just an engineer!’

I said to my friend that he could never lead this group of people, because Leadership is all about relationships of service.

If I don’t love I will never lead.

That doesn’t mean you have to like them and want to hang out with them. I have lead teams where I wouldn’t consider the people in those teams friends but I have loved them and have tried to show them this.

What’s the difference? The Bible says this ‘This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers’ Notice how practical the definition is? The laying down of your life constitutes the very heart of love that you are showing towards a person.

If you want to lead you will love.
So,
Do you communicate well to your followers?
Do you ask them how they are and really want to know how they are?
When was the last time you sat down with someone and did nothing but listen?
When was the last time you lovingly said something hard to someone because they needed to hear it?
When was the last time you held the people around you up in prayer?
When did you last weep with the people around you?
When did you last do something like go to the movies with them on your day off?

I am asking myself these questions. Because I think if I communicate with, weep with, listen to, pray for, rebuke gently, Give my time to my followers I am loving them and I am showing that I love them. So my friend who I was talking to might not have been able to like the people around him but he could have loved them.

What about you? Do you love the people you are trying to lead?

Leadership: What kind of leader are you?

In my few years on this planet I have seen two types of leaders:
• Narcissistic leaders who are generally insecure and leadership is all about them and their ego and
• Servant leaders who care more about the team winning then them looking good

So why do you lead? Is it all for your glory or is it for the glory of the team/band/group you lead. Or is it for the glory of God?

In Jim Collin’s book Good to Great he describes two different leaders. A level four leader is a leader that: catalyzes commitment to and vigorous pursuit of a clear and compelling vision, stimulating higher performance standards. Whereas a level five leader: Builds enduring greatness through a paradoxical blend of personal humility and professional will. Collins and his team say the best kind of leader is the level five leader. Because when a level five leader goes the company usually misses its star and suffers. Whereas, the Level five leader builds infrastructure around him so he is expendable.

Also:

The level five leader is not the big personality that by his presence inspires people. Rather, he is humble and is ambitious for the company not himself.

The level five leader is a person who is quick to credit his team when things go right and always apportions blame to himself when things go wrong.

The level five leader, wants the people around him to look better than he does because he knows that if they succeed the company succeeds.

The level five leader is driven by the growth of his company and not the growth of his empire.

Rereading Jim Collins on this has given me pause to think about my own leadership. What kind of leader are you?

Leadership: A definition

I have been asked about my views on Leadership and so I decided to put some thoughts down over the next two weeks.

Here is my definiton of what a leader is: A leader is someone who, through influence and example, inspires, motivates, rebukes, trains and teaches a group of people to reach a goal or destination.

The first thing about Leadership is Influence. A Chinese proverb says ‘A leader with no followers is a man just out for a walk’. If you don’t influence anyone you are not a leader. Conversely, if you do influence someone or some people and you don’t think you are a leader you actually are.

The leader sets the example; a leader must do what he expects his followers to do. Do you want people to come on time for your meetings but are always late for theirs? Do you want people to talk straight to you but you talk behind their back? Example is key because your life will give the people you lead the green light to do what they see you doing.

The leader inspires and motivates through vision and feedback. If people don’t have a vision they will get lost and not want to follow you and if you don’t give them feedback they will never be encouraged, thanked, rebuked or rewarded.

The leader teaches and trains behaviors, models and skills. If you only motivate but don’t teach your followers will be shallow and ultimately won't have the skills you need them to have.

The leader sets goals and targets and is relentless in pursing them. If you don’t have a clear vision of where you want the group to go don’t waste the time of the people you are trying to lead step aside and let one of them lead. They probably will be a better leader than you anyway.

All of what I have said will be fleshed out in the coming days. Let me know what you think.

Questions and answers

Thanks guys for responding to the last post.
We will chuck some pics up somewhere in the next week. If you want to keep in touch with us and see what is up we are on:
Twitter http://twitter.com/resolvedchurch
Facebook http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/group.php?gid=51712788940&ref=ts
And we will be uploading videos and having channels on Mogulus and Youtube before Sunday. The website should be up within two weeks

Music wise we have Paul Liao who sings and plays guitar and that is it so far. We want to develop bands organically. As for Gear we have a Yamaha PA which was Bought with the Money that Mortdale Anglican church gave us. Songs we try to do about 50 percent hymns done well and the rest are various contemporary ones.

