Synergy

Synergy exists to help Christian organizations, church denominations, and local churches to advance the Kingdom of God by working to fulfill the Great Commission of Matthew 28:18-20.

We are particularly committed to strengthening the local church and pastors by providing relevant advice and concrete action plans for the congregation.

With this commitment, Synergy endeavors to provide personal and practical support to church leaders in the form of conferences, research, church health surveys, local church consulting, and other relevant resources.

We believe that denominations and similar entities exist to serve the local churches/pastors. And we are committed to empowering them to accomplish their mission.

Synergy
Post Office Box 134
Mentone, AL 35984

SynergyMin@aol.com

256-418-0620

Church Security Becomes More An Issue

With church security threats moving beyond theft, embezzlement and sexual harassment to violence and shootings, churches are being urged to receive proper training to help protect their flocks.

"Churches are open and accessible for their fellowship, yet those who have a sole intention of doing harm have an easy access into the church. How do Churches prepare and plan for this violent phenomena?" posed Church Security Solutions, LLC.

The latest violence to hit a religious facility took place on Sunday in Knoxville, Tenn., where a gunman opened fire during a children's play, killing two people and wounding seven.

"Criminals know there will be very little resistance, very little preparation, very little security," said Jeff Hawkins, author of An Introduction to Security & Emergency Planning for Faith-Based Organizations, according to The Free Lance-Star, which noted this was the 17th major shooting in the United States at a house of worship since 1998.

The Knoxville shooting follows last winter's tragedy at a Colorado Springs megachurch and a missionary training center in Arvada, Colo. The December shootings left four people dead.

Church Security Solutions and its team of professional leaders have announced they will be touring the country over the next year to provide churches, big and small, training in security. CSS will visit major metropolitan areas with one-day conferences covering cameras and surveillance, threat assessment, legal and liability issues, data security and security team development. The regional conferences will also teach attendees how to control and manage a critical incident should one occur at their church or organization.

"Church leaders today face the unique challenge of providing an open and loving environment in the church without being mistaken for an easy target," says a statement on the CSS Web site.

The 2008-2009 Security Conference Tour launches in Aug. 14 in Portland, Ore., where Pastor Doug Newcomb of Faith Bible Church in Denver, Colo., will share "Lessons Learned" from the day he received the call about the tragic shootings that broke out just miles from his church.

[By Nathan Black - Christian Post Reporter]

Church Volunteer Training

Does your church volunteer training really hit the mark?

Here is an excerpt from Group Volunteers - Tuesday's Tip to answer that question:

1. Make sure your volunteers know your ministry's overall mission. Never assume your leaders know your goals if you haven't told them (or told them recently) what they are. People who don't know how they fit into the big picture quickly lose their enthusiasm. Also, always tie your training in to a specific ministry goal.

2. Leave time at the end of each training session to make sure they understand what you taught. Encourage, prod, and beg them to ask questions about what they're learning. Never end a training time without asking them to repeat, somehow, what they've learned. Group activities can help reinforce spoken teaching.

3. Tell your volunteers where they can get more information on a training topic. Refer your leaders to printed and video resources that can give more in-depth information on a particular topic. Church Volunteer Central members can point their people to thousands of free resources on our site, including online training.

4. Don't assume your volunteers "got it" the first time. Don't be afraid to hit a crucial training topic more than once. For example, if you train your adult leaders on building relationships with teenagers, hit the same topic at your next meeting with a lab experience. Invite youth group members to the meeting and have your leaders use them as guinea pigs to try out their new skills.

5. Give volunteers a booklet of important training tips. It's important for your adult leaders to have an ongoing reminder of what they learn in training meetings.

[Adapted from Group magazine, the world's most-read youth ministry resource. See www.youthministry.com for more information. This post is from Group Volunteers: Tuesday's Tip. These tips can go directly into your inbox, and you can click here to go to their site to receive them.]

Church Training Assistance

Could you use a qualified instructor to come to your location and teach on one of the following subjects?

Team Building, Servant Leadership, The Biblical Office of Deacon, Conflict Resolution, Church Administration, Church Technology, Good Communications, Spiritual Gifts and Callings, Every Member Participating, History of Christianity, Spiritual Discipline, and many more.

Could you use a qualified consultant to come to your location to consult about ...

Church Structure, Assessing Your Location, Understanding Other Cultures, Leadership Assessment, Church Review (for growth), and many more.

Contact Synergy Church Consulting at DGBrock@aol.com. We are here to work with you. We understand what you are facing, and we care.

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What If The Church Closed For Retraining?

[By Dave Ferguson]

My high school age daughter Amy is a barista at Starbucks. A few weeks ago all the Starbucks across North America closed shop for three and half hours in the evening. Why? To hear from Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz via video about the companies need to get back to it's original vision. Next, the store manager talked about several strategic changes that the store would make to give the customer better and more personalized service. And the evening ended by re-training everyone at that Starbucks store. When my daughter got home here is what she said to me, "Dad, you would have loved it! ... It's really weird, I know that I really work at a fast food chain, but they made me believe that it really matters."

So here is my question: If we were to close all the churches across North America for three and half hours and we had the chance to vision-cast and re-train every Christ Follower, what would need to be said and what would you do?

[Click "comments" below to leave your's.]

Universities Will Teach the "Business" of Church Management

[By: Ed Thomas]

Villanova University's new graduate-level church management program, offered online beginning this summer, is designed to bring standard knowledge of financial controls and reporting, and personnel management, up to speed enough to help avoid any more moral scandals or embezzlement situations in religious institutional settings.

It is one of three new programs started within the last year at major Catholic universities, according to Charles Zech, director of Villanova's Center for the Study of Church Management -- which researches church management issues and looks for policy solutions. "With all the problems that [Catholic and Protestant] churches have had in recent years ... with managerial issues, we felt the time was right for the business school to get involved and do something to address those issues," says Zech.

"All churches face the same sort of problems [with such things as] financial control ... evaluating their personnel ... reconciling church law with civil law ...," he adds. "So all the issues we talk about in our program are germane to all churches in the United States today."

With the program specifically tailored for church management situations and legal issues, Zech feels it will be more help to clergy and lay volunteers in churches than just a standard business program with a broader range of issues -- and more useful in identifying red flags that might have headed off disasters like the priest sex abuse scandal and several high-profile embezzlement cases.

"The best thing that we can do for someone is give them the tools to be good managers," Zech shares, "and it really, then, protects them from being accused of something -- because if they know what they're doing, they're less likely to get themselves in trouble and less likely to have folks accusing them of making a mistake, either on purpose or not." So far enrollment has been 50-50 clergy and laity, as well as Catholic and Protestant. Zech hopes many more religious-affiliated universities will follow suit on similar church management programs in the future.

Duquesne University in Pittsburgh and Boston College began similar programs in September.

(Source: OneNewsNow.com)