Archive for the ‘Church Leadership’ Category

Thoughts about nutcracker

December 17th, 2009

So last night a couple of the guys on staff and myself took our wives to see the Nutcracker in Boston. It was a surprise and it went over really well. My wife was blown away because she knows I can’t stand things like that…I will admit though it wasn’t THAT bad. It wasn’t as amazing as the Cheesecake Factory that we ate prior to going but it was bearable. Barely, but bearable.

Here are some of the things that I learned last night at the Boston Opera House.

  1. The level of excellence on the stage is more important than the AWE of the atmosphere.

    If you have never been to the Boston Opera House, trust me when I say the theater is freakin unreal! I mean one of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen. I cannot imagine the amount of money that it took to create that type of atmosphere. But as I sat in awe of the atmosphere I realized that if the people and excellence on stage was poor my entire opinion would have changed.

    I know that there is this “new wave” within the church to create awesome backdrops and atmospheres, but remember the look of the room is not as important as the excellence on stage. When someone walks into NLC we can WOW them with our atmosphere in the first minutes of their arrival but if the next hour of their time with us is less than excellent, we’ve failed them.

  2. Making people comfortable matters.

    Now I know what you’re thinking, you think I’m talking spiritually…NO, I’m talking physically. It was beyond hot in the theater and I seriously wanted to scream out in the middle of the show…“just because it’s 20 degrees outside doesn’t mean you need to have it 90 degrees in the theater.” I know this might sound like I’m a baby, but I will never go back to that theater because the thought of pitting out and having sweat run down my back while watching people do ballet doesn’t excite me. Just a thought, are people distracted spiritually at your church because you are tormenting them physically?

  3. Knowing what the heck is going on matters.

    I’ve never read the book Nutcracker and quite honestly never want to. But because I wasn’t familiar with the book I HAD NO IDEA what was going on. NO IDEA! I kept asking the people around me if they could help fill me in because I felt so out of place. People were laughing and I didn’t know why, people where clapping and I didn’t know why, I felt SO out of place. As a church we need to remember that not everyone has read the book.

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Qualities It Will Take For The Church To Change N.E. – Part 3

December 10th, 2009

The desire for conversion growth rather than transfer growth:

(SORRY IT’S LONG, IF YOU CAN READ THE ENTIRE THING I THINK IT WILL BLESS YOU!)

Now this is a touchy subject…so let’s have some fun. You WILL NEVER meet a church leader who says “We want to grow through transfer growth and do everything we can to keep Christians happy”.

I haven’t been around for a long time, but I have never heard any leader say that with their words but I’ve watched the majority enforce that through their actions. Now here is what I’m not saying, I’m not saying transfer growth is bad. Matter of fact, when we launched NLC in 2008 I can remember saying several times that we don’t want transfer growth…I’ve since had to eat those words because in order for a church to be healthy it needs followers of Jesus who fully support the vision in every aspect.

I have come to the conclusion that if the DNA of a church is to truly reach the unchurched it will not grow due to transfer growth until it’s over 200 people. Here’s what I mean, unfortunately we are creatures of habit and Christians like what they are used to. We like the music we’ve always heard, we like talking our christianize language, we like have 100 different ministries that can reach all of our needs, we like awkward get togethers where there is always food, we like the pastor to be our friend, we like the family feel where everyone knows your name.  Here’s the problem with that, the un-churched don’t like our style of music, don’t understand words like Hallelujah and the “blood of the lamb”, are not interested in being away from their family 5 nights a week doing church stuff, feel awkward at church get togethers, are not interested in being friends with the pastor, and have a dysfunctional family already. We VERY rarely grew through transfer growth at the beginning because we turned Christians off by doing what turned the un-churched towards Jesus.

- We have a concert-like music set….Every Christian said it was too loud, too fast and felt like a concert. We kept worshipping Jesus through music the way we believed the world could relate and grew because un-churched people would bring their friends to check out this band that sounds like “the Fray”. Now Let me be CLEAR, our band doesn’t sound like the Fray, YET, but it’s pretty good.

- We don’t use language that people don’t understand..EVER! If anyone on staff uses a christianize word they are called out on it.

- At NLC we have 5 things we do… Sunday mornings, life groups, Students, Children, Community. We don’t have any other ministries and don’t plan on having any more.

- I’m not available for most people in most circumstances, I have an awesome staff that can usually help people more than I can. The only reason people want to see the lead Pastor is because we have falsely idolized that position. I am not NLC. I am in ministry at NLC like everyone at who attends NLC should be.

- We have removed the family feel…Now I understand that a church is a family and bla bla bla bla, but when the church acts like a family it’s similar to me sitting at your family dinner table at thanksgiving. I would be awkward, I wouldn’t get the jokes and would feel out of place. I’m afraid that the world doesn’t feel like it fits into our family, because we’ve forgotten Sunday isn’t time for family stories, it’s time to welcome guests.

We had a lot of people leave NLC because we were “too different” but now that Jesus has grown NLC and proven that the vision of NLC is solid and life changing we are starting to see transfer growth. If we would have compromised the vision on the front end we would have turned into a church that God had not called us to be. Sure we would have had more resources, volunteers, and life group leaders but we wouldn’t be reaching the people we are today…sometimes we need to endure the pain and process of the vision on our heart in order to see God’s perfect will. The Christians that come to NLC today know who we are, see the lives being changed and are selfless followers of Jesus Christ. I have received one complaint in the last 6 months, our vision and DNA are not up for interpretation.

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Qualities It Will Take For The Church To Change N.E. – Part 2

December 9th, 2009

Continued blog series from last Friday.