We are meeting on Sunday at 6pm which is late enough so Musicians and artists can go to their Sunday BBQs (which is almost a religious practice) and they can still get to their gig on a Sunday night.

Keep the questions coming
Hans

First night for RESOLVED

Hey guys we had our first service last night and we were aiming to get 30 people. We got 32 people!! The service itself had a few very minor things we have to sort out but the service had vibe and was pretty much what we wanted to do and people said they loved it!!! Thanks guys for praying and encouraging me!
Hey I realize I pretty much suck at this blog thing so if you have anything you want me to blog about like how did I get a core team together or whatever could you leave a suggestion.

Sermon series branding

What is sermon series branding?

Sermons series branding is when you think about how a Church may package and market a sermon series so that
1. it is appealing to the people you are trying to reach
2. your congregation is excited by the upcoming sermon series
When you come up with a brand you may just have a title and a graphic or you use the brand in videos or a website, you may create an evite or an invite or a tshirt or whatever.

Is this marketing?
Yes it is. But if you preach the word faithfully does it matter that you market a series? Shouldn’t you do all things so that some people may connect in with what your Church is doing? Now I am not saying that people will become Christians through a great sermons series branding, what I am saying is that the brand is just an in where people may connect with your Church or have an interest sparked because of the branding. They hopefully will come to hear the sermon series and be changed by the preaching of the word.

Why have sermon series branding?
1. We brand because we Love. We are meant to do all things so that all men might find Jesus. We at Resolved are spending good amounts of time to brand our series on the Gospel of Luke so that our lost friends may see the branding or the video and have an interest sparked and then it will be hopefully easier to invite them to Church with the hope that they may hear the gospel and respond. We do all this work because we love the lost
2. We brand because it forces us to think about the sermon series and what we want to get out of it. In thinking through our current sermon series branding I had to ask myself questions like: What are the themes that we want to hit on in Luke? What are the main applications from Luke that we want to emphasize? How is Jesus Presented in the Gospel of Luke? Working through these questions will help me with preparation and the communication of the text.
3. We brand because it forces us to think about the people we are trying to reach. We had to think about what are the thoughts, hopes, dreams, worldviews of the people we are trying to reach and then how the Gospel of Luke answers, encourages or confronts those hopes, thoughts, dreams and worldviews. So in branding we have to think more about the people God has placed on our hearts to reach. Which is never a bad thing is it?
4. We brand because it harnesses the creativity and the gifts of the congregation. I must admit for this series the thought about branding was mostly done by me. (I did consult a few people on team though) But despite that we used the gifts of a graphic designer and a director/ film editor and I will be talking to one of our artists about how we can tap into the creativity of our artists by getting them to create art in response to this series. In the future I hope to get teams of graphics people, web people, video people, musicians etc all working on different aspects where they can use the branding to get the word out about this series. So as you can see if we used all those people we would be tapping into the creative gifts of many in our congregation. I think if people were in some way to own a sermon series through having creative input they will be more excited about the series and more likely to invite people to Church to hear the series. Do you have people in your Church that would love to use their creative gifts in this way?

