I spent Monday and Tuesday packing up my office and I’m really close to getting it all done.  Doing this chore brought sadness at leaving a place I love but also excitement and anticipation at the place that I’m going.  As this change comes about, here are somethings which I believe can make it a healthy time of change…

• Say Goodbye.  It’s so important to take time to say goodbye.  Remember, there is an element of grief that comes with change for you and for the church (if you are a pastor). It’s necessary to acknowledge that grief and take time to hug, shed a tear and/or laugh together with a special memory.  This includes those outside of your church and in the community you serve.
• Pack Well.  Don’t just throw things in a box at the last moment, the more organized you are now, the easier it will be when you un-pack.
• Pack early.  We are 4 weeks out from the move but packing early helps the reality of moving set in.  It gives more time to allow for the grief to manifest itself and for you to process through it.
• Pack Lighter.  Our family is following the rule that if we haven’t used it in the past year, it goes in the garage sale pile.  Clean out your junk is another way of putting it. 
• Spend Time with the Family.  Being a pastor is pretty hectic and stressful work.  This is a time when the stress should be lessened and the ability to spend some good quality time with the family is needed.
• Pray.  Lift up your current congregation in prayer and also begin praying for your new congregation.
• Don’t Forget Your Own Spiritual Growth.  As you wind down the current appointment, take time to grow yourself spiritually.  Take a Continuing Ed class, read that book that’s been sitting in the “To Be Read” pile, start a new personal Bible study time or begin a new Holy Habit.
• Finish Unfinished Business.  The to-do list, visits, make any apologies, and mend any fences.  Leave any baggage that may be weighing you down so that a new start can be made.

I keep a list in my office to remind me of leadership traits which I want to remember and practice. I have gotten these from some of my favorite leadership people including John Maxwell and Andy Stanley.   There are as follows:

1. Leaders become insulated and Isolated…AND THEY LIKE IT
2. Resist the urge to lead every meeting you attend.
3. A good leader wants the best thinkers and most strategic people around the table with them.
4. What and who you listen to will determine what you do.
5. Leaders never outgrow the need to change.
6. Don’t buy into the notion that mistakes can be avoided, THEY CAN’T.
7. It doesn’t matter how long or how hard you’ve worked if it doesn’t accomplish what needs to be done.
8. Coming together is a beginning and staying together is progress but only when teams sweat together do they find SUCCESS.
9. Teamwork is at the heart of GREAT achievement.
10. BECOME PRE-OCCUPIED WITH WHO YOU HAVEN’T REACHED AS OPPOSED TO THOSE YOU WANT TO KEEP.

Please keep Pastor Michael Stewart, the Stewart family and Hazel Green UMC in your prayers.  Michael had a stroke yesterday.

Thanks,

John

As a United Methodist Pastor, the possibility of being moved comes around once a year.  Most years, we are pretty confident if we are going to be moved or not and so the anxiety level is pretty low…usually.  This year, we are on the move list.  We know we are moving but that’s all we know.  We don’t know where. We do know that Thursday, April 11th, we will find out the where.  So this week is pretty anxiety filled as we wait on pins and needles for the phone call on Thursday. 

I’ve had many ask me questions such as, “How do you do that?” and “What are you feelings about moving?” So, I thought I would try to answer those in this blog:

What are you feelings about moving?

• Sadness:  We will be leaving a place where we love the people and they love us.  We have developed deep bonds and truly care for the flock here at Union.  We love this church and its people.
• Excitement:  The sense of the unknown is exciting to me.  A new challenges, new possibilities, new opportunities, new place to live, new people, new relationships, new starts, and new adventures. 
• Concern:  My son Jackson is going into the 10th grade and will be leaving friends and his high school.  This is the only place Graden and Sophie have known as home and Noah is going to be entering “Big Kid School” at a place where he doesn’t know anyone.  Erica is not making this move with us.  She is going to be going to college and being an adult. I know they will be okay but as a husband and dad, I’m concerned for my family.
• Anticipation:  Goes along with excitement but with a sense of looking forward to discovering what God holds in the new appointment.

