My 18 year old son Nate is serving as an intern this Summer for Michael Bayne our family minister working primarily with middle and high school students.  Recently he took it upon himself and made this video announcement to send to the students.  It reminds me that the methods of communicating with our people are changing every day.  Are you staying current?  Does your church use Facebook, Twitter, text messaging and video messaging to stay current?

Maybe you need to take a lesson from the next generation of leaders too of how best to contact your people.

One quick reminder.  Don’t kill a summer.  Use it to plan for fall.

Summer is often a time for church leaders (unless you are youth leaders) to take vacations, chill out, and rest up.  While I agree with that need, the fact is that fall gets here quickly and we need to be prepared for one of the best growth opportunities of the year.

Take some extra time before summer is over to spend some time dreaming, planning and implementing steps to help your church have a great fall!

I would love to learn from you.  What are you doing this summer to prepare for a great fall?

Tomorrow morning Cheryl and I and another couple leave for Lithuania.  For over a year Grace Community Church has worked with City Church in Klaipeda, Lituania.  (I love a church that has a website in multiple languages!)  I talk regularly with the pastor via Skype and Tokbox and we share ministry stories, struggles and victories.  The people of our church share the same struggles as the people of City Church and therefore we are able to help each other.  My pastor friend Saulius and his wife Sanna will be our host and I will have the opportunity to preach in their church next Sunday.  We will be dreaming of ways our two churches can broaden our partnership.  I love investing in other pastors and learning from them and this will be a sweet time of fellowship without the barrier of distance.

If you want to read more about Lithuania click HERE and HERE.

I have programmed some blog posts for the next few days and I hope to have opportunity to post some from on site, but in case I do not have time or access, at least you know where I am.

Just curious, will you have to look Lithuania up on a map to see where it is?

In some quiet time this morning, God led me to pray for some of the struggling ministers I know and work with each week.  I was reminded also of this verse:

1 Corinthians 16:8-9
But I will stay on at Ephesus until Pentecost, because a great door for effective work has opened to me, and there are many who oppose me.

Sometimes we keep doing what we are doing because God called us to do it, not because we are popular, the work is easy, or even that we are being well received at the time.  Being obedient to the call of God is sometimes painful, unpopular, difficult, and seemingly unrewarded (at the time).

I am also reminded of this passage from Mark 10:29-31 (The Message Version)

Jesus said, “Mark my words, no one who sacrifices house, brothers, sisters, mother, father, children, land—whatever—because of me and the Message will lose out. They’ll get it all back, but multiplied many times in homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children, and land—but also in troubles. And then the bonus of eternal life! This is once again the Great Reversal: Many who are first will end up last, and the last first.”

Do you need a reminder to hang tight to the call God has placed on your life?  How can I or the readers of this blog pray for you right now?

This year at Grace Community Church we became even more conscious of how we spend money and we have always been conservative with what we spend.  The economy has had an impact on our people.  While our local economy is strong, the perception among people has created a mood of uncertainty and so we are looking for ways to be better stewards of our resources.

At the same time, our church has continued to grow and the needs for our ministries are greater than ever.  This season has forced us to find ways to do more with less.  We need to continue to train our people, learn new ways of doing things and keep up with current trends, but we can no longer afford to attend all the conferences we once could.

Introduce a novel idea. (Why didn’t I think of this first?)  Why not bring first-rate conferences to the churches where everyone who wants to attend can benefit from the teaching firsthand?  Enter Innovative Ministry Leader.

Innovative Ministry Leader is the world’s first web-based training center. It will feature monthly teaching videos in the areas of leadership, worship, marketing, culture and technology from today’s top church leaders including Dino Rizzo, Anne Jackson, Jud Wilhite and Mark Batterson…and the list is growing daily.   During and after the monthly video sessions participants will be able to login to engage with the speakers through features on the website.    All videos will be archived as well, so you can access them at anytime!

It all kicks off in June and comes with a low monthly subscription of $34.99 for unlimited access to everything. Imagine sending all your staff, leadership and volunteers to a top notch teaching every single month.

Act now to get in on this incredible opportunity!

Most managers with any management training know the concept of setting SMART goals for their organization.  Though apparently having unknown origins, the strategy of SMART goals has been widely written about and used to help make organizations better.

I work with lots of church plants and young ministry ventures.  I also have numerous occasions to speak with entrepreneurs in our church.  I love the enthusiasm and momentum an organization has early in its life.  I hope to always be a part of starting something.  As I’ve gotten older, however, I’m equally as concerned about sustainability.   The right energy and vision will create growth fast, but building an organization that lasts requires having a plan for maintaining viability.