Steps to branding a sermon series
1. Ask where the congregation is at and what series we should preach next? Is the congregation or Church weak on Christology? Maybe do a sermon series on John’s gospel or Revelation. Are there massive moral issues in your Church? Maybe a series on the Sermon on the Mount or 1 Corinthians is in order. The sermon series branding starts with, after deep prayer reflection and discussion, choosing a sermon series that you think would be helpful to your Church. (I know that all scripture is God breathed and therefore any part of scripture is good to preach at any time. But, as we all have experienced, certain parts of scripture speak to us more in certain times then others based on what is happening to us at that time or what we are learning or where we are heading. I am saying that a minister needs to ask these question of his congregation when thinking about a sermon series.)
2. Work out the themes you want to emphasize in the series. Are you going to emphasize the idea of being sent or belief in the gospel of John for example? I think asking these questions will help you to be clearer on what you want out of your sermon series. For example I want to emphasize a few things from the gospel of Luke. That Jesus ate with those who are outcasts and the subsequent invitation he gave to them, that he was clashed wit the leaders of his day by emphasizing who he was and what he came to do, the fact that Jesus cared about the poor and had a lot to say about money, and the person of Jesus; he was not just a normal guy but he claimed in word and deed to be God who has come to bring a new age and eternal life.
3. How do your emphases interact with your congregations and those people you want to reach? How does it come up against some of their worldview issues? How does it encourage them? How does it meet their felt needs and deepest needs? Thinking through these things is going to help you with application and communication.
4. Come up with a sermon series title. Up until this point the hard work is usually done by the preacher of the series, hopefully with consultation with trusted congregation members. Now is the time to get your creative people together and lay out what the sermon series is and what are the theological emphases and how it interacts with the congregation and the people you are trying to reach. You then come up with a sermon series title that will catchy and will hopefully spark the interest of the congregation and those they may invite to Church and yet still communicate what the series is about. Our sermon series is called ‘Jesus the Progressive Saviour: Come discover the ultimate revolutionary.’ This brings out that Jesus ate and hung out with the ‘wrong people’ and clashed with the establishment of his day and he was therefore both progressive and revolutionary. The words progressive and revolutionary are buzzwords amongst some of the people we are trying to reach.
5. Create a series Graphic. You will need a graphic designer for this. The clipart you got for free off the internet will not do. If there is not a Graphic Designer in your congregation I am sure you would know someone who knows a graphic designer. The graphic should communicate the series title and hopefully will spark interest in the series. You want to get your graphic designer to put your graphic in a few different sizes so you can use them in a video or a flyer or an internet banner etc. If you can’t find a graphic designer two great friends of mine who are great graphic designers are Corrine Moseley corrine.moseley@gmail.com and Murray Bunton murray@streetlinemedia.com.au.
6. Create an invite that people can give to their friends and an evite that people can email to their friends inviting them to the sermon series. You want to advertise through word of mouth and word of mouse.
7. Create a video. We spent one morning shooting two videos so it shouldn’t take long. The video needs to explain why you are doing the sermon series and in a way which is winsome to those who may not go to Church. Keep it short, sharp, simple and on message. Our series video should be up on Youtube within days and when it is I will post it here. The video was shot on a handycam but was edited brilliantly by one of our team. I have been told that the gear you use is not half as important as having great editing. So maybe you can use the handycam you have but you may need to pay someone to edit it well.
8. Create a minisite that will have a blog and or a question answer section about the series. It may have a forum section too.
9. Find ways in which you can use Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Myspace and anything else on the internet you can use to spread the word about your sermon series. There are bound to be geeks in your Church that can do this for you. Get them away from playing World of Warcraft and give them this as their ministry.
10. Brainstorm new items that can be used in the services during this series. Is there a singer/songwriter that can write a song about what she has learnt in this series? Can your music director write a new song to sing as a congregation based on this series? Is there a drama or a series of dramas that can be used for this series? Can you have a panel during the service? Is there a book your congregation might read for the series?
11. Create other things that might spark interest. You could do a tshirt, or a Facebook application or internet game or whatever? The idea is put as many things out there that people can connect with as possible so that they may be intrigued and come along to hear about Jesus and that your congregation are excited about the upcoming sermon series and may invite their friends to hear about Jesus.

One final note, all this takes time. Resolved will be doing our current series till Easter 2010. But we will be thinking about our series after that and panning all this stuff from the start of October this year. This gives us more than half a year to brainstorm and come up with all the things listed above. Also, as I said before, branding may be as simple as creating a series title and a graphic all the above suggestions are optional.

I hope this stimulates discussion.

Preaching and Evangelism in the world we live in

First of all I would like to apologize for not bogging in ages. My time over the last few weeks has been crazy.

