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NEW this month!

New - You can get one Free Coaching Session with Dr. Bill Miller

• Church Growth Factoids: Making Small Groups Work
  
• Lots of new Blog Posts:
  • New Blogs on Biblical Principles for Small Groups
    
• Coaching:
  • Coaching Tools - New Tools for Time Management
    

• Sermons:  Team Power
  

CHURCH GROWTH FACTOIDS:

Take a look at these two Factoids

Factoid #1: Small Group Members Stick

“...new Christians who immediately became active in a small group are five times more likely to remain in the church five years later than those who were active in worship services alone.”

(Rainer, Thom. Surprising Insights from the Unchurched and Proven Ways to Reach Them. (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2001), p.120.)

Factoid #2: Percentage Involvement

“Based on lots of research over the years, there are some standard guidelines. Ideally, you have a minimum of 60% of your adult worship attendees involved in either classes or groups. If you can get more than 70%, you’re excelling. Between 50 and 60% is fair, and less than 50% is poor.”

(McIntosh, Gary. OutreachMagazine.com. Sept/Oct. 2007.)

Both of these Factoids focus on the primary importance of small groups in your church. Just one of the many benefits associated with having people in your small group is the “stickability” factor; the “velcro effect” of small groups. If you work hard to get people into your church, then you will want them to stay once they arrive. Small groups are a great way to help people get connected, feel connected, and stay connected.

McIntosh’s comments on small group percentages makes me ask the question, do you know what percentage of people in your church are involved in small group community? How are you tracking them?

One of the reasons why we have been working on the “Shepherd Care Group Software” is to help churches track their small groups, so they can answer questions like this. The value of small groups is so overwhelming that it is an absolute must for any church that wants to be healthy.

If you have any other factoids on the value of small groups, be sure to send them in to: DrBill@HighPowerResources.com. Just include the factoid and the source. God’s best to you!

These and other Factoids can be found at ChurchGrowth Factoids

HighPower Thoughts  Blog

(What I'm learning right now in the areas of Ministry Coaching, Simple Church, Church Growth & Church Health.)

Recent Posts:

• Book Review: “Focus” (Willowcreek Study)
  This is the third in the Reveal series, based on Willowcreek’s study of factors which lead to spiritual growth.
  
  

SMALL GROUP DISCIPLESHIP SERIES:

• #1 The Power of Christian Community (Acts 2:42-47)
  We look at the four elements of Christian community based on this key passage.
  
  
• #2 How Necessary are Small Groups?
  I take a look at the C-C-C church structure theory which says you need to have a Celebration - Congregation - Cell in order to have a healthy church.
  
  
• #3 The Old Testament Pastoral Care Plan (Exodus 18)
  How the Old Testament (Exodus 18) presents some guidelines for great small groups and pastoral care.
  
  
• #4 SMALL GROUP DISCIPLESHIP #4: Can we really be a church of small groups?
  
  
• Check out the Blog here.

Coaching

NEW Resources: TIME MANAGEMENT TOOLS

New: “Time Management Bundle” -- This is a GREAT PACKET OF FIVE SEPARATE TOOLS, each with a different purpose related to time management. I’ve created these for me, and maybe you will find them useful too. Take a look and see what you like.

“Time Satisfaction Analysis” -- This tool helps you to analyze all your activities based on satisfaction & results. It’s a cool tool to help you spend your time well.

New: “Team Power” group exercise guide - Used in conjunction with the Team Power message set, this is a fill-in-the-blank form which guides your Ministry Teams into deciding on their team mission and goals, as well as getting to know each other on the team a little better. We’ve used it in our church of 700 to great effect.

FREE COACHING SESSION

Many lot of pastors have not experienced the power of coaching yet. I’ve been a believer and a practitioner of coaching for many years now. it is a powerful tool to help individuals, and pastors, to reach their goals. I’m happy to share this powerful tool for effective ministry with other pastors. If you would be interested in receiving a free coaching session, please feel free to contact me. We can set up a time to do a one-hour no-obligation coaching session. Give it a try; I think you will enjoy the clarity of thought and planning which it provides.
Contact me at “DrBill@HighPowerResources.com” for more info.

Other HighPower Coaching Resources can be found here.

Software News

SermonBase Message Planning Software

Tip: Using the “Range” filter, you can set SermonBase to show you all sermons in a two year view. You could set it to show all sermons from 2009, and upcoming sermons for 2010, so that you can compare, and make sure you don’t do any repeats, or you have a good spread of topics between the previous year, and the next year.

Shepherd Care Group Software

Tip: Shepherd Care has 10 separate printable reports available, 5 basic, 4 speciality, and a labels print-out. Four of the reports can be accessed right from the “Flocks” screen.

Family Faces Church Directory Software

Tip: FamilyFaces is currently our newest software product, but we have been using it at my church, and we know that it can handle at least a church of 700. Using a print to PDF feature, we’ve been able to export a very manageable file to any families that want there own digital copy too.

HighPower Library -- Free software for Pastors
Tip: This nifty little free software program has two views for examining your library; a form view to look at details for one book, CD, Article, etc., and Listview, which lets you see as many at once as you can fit on your screen.

Click on HighPower Software to download your software Demos today.

Seminars

For a list of both our on-site seminars and our “Do-It-Yourself” (DIY) Seminars, click on HighPower Seminars to learn more.

Sermons - New Sermon Available:  Team Power!

Team Power - We recently did a leadership team meeting in which we were trying to get each team to assess their strengths, and really look at the mission which God had called them to. In order to do that, we developed a “Team Power Resume”. That is included with this message. The message is all about the four temperaments and how they work in a team. Then the printable resume was a giant 30” x 48 inches fill-in-the-blank ‘team resume’. It was pretty cool. Take a look at this one. You can adapt it for your church.

HighPower Sermons