I met with a church leader yesterday and we were discussing ideas for this year’s Easter service at his church. I’m curious about you and your church. Please share what you guys are working on for Easter.
Greg Atkinson is a consultant, friend and partner with a select group of strategic partnerships. Greg works with these partner companies (listed in alphabetical order) and encourages you to contact him at greg@gregatkinson.com for more information on how we can be a resource to your church. Click on the logos to go to the company website.
Two people that I greatly respect and follow are pastors James MacDonald and Mark Driscoll. Both have recently returned from Haiti after seeing on the ground and up-close and personal what’s going on. They are working on a new project called http://churcheshelpingchurches.com/ and are helping to rebuild the Church in Haiti.
I encourage you to follow them on Twitter (see their names above) and check out THIS website and see how you and your church can get involved. Be sure to watch the videos on their website. You can only see them there.
In July of 2008 I was speaking to a group of Church leaders in Santa Cruz, California. I held my phone (this was just before I got my iPhone) up in my hand and I said, “This is the future.”
It’s been a year and a half and mobile technology is the “now”, not the future. My friend, Bobby Gruenwald, Innovation Pastor at LifeChurch.tv, constantly encourages his staff to think global and mobile – global and mobile.
I’m currently working with churches and organizations on helping them to create, dream and plan strategies around mobile technology. Your people are constantly becoming one with their phone (for good or bad) and it’s a reality that we need to be intentional about speaking their language. Again, as I’ve said before: we are digital missionaries.
As you know, I work often as a Secret Shopper/Mystery Worshiper. The first thing I check is the church’s website. The second thing I do is pull up their website on my iPhone. I have recommended several times that church’s follow the lead of Seacoast Church and get a mobile version of their website. I applaud and praise Seacoast for blazing a trail in this area. My hat’s off to my friend Shawn Wood and his team. Well done! If you have your phone handy (and I know you do) – pull up Seacoast’s website on it.
My church (and many others) send out text messages to attenders and members that opt in. My church also encourages you to text in questions and decisions that you may make as a response to the message. Many churches are utilizing text and SMS during services as an interactive piece. As I’ve blogged about before, many churches are using the free service from YouVersion Live.
I’ll be talking more in the near future about other mobile strategies and tools. In the meantime, if you and your church would like to strategize and put together a comprehensive plan that includes Web 2.0 tools, mobile technology, social media and social networking – give me a shout. My only goal is to help and equip you to speak the language of the people you’re trying to reach (digital missionaries).
I’m a friend to and huge support of Lee McDerment. I think he’s the most gifted, creative and innovative worship leader in the country. I absolutely love when he leads worship (he’s the one on piano in the video). Here’s NewSpring’s video opener for their Christmas Eve services.
Christmas Opener: Just Come Home from NewSpring Production on Vimeo.
Church Planters Roundtables or (CPRs) rock. I’ve been to a live one and I watch another one nightly as I work with a video editor on the upcoming CPR Online project that ARC will unveil in the new year. For now, you can still catch a CPR on the west and east coasts. Here’s what’s coming up through the end of the year with ARC:
or
In the last couple of months I’ve talked with several churches that are interested in bringing me in for a secret shopper/mystery worshiper visit, but don’t have it in this year’s budget. They are setting aside money in their 2010 budget to bring me in.
I bring this up for you to consider. Maybe you’d like to arrange a secret shopper visit. I’d encourage you to budget/plan for it now and you’re working on next year’s budget. Plan on $2000 or less for the visit (that includes all my travel expenses).
If you’d like to schedule a 2010 visit, contact me and let’s begin to look at the calendar. It’s a wise investment. You can go here for more information and to read endorsements of my ministry.
In the last 4 visits of doing my secret shopper/mystery worshiper service for churches I’ve done it for:
From 60 people to 13,000, there are similarities and huge differences. One thing remains the same: the people I help care about reaching more people for Christ. They know that you don’t get a second chance to make a first impression and they take action steps to improve their first impression.
People will determine whether or not they will return to your church within the first 10 minutes of arriving. What are you doing to reach them?
The other day I wrote about what magazines I had read lately. I mentioned that I wanted to come back and talk about Outreach Magazine. This issue was their 100 Largest and Fastest-Growing Churches in America edition.
There is a great interview in the magazine with pastors Rick Bezet and Chris Hodges – pastors of the fastest growing church in America (‘09 & ‘08). It’s a great interview and knowing how humble and sincere both pastors are, I thought it gave glory where glory is due – to God.
An interesting thing though that many may not realize is that not only are Rick and Chris (and their churches) ARC churches, they both serve on the board of ARC (Association of Related Churches). Not only that, Rick and Chris’ churches were the first 2 churches that ARC planted 8 years ago when ARC was birthed.
So ARC launched 8 years ago with Church of the Highlands (Chris Hodges) and New Life Church (Rick Bezet) and then fast-forward: Church of the Highlands is the fastest growing church in the US in 2008 and New Life Church is the fastest growing church in 2009.
I point this out because I believe in ARC and think they do a good job planting churches. It’s worth noting that this year’s and last year’s fastest growing churches are both ARC churches. I wrote THIS blog post a while back and mentioned all the great churches that you may not realize are ARC churches. If you didn’t read it, it’s worth checking out. You’d be amazed at how many great churches and pastors you’ve heard of are ARC churches.
Why do I do a blog post on “ARC and Church Growth”? Because as an ARC coach of church planters, I can personally tell you how much I talk about the importance of prayer in leading and growing/strengthening your church. I’ve met with church planters and pastors and begged them to make prayer a priority. I’ve begged them to gather on Saturday to pray for Sunday (like Chris Hodges has always done). I’ve begged pastors to begin an intercessory prayer ministry that prays throughout their morning worship services.
Fortunately, I’ve had the privilege of hearing both Rick and Chris teach on the importance and power of prayer. The very first thing ARC teaches at their CPR’s (Church Planters Roundtable) is that you must “win the war in the spiritual”. As Billy Hornsby says, “Prayer is a non-negotiable”. I heard Chris Hodges once say, “You can’t delegate prayer.”
I write this blog post because every “fastest-growing” list that comes out has a story behind the names on the list. There are some amazing churches listed on this year’s list. I know most of the churches. My word to you is that knowing these leaders, I know they wouldn’t point to a cool technology or church growth fad, but to the power and presence of our Almighty God.
God is using ARC in a mighty way and I’m thrilled to be a small part of it and not only contribute and consult, but I grow and learn all the time by hanging out and talking with the ARC team. Billy Hornsby is a new mentor in my life and I appreciate the investment he’s making in my life.
My encouragement to you is for YOU to get to know the ARC as well. If you’re a future church planter, look into planting through ARC. Contact me and I’ll get you started down the path. If you’re an already existing church, you can join ARC (like Craig Groeschel and LifeChurch.tv and Mark Batterson and National Community Church) and begin to see your missions budget go straight to planting churches here in the United States. I’d be glad to talk with you about how your church can join the ARC and begin actively supporting church planting.
All Glory to God!
As you know, I’m in the air (traveling) a lot. Lately I’ve been bringing some magazines with me to read during the flight. Magazines that I’m reading currently are:
What magazines are you reading?
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