Since I last have blogged I have moved house, been threatened by my now ex landlord, not got my bond back, sought legal help from the tenancy tribunal, started meeting with Resolved, had meeting with the Resolved team, Resolved got to be an Incorporated Entity, researched stuff we need to buy like projectors and PA and other things etc. etc.

In this time here are two things that I have been challenged to think about:

How to preach in the world we live in

How to evangelize in our world

How to preach in the world we live in
One of the things that we have been dialoguing about at Resolved is how should we preach in the world we live in? What is the most effective method of communication in our world? How do we cater to short attention spans and people who want dialogue? One of the ideas was to break up each sermon with questions that people who come can discuss in small groups. Some of those advocating this position said that this will not only break up the sermon into manageable chunks of 5-7 mins but it will also help people feel valued and heard. So people will be able to reflect on the topic or idea preached and they will own it for themselves. We need to be sure that the Bible and Jesus get the last word in whatever topic we preach on.
Some issues that come up with this view of preaching are many non Christians would not want to be directly asked or talked to about Jesus in Church. The hurdle of coming to Church is big enough without someone mid sermon asking a question directly to them. In the Bible we are told to proclaim the gospel, there seems to be not much room in the Bible for discussion in Church. If the sermon is broken up into 5 minute chunks the sermon may not be able to sustain any intensity and after each discussion the preacher will have to get the attention of the congregation back. The sermon may feel clunky.
What do you guys think? Have you got any resources that deal with these issues?

How to evangelize in our world
I have met with many of my friends who are not Christians. It is weird talking with them about life, Jesus and spiritual stuff. One thing that hit me was that everyone was so interested in what I was doing. Many of them loved the idea of spirituality and others loved Jesus in some way but they aren’t connected with a local Church. I asked them if they were asked would they come to Church. All of them said yes. I was wondering if they love Jesus so much where are their friends who are Christians? Why haven’t they been invited to Church? Have you got a friend who would come to Church but they just haven’t been invited? Are you scared that Church is going to suck and your friend will think it is boring?
Our whole evangelism strategy to begin with is all about partying. Every month Resolved is going to have a party in which our friends will be invited to. The idea is that our friends who do not love Jesus will meet a bunch of the Church community and will be more and more comfortable with the people of Resolved. They then will be more ready and more open to coming along to Church or Bible study because they have built relationships with the people of Resolved.
So our evangelism strategy is all about relationships and inviting people to Church. Not about inviting people to an event where we put the bait and switch on. What are your thoughts?

What have I been up to?

Hey guys since I last Blogged it has been CRAZY!!

Last Saturday I met with my team and we discussed the things we need to do before the launch on March 1st. We feel like things are going well with Bible studies starting up next week. I also saw a friend of mine who is a great drummer play at a bar in the afternoon. He was a Christian once, pray that he will realize music is not enough but Jesus is what he really needs.

Sunday I preached three times on Hell at my now old Church Christ Church Mortdale. At the night service a bunch of people just walked in off the streets that don’t usually go to Church. Pray that they will come back and they will learn to love Jesus. I love preaching at Mortdale and will miss these guys greatly. Pray for them as they are looking for a new minister and also pray for the Assistant Brendan McLaughlin. He is a great brother who I love and he would value your prayers as he is effectively running a Church with no senior minister.

Monday was spent doing a heap of reading on Luke because I am preaching through it at church till Easter 2010. It was the first day that I really dug into reading since last year and so it was a very tiring day. At night I met up with a guy named Matt Freeman. We ate together and had a great time being accountable to each other and talking about Mark Devers nine marks. Matt is hoping to go to Capitol Hill Baptist Church (Mark Dever’s Church) as an intern. It would be great for him and I am just a little bit jealous that I never thought of going and doing that. Matt is a great preacher and a loving brother pray for him that he would go over there and that it would make him into the loving pastor that he wants to be.