Answering the question of “How do you do that?” This is what I’ve found that works for me:

• Don’t dwell on it.  There will be plenty of time to put plans in place.
• Stay focused on leaving well.  Make things as ready as possible for the next pastor following me.
• Prayer for our system, the Bishop and the Cabinet.  For God’s wisdom and discernment to be given to them so that their actions are led by God.
• Prayer for Union, it’s ministries, and the congregation.
• Prayer for the new pastor and pastor’s family coming to Union.  That God will give them all they need to be the leader Union needs to take them to the next level.
• Prayer for the new church that I will be serving.
• And a trust in God and a belief in what I learned from my youth director way back in 1986…”Where the Lord guides, He will provide.”

My wife has a Facebook page for her booth at Chelsea Antique Mall.  We are trying to reach 200 before the weekend and I have assured her we can do it.  We only have to get 13 more people to LIKE this page!  Please go to her Facebook Jillybeez page

I hope you will also go to her web site www.jillybeez.org.

Every church, group of friends, business, relationship, home, etc has a door and a few years ago, the United Methodist Church adopted this as part of their slogan.  As I have been studying Robert Schnase, I wanted to pass along to you some of the questions he ask on “How Easy is it to Come In and Find a Place?”  I hope every congregation member will take some time and truly think about these. I would even love to know your answers if you would share them with me.

• How do people hear about Union most often?  Think of all the ways someone in your community might hear or learn about our congregation.
• How are new people connected>
• In what ways do these new people become ‘regulars’?
• What makes someone feel that they aren’t “new” anymore?
• Can you list 2 or 3 groups of people in our area that are waiting to be invited to the congregation?  What are they like?  What might they need? What could you offer?
• How could we make inviting these people a regular part of how our congregation plans and holds events, small groups, classes and worship?

These are great questions that we need to ask.  Union no longer has the luxury of worrying most about itself and the people who are already here.  We need to be 100% focused on those who are not here; what’s going to get them here; what’s going to keep them here; what do they need when they get here and how can we make a place where they truly feel welcomed…not necessarily by what we say but by what has been done preparing for them before they even knew they were coming.

I know, I know, it’s been a long time since I’ve posted and I apologize and commit to do better. 

This summer I was blessed by my DS Ron Shultz to attend a congregational growth workshop where Bishop Robert Schnase was the keynote speaker.  Bishop Schnase has written the 5 Practices of Fruitful Congregations and his insights have re-invigorated me. 

As I look around, I’ve noticed church attendance and membership decreasing at a rapid pace.  Lovett Weems constantly talks about a “death tsunami” approaching the local churches as the largest generation (the Baby Boomers) reach the age that they pass away.  My local congregation is a perfect example of this.  When you look across our congregation, the vast majority of people are in/or quickly approaching their seventies.  We even have a few blessed saints who are in their late eighties and ninties!  What does this mean? It means we are according to Schnase, “perfectly aligned to get the results we are getting and that means uninterrupted decline for most churches.”  SOMETHING HAS TO CHANGE!!

Schnase states, “People getting mad and leaving is not the cause of our decline.  Members simply grow old and die, and no one takes their places.  The church has a “front door” problem rather than a “back door” problem.  People are not entering into the life of the church at a rate that matches or exceeds the number maturing and dying.”

So what do we do about this?  To become a vibrant, healthy, growing congregation we must have a change of attitudes, change in the way we do things and a change in the way we look at our ministries.  We must ask, “Are the ministries we are currently doing more for the people here presently or for those who are not life long members?”  There’s been a great deal of talk lately about becoming (branding our church) as a “Family Church.”  This is great and wonderful and is quite possible the answer to growing Union.  However, this is very tough to do because it gets us out of our comfort zone. 

Bishop Schnase writes, Good intentions are not enough.  Too many churches want:

• More young people as long as they act like old people;
• More newcomers as long as they act like old timers,
• more children as long as they are quiet as adults
• more ethnic families as long as they act like the majority in the congregation.

We cannot keep doing the things we always done.  We have to make changes and little changes can have great effects. 

Schnase tells the story of “Small churches who have painted their nurseries, trained their nursery staff, replaced the playground equipment and within weeks word of mouth carried the message of their special care for children to others; and attendance grew from 45 to 55 members.  And it all started with a simple paint job.  If every ministry changed a little toward welcoming younger people, the cumulative effect might change the direction of the church.”

