Going Public With the Problem

When you determine a problem can’t be resolved privately, you’ll likely need to make preparations to take it public. When you stand before your church, or women’s group, or small group, or student group, here are five things you’ll want to do:

• Acknowledge the problem
• Own your mistakes
• Present the plan
• Answer questions
• Recap with vision

Each of these thoughts seems basic–and they are. But they are all very important. Let’s talk about acknowledging the problem.

Too many leaders avoid “owning” or “acknowledging” the problem. Some ministers attempt to turn difficult seasons of ministry into a spiritual pep rally explaining what great things God is going to do. In many ways, this lacks integrity.

When something is not right and we don’t acknowledge it, many will lose confidence in our leadership. They’ll assume that either we don’t know about it (which doesn’t reflect well on us) or that we don’t have the courage to address it.

People would rather have you “tell it like it is” than ignore or hide the problem. A truthful acknowledgment is almost always better than pretending there is not a problem.

Telling the truth takes integrity. People follow leaders with integrity.

[From LifeChurch.tv : swerve by Craig Groeschel]

Starting Additional Services at Your Church

Many things should be considered before starting additional/multiple worship services at your church. Here are some things pastors have learned in so doing:

• Never add a service to an existing schedule. Change the entire schedule or people won’t adopt the new schedule like you need them to do.
• Get people to commit in writing to making the move to the most likely least attended service. Be creative, challenging, but not pushy.
• Bring the heat (lots of intensity) in your first service. Don’t allow crowd size to diminish your intensity or the intensity of your service. Don’t make people miss the service they just left.
• NEVER refer to a service as “the early service.” Refer to them by their time slot. Don’t create a stigma for that service that may not exist.
• Do identical services if at all possible.
• Meet with your critical players to work out bugs in between services. Correct on the fly.
  Ask your people to serve in one service and attend another.
• Leave sufficient transition times. If parking is limited, consider that in your planning.
• If you are at 70% capacity, you need to be launching a 2nd service. The only people that like big crowds are preachers.
• If you are at 80% capacity, you are losing people. At 80%, people cannot sit together OR they are forced to sit in places they don’t want to sit.
• When you launch a 2nd or 3rd service, you can manage the crowd size with pipe and drape. If at all possible, never let your crowd fall under 40% capacity. Pipe and Drape or the creative arrangement of chairs can keep you in that sweet spot of critical mass.
• Strategically reward your key, high-output volunteers (gift cards, hand-written notes, sincere pats on the back).
• Never ask, “What is the least number of people we need to pull this off?” View additional services as a recruitment opportunity. God fills vacuums. So, don’t limit what He wants to do.
• On low days (Labor Day weekend, Memorial Day weekend), combine services and roll with a packed crowd to build and maintain momentum and to rest your key leaders.

[From Missional Church of God by travjohnson]

Which Presidential Candidate Do I Vote For?

In America, we are more than heavily influenced by a two-party system. All candidates talk about "change" and "shaking up Washington." But, can any one person effect significant change?

The first thing a new congressman or senator is told when they get to Washington is to follow party lines. Each party actually has a "whip" to keep Representatives in line with the party.

So, what is really important is the Party Platform. Read each party's official platform. Skip the biased news networks and commentators. Go right to each Party's official website and their platform. It will tell you what they really believe and what agendas they will have for the next four years.

Determine which platform more closely represents your personal beliefs and values. Then vote your conscience, hopefully your Christian conscience. Which platform has the most violations to God's Word?

Republican Platform; http://www.gop.com/2008Platform/

Democrat Platform; http://www.democrats.org/a/party/platform.html

Missionary John Doroshuk Is In The Country of Georgia Right Now

[Click on photo to enlarge it.]

Missionary John Doroshuk is in the country of Georgia ministering to refugees now. He reported today that yesterday evening he went to one of the refugee centers in Tbilisi to distribute some rice, sugar and toiletries. He was able to help 28 families plus some single men. All of these people do not have a home to return to; the war completely destroyed their homes.

So many of the people had a nice garden and orchard before the invasion by Russia. They are unable to go back to these to take in whatever is left. Some places have a land mine every three or four feet apart. One of the reasons the Russian forces stayed back in Georgia so long was to spread a complete blanket of land mines so that even if the people could return, they would not for fear of be killed by one of the land mines.

Today he will be going to the tent city refugee camps on the outskirts of Tbilisi. These people have been dealt such a horrible blow.There still seems to be a shortage of bedding, mattresses, blankets, sheets and pillows. So, winter clothing and bedding are desperately needed.

Many of the people in the tent cities will be able to return and restore their home, some even before winter. Others who have no home to return to have been placed into buildings that will house them for a longer period of time. The authorities have commandeered all daycare centers for a minimum of twelve months to be used as refugee centers.

If you can help in any way, please contact John Doroshuk. Thanks for caring and sharing the needs of our brothers in Georgia.

mincoordinator@attglobal.net