Tuesday was the day I was dealing the Government so it was off to Centrelink then job futures and then the RTA. It was a depressing day because I was thinking about my mates from college starting their jobs, living in their new homes and getting a paycheck and here I was not sure if anyone will turn up to my Church, in a crappy smelly house and almost broke. Then I went to lunch with Paul Liao, a guy in my Church plant. We had a great Thai meal and were enjoying each others company when I got an encouraging call from the Department of Fair trading saying our latest constitution was rejected and that we couldn’t call the church Foundation. So I sent out a text to almost everyone in my phone that if they come up with the best name for a Church I will shout them dinner in Newtown.

Here were some of them (you can use any of them because we aren’t)
• Foundasian (but we would have to start an Asian Church)
• Themelios (Foundation in Greek)
• Zacchaeus’s house
• Track one
• Revolution

Anyway, we as a Church plant team couldn’t decide on one so we went with the name I came up with when I first started out and so now the Church is called Resolved.
I chose Resolved because iis a strong word which says you have a made a decision and it will remind me to keep preaching the work despite all the hindrances and all that comes my way.
Tuesday night I met with two people, both about starting bands, one a rock band and the other an RnB band. The first one was a girl who I have done some work with before, we talked about the band, what songs we would do and then we switched and chatted about her marriage and how that was going and then my relationship status, whether I drink, have sex, masturbate etc. It was a weird conversation but I talked to her about Jesus and the difference between religion and the Gospel. She didn’t get it because she was always asking so can you do this? What about this? I think it will take a lot of these conversations before the penny drops. It reminded me of Paul’s charge to Timothy to preach the Gospel with great patience and careful instruction. The people I want to reach out to have so many walls up that they will have to hear the Gospel again and again and again before they get it even intellectually. The second conversation was with an ex Australian idol guy who is a great singer. We chatted about songs, who to get in the band etc. I hope these bands get up and get gigs because it would be a great opportunity to play fun music, get paid well and most importantly build relationships and share the Gospel. I then chatted online to three different non Christians who I am meeting up with next week. They are all people who I have reconnected with through Facebook and they all are interested in hearing more about the church. Pray that God spirit will move and these people will come to church and they will turn to love Jesus.

Wednesday my girlfriend came back from Thailand and so I took a day off and spent the day with her and her family.

Thursday I went to Centrelink again and had another meeting that lasted a whole 3 minutes but the waiting in line is really where it is at. I think when you walk into Centrelink someone should punch you in the face and you would be like “Oh, someone punched me in the face. I guess waiting in line is not so bad after all!” I listened to two whole John Macarthur sermons while waiting in line so that is how long I was in line!!!
The rest of the day was spent doing some study for an exam I have got next week and fixing up our constitution and sending it off again. I also started an event on Facebook to invite people our Bible studies, I pray that many people will come. At night two mates fixed my car which was hit last year. It looks like a bomb but it should get me from A to B. I shouted them a nice steak and a few drinks for thanks which was fun.

Today I was looking for a new place to stay, answering emails and chatting on Facebook to some guys who were interested in the Church. I also applied for Job with CMS which is a 4 day a week job which will pay the bills and give me a few days in which to work for the Church. I am going, with my girlfriend, to see Laura Nolan sing at the Excelsior hotel in Glebe which should be fun. Laura is a friend who is coming to the Church after she goes to America in a few days.

As I read over my blog and my diary I am thinking of the amount of non Christian contacts I have. In the last two weeks I have met with 14 non Christians who I am actively praying for. As a church planter it is so easy to get caught up with constitutions, structures and internal issues. These things need to be done but we as church planters need to be the ones who are setting the evangelistic temperature of the church. If we are not out there talking with non Christians and seeking to share the gospel with them why would the people in our church evangelize? Here are some things to think about:

• Take your diary out and notice in the last month how many meetings/dinners/drinks you have had with non Christians.
• How many friends that are non Christians do you have who would happily sit done and eat with you?
• How many non Christians have you invited to church or an evangelistic event in the last year?
• Have you got specific time each day set aside to pray for more non Christian friends, for more opportunities to share the gospel and for your friends to became Christian?
• What aspects of the gospel would your friends most want to hear? For example to my friends who with catholic backgrounds I emphasize Grace, to my friends who have had a bad relationship with their parents I may emphasize the love of the father etc. I always try to talk about the cross but I try to do this in a way which confronts either a need or unbelief in their life.
• Do you support your non Christian friend’s interests? When they invite you to their kids party or a gig they like or a movie screening do you go? If not why would they come to your church? And do you REALLY love them?
• How honest are you with them? Have you shared your life with them? Have you shared what is wrong in your heart with them? Be real and honest with them and they will be real and honest with you.
• Do they know you love them? Do you serve them with your time and money? Because in the end people don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care. Do your non Christians friends know you love them? But more importantly do you love them or are they just another potential evangelistic scalp and no more?

