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Friday Five

Here are my five favorite blog posts from the week:

Perry Noble - Four Leadership Myths That Aren't Usually Talked About - Part Two - This whole series of posts is excellent.  I just linked to my favorite :)

Tony Morgan - 14 Ways to Spend Less so You Can Do More - Great tips for tightening the budget

Craig Groeschel - Working With God's Seasons - This whole series is great as well.  In reading it I realize that I am not very in tune to God's seasons

Seth Godin - Getting Serious About Your Meeting Problem - Many organizations could benefit from a meeting makeover

268 Blog - The Other Eyes Under The Bunk Bed - This links to Louie's blog post about the latest Passion Podcast, which features him and Andy Stanley talking about their stories, Passion City Church and Andy's thoughts on that.  

Calling

In the Christian world people often talking about calling.  What they mean is God's specific calling on one's life or for a specific time during one's life.  The concept is most prevalent in church world where many people believe pastors must be called to ministry.  It's easy to see why they believe that since the Bible has countless instances of God actually calling people to specific ministry through his voice, the voice of prophets and through Jesus.  

I sometimes wonder if people take it too far though.  The seminar I attended last week got me thinking about it because Nelson talked about the specific calls of a church planter.  Nelson's church is a part of the Southern Baptist Convention which generally puts a lot of weight on the calling of God for everyone who hopes to pursue full time vocational ministry.  Nelson also felt that certain positions should only be filled by people who are "called" to those positions.  Hmmmm....

On the other hand, this guy talks about the fact that he never felt called into ministry and instead he just volunteered.  I've also heard this other guy say that if you weren't called into ministry, and you just volunteered, you're dumb.  The funny thing is that the other guy has said before that he is mentored by the guy who "volunteered".  I wonder if they have ever had a conversation about their differing opinions on that topic.  

Another reason this has been on my mind was because I also read this blog post on the Acts 29 blog.  

What say you?  Is everyone called to something specific?  If someone is just "volunteering" are they messed up?

Networking Children's Ministry Leaders

Last week I was part of a meeting with over 30 children's ministry leaders from about 15 different churches in MD, PA & VA.  We gathered to get to know each other, share ideas and learn from one another.  We discussed children's ministry hot topics such as partnering with parents, training leaders and volunteer recruitment.  

I really enjoyed meeting everyone and hearing about their churches.  It was also great to hear everyone participate in the discussions and share areas where they are doing well and areas where they would like to improve.  It seems like everyone isn't satisfied with how well they are partnering with parents at their church.  It was the number one requested discussion topic and we spent a lot of time on it.  

During the meeting we took notes of the ideas presented and we recorded those notes for everyone to receive afterward.  If you're interested in checking out those ideas you can download a PDF of the list right here.  Some of it may be confusing out of context but you can email me if you would like more information (click the Email Me link at the top left corner of my blog page).

I believe churches can do a lot more together than they could ever do alone.  Why wouldn't we get together to share ideas and best practices?

Launch Seminar with Nelson Searcy

Yesterday I attended the Launch Seminar with Nelson Searcy & Kerrick Thomas that was held here in Baltimore.  The seminar is based on the book of the same name and is all about how to launch a new church.  Here were some great points from the day:

• The call to ministry is the call to prepare
• Launch large, launch quickly, and launch from the outside in  
• Four calls of a church planter:  
  • My call to start a church  
  • My spouse's call to start a church  
  • Our call to a specific place to start a church  
  • Our call to reach a specific people  
• Generally, you will reach people who are younger than you (the average age of the people on stage will be close to the average age of the church)  
• You are the average of the 5 people you spend the most time with  
• People say no to what's confusing     

Some of those lines are directly from Nelson or Kerrick and others were borrowed from others.  It was a great seminar with a lot of helpful content.  Check out David Jackson's live blog of the day for a lot more detail.

Friday Five

Here are my five favorite blog posts from the week:

Ed Stetzer - Andy Stanley on Communication (Part 1) - Great series so far, read them all

Ben Arment - How to Spark Initiative in Those You Lead - All leaders need this info

Craig Groeschel - LiveChurch.tv Announces Dave Ramsey Speaking At Your Church - I'm definitely going to check this out

Steven Furtick - Too Good For Our Own Good - Something interesting to think about

Perry Noble - Seven HUGE Myths In Church Planting - Part One - Read part two as well, good stuff

Killing Cockroaches Book Review

Tony Morgan's new book, Killing Cockroaches, is a must have for any church leader.  Most of the book is a collection of Tony's blog posts and articles.  I've followed Tony's blog longer than almost any blog I do follow and I remembered some of the posts.  Yet, even though I know I've read most of it before it all seemed fresh.  Probably because I was in different places in life and ministry when I first read them compared to now.  Here are some of my thoughts about the book:

• It's a ton of wise insights spread throughout the book in no specific order or grouping.  That was great for reading (well, if you're A.D.D. like me).   