This is RADICAL HOSPITALITY.  Being more concerned with the guest than the members.  When I know someone is coming to my house for a visit or dinner, I put out the best.  We clean, use the best dishes, give them the seats of honor and as good host, we make sure everything we do is to make our guest feel at home.  It’s called being a servant.  

Schnase defines Radical Hospitality as churches that strive without ceasing to exceed expectations to accommodate and include others.

As pastor, I’m so excited and proud that this congregation desires themselves to be a “Family Church.”  We can do it.  There is more love in this congregation than I have ever witnessed in all my ministry.  But, we still have a ways to go.  Here are my suggestions:

• Our playground has been dismantled for months now.  This is a bad sign to a young family looking for a family church to attend.  What it says is that we don’t place much value on our children. (that’s before they even turn into the parking lot.)  Can we please find some people in the church who will take on this project and repair or start raising money to purchase new equipment.  Then let’s have a Grand Opening of our new playground.
• To be a family friendly church we have to expect children and infants.  There has to be a nursery provided at every function we have.  A staffed nursery eliminates one obstical or one excuse for someone new not coming to an event.
• We are so close to getting the funds raised for the new nursery!  Let’s push forward and put this on the front burner and get it past us so we can utilize this great addition.

• Kids/children/infants/teens can be disruptive.  They are not adults.  They talk, squirm, whisper, open candy during church and cry.  But at least they’re here.  And if we don’t bring them in now, it won’t be long until it’s really quite on Sunday mornings.

Union has experienced a decline in our worship attendance over the past year.  We’ve got to focus 2013 to outreach of young families.  Here are some of the things I’m doing as pastor.

• I’ll be asking a member of the congregation to serve as Outreach Coordinator.  This person will work with different ministries and explore ways to use events to reach into our community to invite people onto our campus, provide them with info regarding Union and to invite them back.
• I have formed a “kitchen cabinet” made up of the following leaders:  Ernie Shields, Charlie Fulton, Gayle Bradberry, Terry Kelso, Leigh Anne Bussey and will be leading them through a study of the 5 Practices of Fruitful Congregation.
• We will then roll 5 Practices of a Fruitful Congregation out to the entire congregation.
• I have devoted this year to building enthusiasm, empowering, and training our congregation to be outreach ministers.  (this does not necessarily mean knocking on strangers doors) but it does include Radical Hospitality, Passionate worship, Intentional Faith Development, Risk Taking Mission and Service, and Extravagant Generosity.  
• In 2013, Focus on the Five Practices will be a congregation wide initiative.
• We are going to place an emphasis on prayer for our church and our community.  This process must be bathed in prayer.

I know this is a great deal of info to put out to you at once.  Please understand that this will be a process and we will roll it out to the congregation a little bit at a time.  If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to drop me an e-mail, call me, or come by my office.  I would welcome any opportunity to talk individually about this next year. 

Not many years ago, all the outreach and responsibility for church growth was placed upon the pastor.  This idea has evolved and has been found to be more effective in the congregation becoming the ministers of the church.  Just by the simple law of multiplication, 100 people can touch thousands of more people than just one pastor.  I am committed to giving you the resources, the training, the encouragement and the empowerment needed to become Ambassadors of Christ and Union.

God Bless,

John

In order to be a leader, a man must have followers. And to have followers, a man must have their confidence. Hence, the supreme quality for a leader is unquestionably integrity. Without it, no real success is possible, no matter whether it is on a section gang, a football field, in an army or in an office. If a man’s associates find him guilty of phoniness, if they find that he lacks forthright integrity, he will fail. His teachings and actions must square with each other. The first great need, therefore, is integrity and high purpose.
– Dwight Eisenhower

I’ve just returned from the Congregational Development Conference in St. Louis and my head is just about to bust with all the new thoughts running through it.  So, in the next several weeks, I’m going to try and unpack some of the things that are bouncing around up there. 

Believe it or not, 90% of all United Methodist Churches are either plateaued or declining.  Less than 10% of our churches are growing more than 5% in worship attendance each year.  Why is that?  I’m sure there are many reasons but one of the main reasons is that most of these churches are Preference Centered rather than Purpose Centered.  Here is a list of what the two types of churches look like…

PREFERENCE CENTERED

• Most every decision made is made on the preferences on a small group of folks who have the political clout to get their way.
• In an on-going predictable cycle of conflict
• Have “winners” and “losers”
• If you are a part of a church that has an ongoing conflict, the church is very preference driven. 
• Focus on the comfort and preference of the members rather than the Kingdom.