My sin, my life and disciplines I am trying to cultivate

I always thought that ministry would make me a better person. I would love to say that it has. But what is has done is show me how sinful I really am and in certain times it has brought to the fore new sins. Not only has it brought my sin out into the light, ministry has brought my weaknesses out into the light. So much so I sometimes doubt whether church planting and ministry are for me!

I feel I am called to ministry and church planting so I guess I gotta deal with my sin and inadequacy. I am aiming to do this in a few ways.

1. I read my Bible and pray. Sounds stupidly simple but without communion with God I am depriving myself of the relationship that strengthens me and helps me kill my sin and fight my weaknesses.
2. I read Good theology. I need to fill my head with great thoughts about God and his world. This will help me to see the world and it’s pursuits for what they are; meaningless a chasing after the wind. I think it was Piper who said about struggling with sexual sin “Don’t tell me you are fighting sexual sin unless you are filling your mind with God exalting Theology!” To this end I am trying to read an hour of theology a day. I have started with the compendium of John Owen’s stuff on sin called Overcoming Sin and Temptation which is a hard read but brilliantly refreshing.
3. I am accountable to a good friend who has permission to ask me about anything in my life. We meet once a week over dinner to talk about each others lives and offer encouragement and correction. Piper has got a pastoral accountability report which you can get at Desiring God that we work through.
4. I take time each week to write down my besetting sins and how they have manifested in my life over the past week and then I try to see patterns in behavior and sin which I need to eradicate from my life. For example, I noticed that I am far more likely to be filled with lust when I am lonely or bored at night so I try to have either something to do at night i.e. band practice/ read a book/ Work on something or I try to hang with a mate. After I have tried to discern certain patterns in my life which may or may not lead to sin I then spend time meditating on the cross and God’s grace, remembering that despite my many sins and weaknesses I have a great and glorious savior who has taken all my sin away and dealt with the consequences of that sin.
5. I search everyday for evidences of God’s grace in my life and I thank God for them. I see us make a few steps towards our goal of planting a church I thank God. I have great meal with friends. I give thanks to God! I have a productive day. I give thanks to God! Because in the end it is his gracious activity that allows me to do the things I do and experience the things I experienced.
6. I am pharisaic about my diary. I write EVERYTHING down in my diary so that means I can make appointments and keep stock of where my week is. I think for some of us who are on more of the creative bent (like myself), this kind of discipline is hard but I am finding already that I have been able to be more effective in planning out my time.
7. I try to cultivate a joy and have fun. If I am doing something I hate or is boring me I will not do it and so I have to find ways to make things I hate fun. So I try to be competitive with myself and give myself time goals in which to get things done in. I find this keeps work fun I also love to laugh and so I am always looking out for the funny side of everything I do. I find this keeps the mundane lively and fun.
8. I am intense. I am trying to attack everything with an intensity that forces me to focus and be motivated. I write out a to do list at the start of the day and go through the list of things to do working as fast and well as I can. Once again this seems like common sense but what I have learnt is that lack of discipline starts with an undisciplined mind. If I think I will do it later or lets have a look at this site or whatever I will not get anything done. So my thought pattern when I am working is intense!
9. I take time off. I take Saturdays off every week as well as other times during the week. This means I have time to hang with my Girlfriend or see a movie or sleep in. I have been raised in a society that has elevated relaxation to an art form and so I don’t struggle with taking a day off or relaxing but I know others do. I am not sure what I would say to them other than that I find if I have a day of relaxation and fun I am more likely to get a lot of things done in my days of work.
10. I don’t take myself too seriously. I worked in a factory before college with people who had a far less privileged background than I and they were able to show me what really matters in life. So I try not to take myself seriously (maybe I go too far in this!). So people rip me off and it is cool, I laugh. A person says they cannot make it to my meeting, it is cool, and I reschedule another one. I live in a crappy, stinky house with a terrible landlord (which I do), it is cool, at least I have house to live. If a person doesn’t get something done on time, it isn’t the end of the world and so I ask them if they need help or what is happening in their life at the moment instead of getting angry because usually when I get angry at people it because I am inconvenienced. So I try to see myself in proper light..

