Join Pastor Kerry and Pastor Pat Giraldin (Ministry Pastor at Saddleback Church) as they unpack Pastor Pat’s top 3 ways for moving someone from the “seat back to the street”, or from sitting in chairs to making a contribution in service to others in the local church.
Show Links:www.sacredspace.ie
Pastor Pat’s Mugshot:
Here is a great promo clip that Pastor Shawn Blakeney put together for “Connection” weekend.
If you’re still looking for a eye opening experience with the next generation of Christ following explorers, hook up at the Off the Map Live Conference next week, November 1-3 in Seattle, WA. I’m sure they can make room for you.
Tony and I will see you there!
Sorry you haven’t heard from me in a few days, but the firestorms have been keeping us all very busy. Our church campus is being used as a staging area for Firefighters, Forestry Service Personnel, and News Media from around the state and other states.
Our Pastoral Care Team has also been very busy assisting evacuees by housing them in one of our sprung buildings that we call, “Tent 3″. We are providing them food and shelter. LA Fitness across the street from our offices has opened up their showers for the evacuees to have a place to clean up as well. Thank You LA Fitness for joining us to serve the community.
Please be in pray for our community, membership, and staff as many of them have their lives to rebuild. In addition, pray for cooler temperatures, higher humidity, and a light breeze to move the smoke. Since the smoke laid down yesterday the smoke is settling in; schools, business, and church facilities are closing due to the hazardous air quality we are experiencing.
Several have asked what the greatest need is. Prayer for safety of those who are displaced, the safety of the rescue and fire officials on the ground and an opportunity for the church to be the church in the midst of tragedy. I would also say financially supporting the American Red Cross is a great step. These men and women have gone above and beyond in helping our community.
In addition, stop by your local Fire Department, Police/Sheriff Station, Forestry Service office and thank them on behalf of all southern California’s for the sacrifice they and their comrades are making to keep us safe.
To keep up with our latest local news in SoCal click on FOX 11 News.
Thank you for interceding on our behalf.
Join Pastor’s Kerry Mackey and Erin Kerr as they unpack 5 Ways to Engage Your Community for Jesus Christ.
Several have asked how I lead my teams, plan, and execute my ministry plan. Here are 4 easy steps to being strategic in your planning.
P.O.S.T.
1. Purpose - determine the purpose of the ministry and/or team. This is a non measurable statement that sets the focus of your ministry and team.
(I.e. - Making the most of every opportunity to help people choose Jesus and belong to the church family.) That is the Purpose Statement of Street to the Seat (StS).
2. Objectives - what are the 3-5 objectives that you want to accomplish with a particular ministry. These have some measurable components. They should be objectives that stretch you; however, not so much that your teams can’t succeed. Take faith steps, just don’t jump off a cliff that isn’t a win for the team.
(I.e - During 2008 StS will assist 50 churches in developing a strategic Communication Plan for their Congregation and Community.)
I also have one for Connection, Contribution, and Community. Remember StS’s core concepts are Communication, Connection, Contribution, and Community.
3. Strategies - now strategies get very specific. These are where you put together 1 -3 specific steps for each of your objectives. Each strategy needs to be time stamped and dated. Get very specific so that you stay on task. These are the specifics of what I’m going to do to accomplish my objectives and by when.
(I.e. - StS will submit a plan to www.pastors.com by December 1, 2007 to write one article per month in 2008 on StS’s core concepts so as to engage our target audience of pastors world-wide.)
4. Tracking - is how you intend to monitor your progress. This can be done as easily as with an excel.doc or with a tool like BaseCamp and their “milestone” feature. These tracking documents should be available to everyone on your team so as to keep everyone on task and accountable for the direction of the team. DO NOT use this as a “thumb” on your team, but as a tool to just keep you on track.
If you have other plans you’ve found helpful I’d be interested in hearing from you.
PLEASE post a comment.
Join Pastor Erin Kerr and Pastor Kerry Mackey as they address the “5 Ways to Engage New Believers” as you build your church’s tool box for ideas of providing doorways of authentic biblical community.
What do you do when you run out of parking and chairs? First it is a great problem to have. Second, most churches don’t have this problem. But they should.
So what do you do? Let me submit a couple of ideas.
First, don’t think you’ll be able to maintain 80% of seating capacity for more than a month or so. What usually will happen is over a period of 2 – 3 months if you are running near or at 80% of your seating capacity is that people will begin to feel as if it is over crowded. Even though many want to hide in the crowd they don’t want to hide in too big of a crowd. So when you start bumping the 80% mark in attendance it is well advised to have a next step plan ready to roll.
Second, don’t fool yourselves into thinking that just because you have the parking spaces available to park more than 80% capacity that you can. Hasn’t worked to my knowledge for an extended period of time so I don’t think you or I will begin to beat “the odds” if you will anytime soon. I am all for having enough parking spaces to facilitate 100% seating capacity of any facility, maybe even a few more; however, once you start hovering around 80% capacity of your facility it will not matter how many parking spaces you have you will not need them all.
Third, please don’t kill yourselves trying to figure out how to beat the odds. Be blessed that you have a packed house on Sunday morning and begin to focus your time, energy, and resources on finding other solutions other than stuffing persons into one hour on Sunday morning.
So here are my thoughts.
1. Consider multiple services on Sunday morning if you currently only have one.
2. Think about starting a worship service at another time other than Sunday morning. I’m currently at a church that has six different time slots on Saturday and Sunday in addition to College worshipping on Thursday nights and a mid week bible study and communion service on the first Wednesday night of the month.
3. Start multiple styles of worship services at different times during the day to spread out the crowd.
4. Consider asking your folks to only attend one service on any given day. No repeat customers if you will. If you have and morning service and an evening service ask persons to only attend one.
5. Look into starting services at other locations in the community. Have a lay leader and/or other staff to preach those services. (Same content that is being taught at the main church; however, allowing the teacher/preacher of that location to make it their own)
6. Consider multiple site venues – video campuses as well as complete regional campuses which have their own pastor and lay leadership team, but fall within the leadership of the main church campus.
7. Plant a new church from within your own congregation.
I would love to hear your thoughts on this topic.
So…the title caught your attention I see.
OK…so this has nothing to do with moving someone from the street to the seat, 1st impressions, or starting a conversation with someone who isn’t a follower of Jesus, but the Lord has challenged me this week to learn more about “young lions do lack and suffer hunger”.
I was reading Psalms 34 this week and a couple of verses jumped off the page at me. Psalms 34:4, 10, 13-14.
So what do you think verse 10 means when the writer says, “The young lions do lack and suffer hunger; but they who seek the Lord shall not be in want of any good thing.”
I’d love to hear your thoughts.
Join Pastor Kerry Mackey of StS and Pastor Kurt Johnston (Student Pastor, Saddleback Church) as they look at how Pastor Kurt took the purpose driven paradigm and made it practical for student ministries as they get back to the basics through Exposure, Experience, and Expression.
Show Links:
The Power of Nice (book)