PURPOSE CENTERED

• Most every decision is made on our best, most prayerful, thoughtful discernment driven by asking “How do we best live out the mission of Christ?”
• These churches tend to be collaborative
• The best thinking gets on the table, prayed over and then go in the best direction
• Not about anyone getting their way.  It’s about discovering the best way (God’s Way)
• Has an open and safe environment to put the best ideas on the table
• Is developing a special maturity to remain focused on the purpose of the church.

So, take a look at your church.  Is it Preference Centered or Purpose Centered?

Healthy pastors lead healthy churches.

10 Keys to Being a Healthy Pastor.

After reading some post that mentioned my name and my affection for 3 ring binders, I thought I would spend a little time posting as to why 3 ring binders are the greatest invention since sliced bread and the wheel. 

1. It helps the “Binder Keeper” stay organized. 
2. People tend to leave you alone and ask less questions when you have a 3 ring binder. They know you are organized and following a scheduled that is typed out on the front page of the binder and it is best not to interrupt what it is you might be doing. They also know that if they are not busy, you probably can find them something to do in the 3 ring binder.
3. When someone ask you for something (if you are a professional “3 ring binder keeper”) you will have whatever they are asking for strategically placed in the 3 ring binder for easy access (Professional Binder Keepers have different sections separated by color coded tabs).
4. The Binder Keeper never has to look for important documents/schedules/rules/plans when properly keeping a binder…The Binder Keeper always knows they are in the 3 ring binder and ALWAYS ALWAYS knows the location of the binder.
5. In a moment of panic (such as when a baby is on the way or a camper is lost at camp) the 3 ring binder is much like a security blanket. A safe place to go and find order in a chaotic world.

I hope this helps those of you who may not have seen the power and organizational skills brought on by being a 3 Ring Binder Keeper. 

For those interested, I will be hosting a workshop on what goes into a properly organized 3 Ring Binder. Dates and times will be announced soon and a follow-up course as to what to keep in a “Baby Being Born Binder” (Which I am calling “The 4 Bee’s”) is also coming soon. STAY TUNED!!

Here’s a GREAT video.  Take a moment and check it out… CLICK HERE

http://vimeo.com/churchformen/amazinggrace

Amazing Grace: A church for men from David Murrow on Vimeo.

GREAT ARTICLE!!

5 Must-Know Facts About First-Time Guests

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Church leaders need to be aware of five significant facts about first-time guests looking for a church home.

Healthy and growing churches pay close attention to the people they count as members, as well as those people who are not yet a part of the flock. These churches know that new people are the lifeblood of a growing church. Like a spigot, they want to keep the valve open for the flow of new people, and most importantly, they want to ensure that nothing impairs or cuts off the flow of new people to the church.

With that in mind, pastors need to be aware of five significant facts about first-time guests looking for a church home.

1. Visitors make up their minds regarding a new church in the first ten minutes of their visit.

Often, before a first-time guest has sung an inspiring song or watched a compelling drama or viewed a well-produced video vignette or heard a well-crafted sermon, they have made up their mind whether or not to return. In fact, if you ask most church leaders, far more time and energy are spent on the plan and execution of the worship service, with only minimal time spent on preparing for the greeting and welcoming of the first-time guest, which is equally if not more important. Most pastors would rather not hear this: The church’s ability to connect with first-time guests is not dependent on you but on those first lines of people who represent your church.

• Are parking attendants in place?
• Is there appropriate signage?
• Are your ushers and greeters performing the “right” job?
• Is the environment you take for granted user-friendly and accepting to guests?

2. Most church members aren’t friendly.

Churches claim to be friendly. In fact, many churches put that expression in their logo or tag line. But my experience in visiting churches as a first-time guest proves otherwise. The truth is that most church members are friendly to the people they already know, but not to guests.