The willingness to rethink how we “do” church:

One of the greatest leadership principles I’ve ever heard is that it’s harder to unlearn than it is to learn. Every single week at NLC I challenge my staff to rethink the way we do ministry. Now the message will never be compromised and Jesus will always be preached at NLC, but the way we “do” ministry must be changing. Notice I didn’t say it must change, I said it must be changing. So many churches make changes and become content, when we launched NLC in 2008 I thought I had it all figured out. I even said the dreaded words “we’ll never do it that way”, I’ve had to swallow those words many times. Nothing at NLC is finalized, we are always making things more culturally relevant, we are always trying to become more excellent, we never being a ministry or execute an idea that we are not willing to kill or change. There is not one thing that we do at NLC other than preaching Jesus that will be the same 6 months from now.

So my questions to you are this…

Are you willing to rethink the way you “do” ministry?

Are you willing to eat the words “we’ll never do that”?

Do you need to beg God to help you unlearn the way you have been programed by the church so that you can learn the way Jesus wants to use you today?

Do you have ministries that you need to kill? (more on that tomorrow)

Are you afraid of rethinking the way you “do” church because following after Jesus and reaching the un-churched would cause people to leave the church you’re at?

What do you need to do today?

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Qualities It Will Take For The Church To Change N.E.

December 3rd, 2009

If you ask anyone who knows me at all what my largest non-family desire would be they would more than likely say “to be a part of the greatest move of God ever seen in N.E.” If that was the answer they gave you, they would be right. When I say a part of I mean one of the several churches Jesus uses to change the landscape of this region. As much as I love NLC and have given my life to the vision Jesus has given NLC, I know it’s going to take a lot more churches with a lot of different visions to make a large impact. I’m going to blog for the next couple of days on qualities I believe each church must have in order to see Jesus do the impossible in N.E.. These are qualities we must have in-spite of our vision, denomination, or methodology.

  1. A Clear, unshakable, God given Vision: The interesting thing about having a vision is everyone says they have one. I disagree! I think a lot of people have ideas, I think some people follow after opportunity, I think a lot people have lost the one time vision they had but not every leader has a clear, unshakable, God given vision. A vision will keep you up at night, a vision causes you to not remain silent, a vision compels you to continue when every tangible signs says quit, a vision makes your heart break for the things that break the heart of God, A vision makes you cry when you have the rare chance to see it being lived out, A vision causes the timid to be bold, the quiet to shout and the weak to be strong. N.E. Needs churches with leaders who have a vision…Do you have a vision or just an idea?

  2. The willingness to change: In Perry Noble’s coaching network he told us that he believes “every church is 1 or 2 changes away from doubling in their effectiveness.” In order to reach people no one else is reaching we must do things that no one else is doing. I am convinced that the reason the church in N.E, is dying is because we stopped changing. The word of God never changes but the platter we deliver it on must! If you are at a church that isn’t interested in change, LEAVE because I don’t believe we can honor God as leaders or followers of Jesus if we are not willing to change. One more thought on that, when I say change I mean changing your beliefs not just your behaviors. For example, putting up lights, wearing jeans, preaching from a bistro table and doing faster louder music because “cool” churches that are growing do, WILL NOT WORK. Changing your name in hopes that it will bring growth, WON’T WORK. You can’t fake change…It must happen from the inside out. The un-churched really are not impressed with lighting and loud music, they are impressed with authenticity.

More tomorrow, sorry for the length…My wife is watching some stupid show and I’m bored. She loves crime shows and at the end of the day the last thing I want to do is think.

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The church that will change New England.

September 21st, 2009

I’m going to begin a series of posts talking about the church that will change New England.  It’s important to understand that when I say “”church” in this context I’m referring to the universal church.  Now, this is my heart speaking, so I’m obviously pouring out the vision of NLC….and yes I do believe that NLC will be one of the churches that leads the way in reaching the most un-churched area in our country but, we will not be the only one’s leading the way.  I’m writing from my hotel room in N.C. and it’s really late so take that into consideration…I went to Elevation church tonight and tomorrow I’m going to three more churches including back to Newspring for their 6:00pm experience.  I know the culture of New England, but I’m  trying to learn the culture of what makes the church down South so explosive…I’m really starting to see some major differences.

1) An attitude of expectation:

If we as leaders begin to expect the unexpected it will begin to create a DNA and momentum that will be unstoppable. In order to create a DNA of expectation we need to begin to expect people to show up on time and expect to meet with Jesus. People talk a lot about how some churches are turning into concerts…I can’t wait for the day that people show up to NLC with that type of excitement…counting out-loud the seconds left in the countdown, beginning to scream at the top of their lungs when the band hits the first cord, jumping up and down and singing at the top of their lungs for the one who gave it all for them.  If you want to create a DNA of expectation, first, you begin to expect the unexpected and second, begin to expect nothing different from those you lead.  Unfortunately, the church in  N.E. has become very predictable.

2) Have a culture of excellence:

I’m talking over the top excellence….we say at NLC that “the sermon starts in the parking lot”. Here’s what I can’t stand…churches that think they do things with excellence and are still stuck in the 90′s.  If your videos suck, don’t do them, if you have singers on the band that can’t sing, move them to another area and set them up for success.  Remember, no one can hear their heart so it doesn’t matter how good of a heart they have!  I could go on forever about this, but I promise EVERY church that is doing huge things for Jesus has an attitude of excellence.  Real excellence proves to the world that the church is tangible and not some outdated, weird cult….It also confirms, most importantly, that we believe God deserves our very best. I’m not really the guy on staff at NLC that should be talking about this because I’m blessed with great creative guys, but I’ll give you two pieces of advice…

I have several more ideas on how NLC plans to make Jesus famous in New England, I’ll post more tomorrow.

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