• I think this book would be a great reference book.  Because I have a PDF version, it will be easy for me to search for the topics I want.  For those of you without the PDF version, maybe you could come up with a different method.  It seemed like there were great thoughts on every aspect of leadership you can imagine. 

• I loved the sarcasm Tony had in some writings, especially the ones directed towards people who are anti-megachurch. 

• Tony likes lists.  I can't stand them.  I mean, who would post with bullet points? :) 

• A good idea would be to read one or two entries in the book each day, so you can process it and apply some of the insights.  I started off like that, got sidetracked due to a crazy couple of weeks of work and school, and then read right through the rest.  That wasn't as helpful.   

• Tony's interviews with well known leaders were spread throughout the book and some of them were very interesting.     

• Andy Stanley wrote the forward and had a great line about comfort and faith - "The only problem is safety breeds contentment, which ultimately limits the need for faith."  

Killing Cockroaches was a phrase Tony used to reference how leaders often times spend too much time on urgent things and not enough time on important things.  I have a tough time fighting against the tyranny of the urgent as I'm sure any leader does.  I'm not sure if the book helps you fight against what is urgent, but it definitely helps you think about what is important.  

If you're looking for more information on the book, check Tony's page out:

http://tonymorganlive.com/book/

You can buy it on Amazon - http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0805447857/tonymorgan-20

No Backup Plan

Earlier this week I read this post from Mark Batterson.  In that post Mark talks about the Biblical account of Paul's experience crashing landing his boat on the island of Malta.  In that account, Paul makes them cut the lines to the life boat because he believes that's what God wanted in that moment.  In other words, they had to trust God only, because losing the life boats meant they had nothing else....no backup plan. 

Mark uses that story to talk about risk and how sometimes God may call us to do something with no backup plan.  I think one of the most difficult things to do is to discern God's will in the midst of incredibly risky opportunities.  Going through some of the common avenues for seeking God's will is important - (prayer, knowing his moral will, knowing his plan from the Bible, seeking wise counsel, etc). 

However, I wonder how often we incorrectly weigh the risk?  Some people would be inclined to never risk, and would thereby miss out on God's will for their life.  My guess is they would never do anything great (in God's eyes).  Some people are the opposite, and would assume that the most risky option is what God is calling them to.  This would be similar to what Mark's blog was about.  Sometimes the riskiest decision is not God's will at all. 

Common sense would lead one to believe that the best place is somewhere in the middle, where you risk some but you don't risk too much.  The problem is, you probably always have a backup plan and can never experience what Paul experienced.  I'd rather lean towards risking too much, and failing sometimes, than not risking at all.  That takes uncommon sense.  Failing is okay necessary.  See what Craig Groeschel thinks about that:

Anybody want to plant a church in Vermont?

Is religion an important part of your daily life?

That's the question that was asked to 350,000 Americans in a recent Gallup pole.  On average, 65% of the people responded "yes" to that question.  But, what should be no surprise, it's not even across the country.  The Bible Belt had the most people answer yes to that question with the northeast and northwest responding with the most "no" answers.  Here are the 3 highest and 3 lowest:

3 Highest:
Mississippi - 85%
Alabama - 82%
South Carolina - 80%

3 Lowest:
Maine - 48%
New Hampshire - 46%
Vermont - 42%

My home state of Maryland comes in around the middle of the pack, with about 65% saying "yes".

Which brings me to the question in the title - Anybody want to plant a church in Vermont?  I've heard multiple debates about whether or not it is more difficult to plant a church in different parts of the country.  I think one would have to be quite naive to think that it is not.  Is it measurable?  Probably not, at least not accurately. 

In order to even compare the effects location (by state) had on two different church plants, so many of the other factors would have to be the same.  Same caliber leader, same size launch team, same quality people, same funding, same target demographic, same population density in target location, etc.  In other words, nearly impossible.  

Oh, and I don't consider religion a part of my daily life, but I do consider following Jesus a part of my daily life :)