• Observe to see if your members greet guests with the same intensity and concern before and after the worship service as they do during a formal time of greeting in the worship service. A lack of friendliness before and after the service sends a mixed, if not hypocritical, message to new people.
• The six most important minutes of a church service, in a visitor’s eyes, are the three minutes before the service and the three minutes after the service, when church members introduce themselves, seeking genuinely to get to know the visitors (not just obtain personal information like the market research data collectors at the mall), offer to answer any questions, introduce them to others who may have a connection (perhaps they live in the same neighborhood, are from the same hometown or state, or their children attend the same school), or any number of ways to demonstrate to the visitors that they as a church member care.
• A church would be wise to discover their most gregarious and welcoming members and deploy them as unofficial greeters before and after each service, in addition to designated parking-lot greeters, door greeters, ushers, and informational booth personnel.
• Don’t make promises the church can’t keep. My wife attended a church recently that calls itself “The Friendly _______ Baptist Church,” but no one spoke to her before the service, and when she sought information from the guest information booth, she was treated by the attendant as a bother. Mixed messages and unfulfilled promises do great harm in a church’s effectiveness in welcoming new people.

3. Church guests are highly consumer-oriented.

“If Target doesn’t have what I need, I just head to K-Mart.” “If the Delta airfare is too high, American might have a sale.” Capitalism has taught us that if we don’t find what we want, someone else down the street or at another Web site will have it. If your church building is too hard for newcomers to navigate, if they have to park in the “back 40,” if your people are unaccepting and unfriendly, another church down the street may have what they’re looking for. Or worse yet, they may decide getting into a church is not worth the effort and give up their search altogether.

• Pastors and church leaders need to look at their churches through the eyes of a first-time guest. Rick Warren says that the longer a pastor has been a pastor, the less he thinks like a non-pastor. That same thought would apply to thinking like a guest.
• The use of objective, yet trained, anonymous guests to give an honest appraisal is very important. Many retail outlets utilize the service of one or more “mystery guests” to provide helpful analysis of welcoming and responding to the consumer. Churches would be well served to utilize a similar service.

4. The church is in the hospitality business.

Though our ultimate purpose is spiritual, one of our first steps in the Kingdom business is attention to hospitality. Imagine the service that would be given to you in a first-class hotel or a five-star restaurant. Should the church offer anything less to those who have made the great effort to be our guests?

• Hospitality is almost a forgotten virtue in our society. When was the last time someone invited you to their home for a meal? But it needs to be reawakened.
• Church members can extend hospitality to guests by offering to sit with them during the church service, giving them a tour of the church facilities, inviting them to lunch after service, or connecting with them later in the week.

5.  You only have one chance to make a good first impression.

More than a truism, first impressions are lasting ones. Little hope of correcting a bad first impression is possible. Your first-time guests have some simple desires and basic needs. They decide very quickly if you can meet those criteria. The decision to return for a second visit is often made before guests reach your front door.

• Are you creating the entire experience, beginning with your parking lot?
• Are you consciously working to remove barriers that make it difficult for guests to find their way around and to feel at home with your people?
• Do newcomers have all the information they need without having to ask any embarrassing questions?
• Are your greeters and ushers on the job, attending to details and anticipating needs before they are expressed?
• Does anything about your guests’ first experience make them say, “Wow!” and want to return?

You may be the most skilled preacher, and your church may have excellent small groups or the best children’s ministry in the city. Your first-time guests will never know unless they make a second or third visit. Will they come back? It all depends on the impression you’re making. Make it the right one the first time.

The biggest problem of the Church today is the leadership void that has grown in the 20th century.  George Barna (church expert and statistician) says, “Leadership remains of the glaring needs of the church. People are often willing to follow God’s vision, but too frequently they have not exposure to either vision or true leadership. 

Barna’s conclusions to his research state, “After 15 years of digging into the world around me, I have reached several conclusions regarding the future of the Christian church in America.  The central conclusion is that the American church is dying due to lack of strong leadership.  In this time of unprecedented opportunity and plentiful resources, the church is actually losing influence.  The primary reason for this is the lack of leadership…Nothing is more important that leadership.”

