Feel free to forward this to a friend!

PLAN OUT YOUR ENTIRE 2007 YEAR SERMON SCHEDULE NOW!

NEW this month!

Two new seminars have been added this month:

1st - "How to Really Pray"

2nd - "Seven Important People on Sunday Morning"

One new sermon on Acts 1:8 about the "Church"

Factoids

This month, let’s take a look at a couple of Factoids related to Board Leadership.  Coming from two different sources, we learn something in stereo, about a great way to measure your church’s health:

Assimilation into Leadership

“How long does it take for someone to make it to a committee, board, or other position of influence in the church?  In healthy churches the answer will typically be one to four years.”

(Anderson, Leith. A Church for the 21st Century. Minneapolis: Bethany House, 1992, p. 137)  

Board Ratio -- 1:5

“One of every five board members should have joined the church within the last two years.”

(Win Arn, “How to Use Ratios to Effect Church Growth”, in Wagner, C. Peter, ed. Church Growth: State of the Art. Wheaton, IL: Tyndale, 1986, ch. 8, p. 100.)  

The amount of flow and process and leadership development occurring at your church is a measure of your church’s health.  Some churches are pretty stagnant.  In the first church (founded in 1890) at which I served as Senior Pastor, at age 29, I looked around my first board meeting, and did a quick mental calculation, and was a little shocked at the results:  If I included my age, at a mere 29 years old, and averaged it in with the age of all the members of my church board, the average age was still over 65 years old!  (We had some work to do!) 

Why does this happen?  Because most churches nominate people based on the “good ol’ boy” system.  If someone has been around long enough to be “safe” and a “good guy” then they get nominated.  It has very little to do with the expectations for leadership listed in 1 Timothy 3.

And what you will find is that the process of moving people into leadership is symptomatic of the entire church discipleship process.  There is probably no system in place for creating leaders at other levels of the church as well.

How do you deal with it?  Get a Board-approved (“grand-father” in your current board members so that they are not threatened)  process for leadership development which includes these elements: 

• The character-qualities of 1 Timothy 3
  
• Small Group or Ministry Team Leadership -  The Scriptures say that you should “test someone” first.  The way you test them is through previous experience in key ministries of the church.  If they have successfully led a small group or a ministry team (committee) in your church, that is a good guide.
• Leadership Class – do you have a class or plan for leadership development?  (If you need some ideas, take a look at the HPR Coaching Resources section here.  It contains some guides for Leadership Development.)

Leadership development is a key challenge for growing churches, and churches that want to grow. 

These and other Factoids can be found at ChurchGrowth Factoids

Coaching

HONEST FEEDBACK GUIDELINES

Coaching staff or ministry leaders always involves giving some form of feedback on performance.  The question is how to do that and both improve performance as well as maintain the relationship.  Ephesians 4:15 says,
“Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ.”

Speaking the truth in love is the challenge.
How do you do that well?  Here are four tips for giving honest but loving feedback to someone.
Ask yourself these four questions before giving any feedback:  

1.  IS IT WORTH SHARING?

Related questions:  Will it meet a need?
Will it build up the hearer?
Does it provide a benefit to the hearer?

You have to ask yourself if what you are going to share will really benefit the person who is receiving it.  Here you are basically deciding if you are sharing it for your good or his/her good.  Is there a specific need in this person’s life of which they are unaware that feedback will provide?  Although the person might be ‘hurt’, is this a ‘good hurt’ that will help them to grow?  Proverbs 27:6 says, “faithful are the wounds of a friend, but profuse are the kisses of an enemy”.  Which do you want to be, a friendly enemy, or a friend who speaks the truth in love?

2.  WHAT ARE MY MOTIVES?

Do I have something to gain: Physically, Emotionally, Psychologically?

This is an important question to guard yourself from self-deception.  For example, if you are too eager to share this feedback, then you need to check your motives.  Why do you want to share it so badly?  Is this a veiled way to get back at someone for something that has made you unhappy? 

3.  HOW SHOULD I SHARE IT?

When: is the timing right?
Where: what is the best setting?
How: what is the best communication method?

Even the best feedback, if giving in the wrong manner, will do more damage than good.  Does it even need to be said, don’t use email for negative feedback?  Find a face-to-face opportunity, where you can focus.  Don’t share feedback right before a big event, or Sunday service; wait for a calmer time during the week.