Think about the goals you are setting for your organization and consider applying the SMART goals strategy to them.  You will most likely find your goals have a better chance of becoming reality.

SMART Goals

• S – Specific- Clearly define what, who and how the goals will be achieved.
• M – Measurable – You must have built in the ability to measure a win. What will it mean if you accomplish your goals?  An old saying goes, “You can’t manage what you cannot measure.”
• A – Attainable – I believe in and have big dreams.  Goals should stretch the organization.  Having unattainable goals, however, can kill momentum and eventually destroy an organization’s momentum.
• R – Reliable/Relevant- If you accomplish these goals will they be helping your organization reach its overall mission? Energy spent in achieving irrelevant goals wastes an organization’s resources.
• T – Timely – To be sustainable, goals need to have timeframe for completion.

What goals do you currently have for yourself or your organization?  After reading this, do you need to reevaluate some of those goals?

I went running in Philadelphia this past weekend.   I love the Fairmount Park System, because I can run for miles in new territory. This day I set out to explore a several mile loop around a portion of the park.  Shortly into my run I entered the park in front of a young college girl running at the same pace with me. (I’m assuming her identity based on her age and the college sweatshirt she was wearing.)  We had been running together for about a half-mile when she apparently became impatient with my pace and decided to run faster.  She gave me a look that seemed to speak “get out of my way old man” and quickly disappeared from my sight.  I continued my steady pace through the park and encountered her again a couple miles later.  She had looped around the park and was heading back, still continuing at her faster pace.  We smiled at one another as we passed.

Thankfully for my ego the story took a change in my favor.  After 3 or 4 miles I returned to the place we had originally met and what did I see?  My college “friend” was walking, out of breath, holding her stomach and in obvious pain.  She couldn’t finish the track.  Not that I would wish her ill will, but I couldn’t help myself from giving her a look that said, “I may be old, but I’m still running.”  (I also threw in a look that said, “Hope you get to feeling better.”)

In addition to boosting my adrenaline, it was a good reminder to me of a leadership principle.  There are certainly times an organization needs to sprint. Organizations need times of stretching to take leaps forward. Momentum is built with energy and excitement and every organization should continually have periods of sprinting.  Some decisions require immediate answers and there are times when we run at full pace to accomplish immediate goals.  Healthy organizations continue to grow and there will be times of fast growth, but the key to long-term, sustainable health of an organization is establishing systems and strategies that guarantee a consistent and reliable pace of growth.  The organization that continues to do well even in difficult days is the one that builds itself to survive the highs and the lows of time.

Companies such as Twitter and Facebook, for example, have grown at sprint pace.  Most likely they will not be able to continue at their current growth rate long term.  To be successful in the future and be companies that last they must find ways to convert their growth rate to a steadier pace.  The employees of those companies are most likely stretched at this point.  They are probably having fun sprinting right now, but their longevity and avoiding burnout will require they achieve healthy pace sometime in the near future.

This is true also for church plants, such as Grace Community Church, which has sprinted for our first three and half years.  I hope we sprint at this pace for our first 10 years, but it is more important that we continue to grow for many years to come.  (I pray we are still a healthy church when Jesus returns!)  One of my consuming thoughts lately, therefore, is how to transition from a fast-paced plant, to a steadily growing, viable church.  We may have years of 50% increases again in the future, and I hope we do, but the overriding goal should be that we continue to be a vibrant, growing church.   For that I can learn principles from the tortoise.

Consider these questions:

• Are you positioning your company, church or organization for long-term success?
• Have you seen cycles and seasons of fast-paced growth and steady growth?
• What is stretching your organization right now?  Are you healthy enough to maintain your health during the stretch?
• What suggestions do you have for our church at this point in our life?
• What companies or churches do you look to as examples of this principle, of positioning themselves for long-term growth and sustainability?

My friend Tony Hill sent me an email this week asking me about our experience with church planting: (Tony is the mastermind behind my blog design.)

Hey Ron, I’m going through Andy Stanley’s book “Visioneering” with a friend. We are working on chapter 5 (faith as the essential ingredient for a vision) and the project for that chapter is to evaluate the success of others and I naturally thought of you. Would you mind if I sent you over around 7 questions from the book?  I guess this would all relate to Grace and it would be interesting to contrast that with your previous business that didn’t go as well.

Of course I was delighted to participate, so he sent me the questions.  My answers are below the questions.  These are great questions and I thought someone may enjoy the exchange.

How did you get started (with respect to the area of vision and success)?

For the church it was in a time of prayer about our city with 2 other friends.  The vision sat for 10 years before we did anything with it.
Also reading Jeremiah 33:9 spoke incredibly to me.