I am wrote this blog to get us to think about our personal lives. How are you doing in your personal life?

How is your Bible reading and Prayer life going?

What sins are constantly plaguing you? How are you fighting them?

Do you have a friend or mentor that you can share your life with and who will hold you accountable?

Are their any patterns in your life that need to be either done away with or corrected? How will you deal with these patterns?

What evidences of God’s grace have you seen in your life? When did you last thank God for these?

In what ways can you laugh at yourself because you shouldn’t take yourself too seriously!

Church planters need to be strong on their holiness, spiritual upkeep and discipline. If you are like me and not naturally disciplined work out ways in which you can keep your spiritual life fervent, kill sin and be disciplined.

The story so far part 2

Once I got a team together we started meeting up and making plans and strategies. What I did was to to come up with an agenda of things to talk about and then I or someone else in the group would prepare little papers that would say where we thought we should be on the topic/theology/strategy/etc. in question. Vigorous discussion normally ensued and we would usually work out some kind of way ahead.
The hardest thing in starting up a new independent church was the constitution. I only learned halfway through the year that unless we had a constitution that was ratified by the Government we couldn't have a bank account or get insurance/pay taxes etc. So I learned how to write a constitution and wrote one which our team lawyer would then critique and we would make it clearer and better. The first time we sent the constitution off it was rejected outright because we wanted to be called Foundation incorporated and for an incorporation to have foundation in the title it must be a not for profit organization, the government has stipulated that Churches aren't strictly not for profit. I am yet to hear back from the Government about the major redraft of the constitution but I will be letting you guys know when it comes through. If you need help with a constitution let me know and I will do whatever I can to help. And please pray that this constitution is fine and we can go ahead!

The team, minus two people, is meeting tomorrow which should be fun and we are just getting everything on track for bible studies that should be starting soon and our first month of meetings that are taking place in February before we officially launch in March.

On a personal note I have just moved into a new place and have to find a job that will support me. I am hanging with a friend and her fiancee and hoping to get them checking us out when we start. Also pray for my drummer friend who used to be a christian and who I am going to see his gigs to build relationship with a view to talking about Jesus. I have got about 38 non Christians who I am actively seeking to love and tell about Jesus. Pray that they will come to know and love Jesus and see him as the great king.

One of the things a church planter must be is an evangelist. I know a few guys that want to plant churches but they don't like hanging with non Christians, seems dumb but that is what they say. I think if you are a person who cant hang with non Christians for whatever reason then church planting probably isn't for you. So if you are a potential planter ask yourselves these questions:

Do I have non christian friends?
Am I able to talk with non Christians?
Am I able to understand them?
Do I have tears for the lost?
Am I able to share my faith with them in a way which they will hear?

If the answer is no to these questions and you don't want to change then you are not a church planter. If the answer is no to these questions and you want to change then get out amongst non Christians and love them, cherish the time with them and seek to gain their trust and when the opportunity comes up to share about your faith take it! Train yourself to be an evangelist. I pray that you will see many people come to know Jesus through your ministry!