Summary:
I have found that even difficult feedback, if shared in a loving, caring manner, can be well-received, and will ultimately bless the person receiving it.  If you carefully think through these questions, they will eventually be grateful for the fact that you had the courage to speak the truth in love.

Software

Tip this month:  how to use SermonBase™ to plan out your 2007 sermons.

Quick synopsis:
For those of you who don’t like to follow detailed tutorials, here is what I’m going to explain:  Use SermonBase to create a new year.  Decide how many Series you want to fit into 2007, and create each one, specifying how many weeks long is each Series.  Hit the “schedule series” button, and watch your weeks get filled in with generic message titles.  Then go back to the Calendar year view, fill in the gaps, and find any special Sundays, like picking out Easter weekend, Memorial Day and Labor Day weekends.  You might want to schedule stand-alone Messages for those days.  Then once your year is filled in, you can go to each individual Series list, and work up the specific Message Title, Topic and Scripture for each week.  Then you’re done!  2007 is planned.  You then hit the print button, and send out your yearly plan to all of your worship team & creative team leaders.  They will be wowed and impressed by your advance planning skills, and will now have plenty of time to find good dramas and clips.

OK, here’s how to do it in detail:

Planning out 2007 Series & Messages.
1)  Create a New Year in calendar view. 
(Go to Calendar view; SermonBase will say at the top that your calendar runs from “year” to “year”.  If 2007 is not included then you need to create it.  Use the “Creation” button, and click on “New Year”.  Specify the year “2007” and every Sunday for that year will be created with the correct dates.

Now you need to create a set of Series for 2007.

To create each Series, go through this process:

2)  Click on “Creation” button
3)  Select “New Series”
4)  Give the Series a Name, Subtitle, Scripture & Topic  (Even if each Message in the Series will have a different Topic & Scripture, you can specify a universal one for the Series.)
5)  Select a date from the clickable calendar
6)  Set the range (in weeks) for the Series.
7)  Click “Schedule Series”  (it will inherit the Topic & Scripture of the Series). Each message will be entitle “Message 1…2…3…4, etc. ready to be filled in by you.
8) click over to the “Calendar view”.  You will see your newly scheduled Messages already waiting for you.

9) Continue scheduling other Series for the year.  In no time, you will have the entire year scheduled.

Review your plans:

10)  Select the “Filter” button, and set the Year to 2007.
11)  Now click “Go” and you will see just the Series, or Messages for next year. 
12)  You can easily jump back and forth between looking at just the 10-12 Series for the year, or all the Messages for 2007, just by clicking on the “Series” or “Message” tab.
13)  Then you can go back to each Series, and fill out the Messages with specific Title, Topic and Scripture.  Being able to see all the Messages for a Series in one window together will make your planning go much easier.
14) When in Calendar view, click the “Print” button, and get a hard-copy printout of your entire year.  Send it to your planning teams; make them happy for your advance planning.

 

Click on www.SermonBase.com to download your new Demo today.

Seminars

Prayer Seminar & 7 Most Important People


Two new Seminars have been added to HighPowerResources.com this month.


• “How to REALLY Pray”  - Prayer is a tough topic for most people to get a handle on.  This one-hour workshop starts with the basics of prayer, and goes into deeper water, so that both young Christians and older Christians can benefit.  This can be used as a one-time stand alone seminar to do some extra training, or you can use it as the foundation to a sermon series on prayer.
  
  
• “Seven Most Important People”  - There are guests who have come to your church, who will probably never return, because of one of these seven people.  Find out who they are, and what you can do to make sure that you keep guests coming back.  (If you check out the Church Growth Factoids on “assimilation”, you will see that you need to retain between 10 and 20% of every first-time guest in order for you church to grow.  Or else, see November 2006 eNews for more info.)

Click on www.HighPowerResources.com/Seminars to learn more

Sermons, Dramas, Bible Studies

New Sermon at HighPowerResources.com:

Acts 1:8  “The Return of King Jesus”  -- Topic:  The Church Community

• Proposition:  “The Church of Jesus Christ – YOU --  are His visible presence on Earth until He returns again.”
  
• Some key points of the message:
  
  • Need to be passionate about the kingdom of heaven
    
  • How to Be Filled with the Holy Spirit
    
  • The Three Problems Most People have (which prevent this)
    
  • And, and explanation of the Great Commission
Download the fill-in-the-blank message notes HERE