When you started out, did you feel God was leading you?

Absolutely.  I resisted it a long time and it was God’s encouragement and the encouragement from others that confirmed it and pushed me forward.

Did you ever feel God had abandoned you as you pursued your vision? If so, what did you do?

Not really abandoned, but after the river prayer time my other 2 friends left town and the vision seemed hopeless.  One of those came back to town years later and had been in a new church like Grace in his new town.  He was ready for something new.  In the meantime I had surrendered to the ministry.

What was the most faith-stretching experience you had along the way?

Asking 11 couples to walk by faith to support 3 staff members out of their own pockets if no one ever came.  They did!  Thankfully they never had to be stretched financially, because others came, but these were the same people who went out on a limb and signed a note on land when we purchased it.

As you began to experience the rewards of success, did it ever go to your head?

I’m sure at times I could be tempted, but I had enough previous failure in my life to keep me humble.  I recognize that this could all disappear some day if God removed His hand.

Is there anything particular that helps keep your success in perspective?

My family is my largest grounding tool. They are brutally honest with me, reminding me how unspectacular I am sometimes.

What would you do differently if you had to do it over?

I would not hide the fact that God has something big for us. I think, because a church plant can be so unpopular, that I was bashful about what we were doing at first.  I would be bolder in an effort to reach the lost and not hide because of small-minded negative people.

The churches in the province of Asia send you greetings. Aquila and Priscilla greet you warmly in the Lord, and so does the church that meets at their house. All the brothers here send you greetings. Greet one another with a holy kiss. 1 Corinthians 16:19-20 NIV

My message today at Grace Community Church is from the book of Acts.  It is evident from Paul’s writings that he loved the local church. The local church is a huge part of the New Testament. The Book of Acts alone chronicles the history of its foundation.

Years ago I participated in a one-day medical clinic in a slum near Rio, Brazil that remains nameless, because the government has yet to name it. It is literally built on the side of a steep mountain. Simply walking to the clinic was a huge task. My job was to evangelize the crowd waiting to see the doctors. My translator and I had several decisions to accept Christ, but remarkably we also encountered a good number of professing believers. When I told them that the desire was to eventually start a church in the slum, they were ecstatic. One lady began to jump up and down with excitement. They wanted a local church!

The reaction of these people to the hopes of a local church being established caused me to wonder. How excited do most of us get at the prospect of attending church?   In some cities in the United States there are more churches than in some countries in total, yet statistics tell us that 80% of the people are not in church on a given Sunday. Announce that you are going to open an evangelical church in America today and, while it will attract some attention (frankly some positive and some negative), I doubt many will jump up and down with excitement.

What is the difference? Could it be that we take our hundreds of local church options for granted? I do not know the reasons we fail to be as excited about churches as in some places in other countries I have visited, but I do believe God has a plan for the local church. It is still His method for reaching the lost and hurting, building disciples and sending workers out to develop His kingdom.

Do you love the church?    Who do you know that needs an invitation to join what God is doing in your church?  Could God be expecting you to invite them?

Today was the fourth Easter service of Grace Community Church. We are 3 ½ years old and God has richly blessed us.  It’s hard to put today into words.  I simply was blown away by it.  Here are a few random thoughts:

• God overwhelmed us with 2,150 people in the three services today.  Amazing.
• We had numerous recorded decisions and the follow up and emails and texts I’ve received all day have been overwhelming.
• Our staff and volunteers hit lots of home runs today.  We have some of the most dedicated Christians I’ve ever known on our team.  I LOVE IT!
• Our people did what we asked them to do; they invited people. We had tons of first-time visitors. Thank you!
• We have some crazy talented musicians and singers. Wow!
• The attendance today is a 51% increase over last year’s Easter service.  I originally thought that was unique, but we had a 54% increase the second Easter over the first and a 40% increase last year over the prior year.
• I was reminded that Easter is an incredible opportunity to capture people’s attention for the church.  Easter is a time to take risks, dream big, and do everything with excellence.
• Numbers are important.  Despite some people’s negative perceptions of this discussion, the Bible has a whole book by that title.  Numbers represent people.  People matter to God.
• If we did nothing with the increased number of people attending our church then we would be sinning.  We are commanded to “make disciples” and that requires more than just a weekly gathering.  We do teach truth in our services, but our goal is to connect people to growing relationships with other believers through our small group program and service opportunities.  That’s our end goal.
• Our Easter number is usually our average number a year later and an indication of what is coming for Fall.  WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?

You can watch the first 10 minutes of the message here, but will need to login to Truthcasting to watch the whole message.  (I preached a shorter message today, so you may want to start with the Truthcasting site.)