Lovett Weems (distinguished professor of church leadership and director of the Lewis Center for Church Leadership at Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, DC.) in a recent speech to the Bishops of the United Methodist Church warned that a “Death Tusnami” was coming to the UMC.  In the next 40 years, more people will die since the discovery of antibiotics.  The danger in this for the church is that since the merger of the UMC  everything dealing with money has risen (Net Assets, Giving per Worshiper, Total Giving/Spending) while everything dealing with people has decreased (Churches, Attendance, Membership, Professions of Faith, Children and Youth).  When people decrease and money increases what you have is a dependence upon fewer people to provide more money. This works okay until the generation providing most of the money begins to die and this is where we now find ourselves as a denomination and many, many of our local churches.

This week we’re beginning a sermon series on Learning to Lead.  Why in the world preach a sermon series on leadership?  Because leadership is essential and if the church is not well led, then the Bride of Christ suffers.  The first lesson in leadership begins with investing in others.  Christ calls us to go into the world and make disciples. We CANNOT make disciples unless we are willing to invest in them.  AND if we don’t invest in others so that they will be able to invest in others, the entire process stops.

There’s a major hole in the churches success in training those of us who are in the 35-50 year old range.  Who’s going to lead the church?  Who’s going to invest in the next generations?

Goals are easy to set but often times very difficult to achieve. Most goals seem to be discarded within a month of setting the goal.  How can we use the concept of keeping goals to move Union to the next level?  To start off, we need to make sure our goals can achieve these three criteria:

1. Goals must be realistic/attainable
   1. It’s not realistic nor attainable to set a goal of completing the church build-out in 2012 or to set a goal of 250 people in worship by December 31, 2012. 
   2. If it is very unrealistic to achieve a certain goal, the goal becomes demoralizing.
2. Goals must make sense to the larger vision/direction of the church
   1. If you set off on a trip to Washington DC but you’re traveling toward Los Angeles…
   2. Goals must be a building block of the larger vision of the church
3. Goals must be measurable.
   1. If the goal is not measurable, how will you know when you’ve achieved it?
   2. There must be a concrete way of measuring the progress and success of the effort to achieve the goal. 

CONNECT

-       More focused and deliberate Advertising/Church Promotion

• Signs
• Banners
• Billboard
• Commercial
• Newspaper
• Handouts
• Visitation Packets

-       4 New “Them” events which focus on bringing people into Union

• “Them Events” are events that are created and promoted specifically for people who are not a part of the Union Family. 
• These are outreach events with the goal of bringing people onto our campus.
• Examples of current “Them Events” at Union are:
• • Car Show
  • Singings
  • Fall Festival
  • Easter Egg Hunt
  • Garage Sale
  • Pumpkin Patch

-       Make “Them” events more connection point targeted. 

• Ask “How can this event be used to get someone to come to church here?”
• Ask “What will attendees take away to remind them of Union?”
• Ask “How will we invite them back and what will we invite them back to?”
• 4 actions that mustbe done at each event…
  • Put something in the hand of each attendee that tells about Union.
  • Verbally invite them back to another event at Union.
  • Utilize some way to get contact information from each attendee.
    • Drawing, Visitor Card, etc
    • Follow up with those we have contact information.

-       1 Church Outing especially for members but also used to reach out.

• We must not forget to continue connecting with one another.  Our relationship with each other is vital to our spiritual growth.  Remember the old saying, “A family who laughs together, stays together”; it’s true and it works.

• Braves Game
• Barons Game
• Hockey Game
• Trip to the zoo
• Go see a Broadway musical as a church group.
• Anything that we can do together.

-       3 Focused Men’s Activities used to connect men (especially men age 30-50) to Union. 

• Men are vital to the future growth of Union and churches in general.  However, a large portion of church activities are focused toward ladies.  We must begin to look at what men are interested in and create ministries that reach out to them. 
• Union currently has one focused men’s activity per month (with some exceptions), The Mens Breakfast.  Please hear me, this is a great event and it serves a wonderful purpose, however, it cannot continue to be the only outreach to men.  We must offer more connection points for men that are convenient to their schedule, hits on their interest, and gets them participating with other men.  What does this look like?  Here are some ideas:

• Fishing Trip
• Golf Outing
• White Water Rafting
• Camping
• Guy Movie Night
• Watching Ball Games together

• A man is more likely to attend worship after he has done something “fun and interesting” and knows some of the other men in the church.  For example, a man will be more comfortable standing around before a worship service talking with other men whom he has played golf with than standing by himself feeling uncomfortable.