The story so far Part 1

I got the crazy idea of Church Planting way back when I was a teenager, basically I thought I knew everything and thought I could change the world and so I would plant a church and everyone would bow the knee at Hans Kristensen's preaching.
This planting thing never really took wings until I was going to a midnight Jam Session in the middle of Kings cross on a Thursday night. There I met a lot of friends who really loved the ideas of spirituality, God and Jesus but were mainly turned off by a lot of the religious goings on they had seen. A weird thing happened one night when I was going home from this Jam, I was driving a long when I had this question ringing in my head 'Who is going to share the love of Jesus with my friends?' I began to weep for my friends and so because I had the heart for these people and I was thier friends I thought Ishould plant a church that would hopefully reach these people. So after checking with a few men whom I trusted and would tell me straight whether or not this was good Idea I started putting down on paper what I wanted to do with this church.

I then brainstormed a list of over 100 quality people who I knew from different churches in sydney. I then pruned this list down to about 30 people and started to ask them to join the church plant. Luckily for me about 9 said yes. One decided a few meetings in that he didn't agree with my ecclesiology and left. We are still mates and I can still kick his butt at Basketball so everything is cool between us. Another guy I asked to leave because of theological differences. He said he was thinking about leaving anyway because of these differences and we are still great friends who love to argue about Rob Bell, Obama, Postmodernity and theology. He is a dear friend and I still wish we could have worked it out but God is using him in powerful ways to help poor people in other countries which is his hearts cry! Another member of the team was going to Spain and was a great help in sorting out constitutional stuff out and chatting through church discipline issues.

The people I have on team are a Lawyer who grew up on the north coast to musician parents, who has been great at helping with the legal side of things, a singer song writer who has always got the cool bad hygiene look happening, he has been great in challenging me to think more humbly and careful about how my theology and how I present my theology impacts peoples lives. We have a Girl who works at the Australian bureau of statistics. She has been a band manager and a door wench for a few goth nightclubs round town. Her sister is also one of the up and coming DJs in Sydney. She has been great in helping me think trough women's ministry and some of the pastoral care issues, she has been great to in making sure we keep focusing on what church we want to be and not just reacting against other church models which I deem (in all my lack of experience and wisdom) to be ineffective at reaching our culture. Next we have a dude who is teacher and a great guitarist/singer songwriter, he kinda looks like a dude who could go bear hunting with a twig and come back with seven carcases. He is getting married soon to a gem of a chick and he has been a great support as a friend, which all church planters sorely need. Next we have a girl who just finished a music business degree, she is currently in Africa serving on a Short term missing which is awesome!! She is great in caring for people and she knows a lot of musicians through working at an industry newspaper and managing a heap of bands!

If this church plant succeeds it is first and foremost because of the sovereign grace of God but on a human level it is because these guys have been so great in getting this thing together. I love them and I have a blast whenever we meet!!

The thing that I have learnt as a leader of a church plant team is that you must always pick the best people you can to be on team. It sounds obvious but it seems like the planters I have talked to have been desperate for anyone to be on team. My church plant team is very small compared to some but we are all on the same path, we work great together, we have blast when we get together and we love doing this church plant thing. There were about 20 others who wanted to be on team but for different reasons I told them they couldn't be on the team. There were also people that liked the sound of the plant and the vision but were either wishy washy in their commitment or they couldn't be stuffed coming to a meeting or a vision afternoon. And so even though I wanted more people to be on the team these were the very kind of people that could derail the vision and therefore even though it was sometimes embarrassing to talk to other planters who had core teams of of 20-30+ I am glad that I got the right people on board and that I didn't take on anyone else who might have been a weed in the midst of my plant.

So if you are thinking of church planting make sure you get the right people around you. You will make mistakes and the right people will help you figure out what you did wrong and how to make amends. You will lose heart and the right people will encourage you. You will make stupid decisions and the right people will correct you on these. But the wrong people will be argumentative, lazy, ungracious, distrustful, power hungry etc.

As Jack Welch the CEO of General Electric said 'The team with the best players wins.'

Don't blame me I have been asked to blog!!!

I think blogs generally suck, but, I have been asked by a number of dudes to write a blog about my experiences of church planting in Sydney, Australia. I hope to fill you in on the everyday workings of whats happening with the church and my life to give you a glimpse into a church planters life and so you can learn from my mistakes and failures and rejoice with me when God does something awesome through me! So I hope you enjoy this blog.