I learned the hard way. People need to be reminded.

Back in my student ministry days I thought that grown adults could remember meeting dates and times. After all, they get kids to soccer practice, keep doctor appointments, show up for work, and remember birthdays. All that’s true. And maybe that’s the point: it’s ALL true. There’s a lot going on.

It’s happened to all of us. Weekend service. You’re ready. You’re on time. And someone else isn’t. You cripple through the services or services on a shoestring, hoping to not miss any critical elements or people as you attempt to provide a welcoming space for your guests. It happens. People aren’t always blowing off responsibility. Sometimes people just forget.

Here are some thoughts about serving as a full team:

• Create a schedule. Put it on paper. Make sure everyone has it.
• Make the schedule easy to remember. Build some pattern into it. Monthly. Biweekly. Find a rhythm.
• Send reminders. Make phone calls. Send postcards. Tweet. Text. Email. And you must, you must, you must – not choose the easiest and preferred communication for yourself as the leader. Learn how everyone on your team is best connected. You’ll likely call some, text others, and email the rest.
• Follow-up when someone doesn’t show. This is a simple and opportune chance to care. You may discover they’re facing difficulty, illness, or worse. Reach out. You made it past the weekend. That’s good. But, it’s not all there is to the team.
• Expect the schedule to be kept and followed. By planning it, printing it, reminding, following up you’ll communicate that people matter – the team matters. “We’re counting on you!”

Sunday’s coming! Is your team?

Excerpt from becausepeoplematter.com | by Mark Waltz, Pastor of Connections

One other suggest I would like to add is make the schedule accessible.  Post it where people can find it and even sync with it with their calendar, PDA, etc.  I highly recommend using Google Calendar for this.

For the past five weeks we’ve been teaching (@MapleGrove) a series called Miracles. This week we used the illustration of Jesus’ first recorded miracle in the Bible – when Jesus turned water into wine at the wedding.

You can listen to the message here. (Week 5 – Water to Wine)

So the basic point of the message is this; if you want a miracle from God you have to do what God tells you to do.

• (Jesus) mother said to the servants, “Do whatever (Jesus) tells you.” John 2: 5

• …faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead. James 2:17

• Because Jesus and the servants obeyed, a miracle happened.

• …I will show you my faith by what I do. James 2:18

And of course, with all the doom and gloom about the economy right now, Pastor Gary can’t help but using the example of finances to illustrate the point. Do you want a miracle with your finances? Are you obeying God? Don’t tithe? If you want your finances to get better, tithe. Try it. The bible says “test me”.

And here’s where it get’s interesting… he’s heard about a church where they offer a money back guarantee. Sounds a little risky, doesn’t it?

Then, after thinking out loud “do I want to do that?” … he says “I have that faith” … “For the rest of the year, if you tithe, and God doesn’t bless you, I will personally give you your money back.” Not from the church, but from his own pocket!

I’ve heard of other churches that have done this, it’s not all that new, but I have yet to find one where the pastor has done it personally. Now that’s personal faith.

If you would like to give to MapleGrove Church, you can start the process here.

Many churches print a photo directory once a year with color photos of each person and a nice family photo.

There’s also church directory software tools that help churches do their own photo directory and try to keep up with the changes.  They can add new people as they get them and publish new versions, periodically.  (Kind of like the phone book pile in my closet – where we just add the new one to the top of the pile until the next bon fire.)

These might work great for churches where few new people come, but this Sunday when someone new comes to your church for the first time, how do you help them meet people? Do you hand them a directory and tell them to call people?  I don’t think so.

Then there are the privacy issues.  You have names and address and phone numbers for people, but who do they want that information given to?  Shouldn’t each person decide who they want to see their information?

And who keeps all of this information up to date?  Not just the new people being added and the people that leave being removed (if you even dare do that), but what about their contact information?  This could be a full time job.

Many large churches with large budgets attempt to use a web based system that gives each person the ability to edit their own information on the church’s website.  That sounds great, if you can get them there.  The problem is, people are busy, so this is not usually a very high priority on their “to do” list.  Even these types of directories quickly become an outdated list used primarily by leaders.

Some of these “church management” systems have attempted to add social networking pieces to their software in an attempt to get more people to use them, but that’s not working either.  If people are going to use social networking, they are going to be somewhere were their friends are – and the fact is, not all their friends are ever going to be at your church.  Jesus said to “go” and make disciples in “all” the world, not just your church friends.

We’re experimenting with solutions to some of these problems AND we’ve managed to take back a piece of the internet for good … it’s called facebook.  We’ve been working with MapleGrove to help them use the most popular social networking (just a new word for fellowship) tool (a website) as a public member directory (and more) using a free feature of facebook called “pages“.

With a facebook account, each user can decide who they want to share their personal information (contacts, photos, videos, etc.) with.  In just a few months of talking about it, most of our members (that didn’t already use the system) went and created accounts.

Our members (“fans” in facebook lingo) can post stories to our page, share photos with other members, ask and answer discussion questions and invite their friends.

Our administrators can create events, send short “status” messages to members, and moderate the page when needed.

We’ve tied our church management software into facebook as well.

I’ll be writing more about how to use this tool in the near future, but if you want to get started right away you can create a page for your organization here.

Financial mentor Dave Ramsey is currently teaching a 3-week series at LifeChurch.tv for churches across the world to use. It’s called Life. Money. Hope.

Dave did an interview about the series (you can watch it below),  here are a few bullet points;

about money…

• When the economy changes, the rules don’t.
• Have an emergency fund.
• Don’t get into debt.
• Live on a budget.
• Diversify.
• Think long term.
• Fear is not a fruit of the spirit.

about leadership…

• Surround yourself with people that share your value system.
• Get good at delegating.
• Know you can trust the people you work with.
• Invest in people (don’t just hire talent)
• Remember your history (what worked, what didn’t).
• Be in unity with others in your organization.

Yesterday this guy said something to me that got me thinking.

“That will never happen” …

We were talking about some of those “what if” kinds of things. Dreaming big.

All these church “experts” are saying “watch out” right now because of the economy, money is tight, some churches are laying people off, others are cutting programs.

But … I choose to believe.

You’re in a jet, flying low over New York City. Both engines have failed. Any idiot can see that everyone on the plane is going to die. The pilot can fly into a building and kill everyone on the plane or he can try to line up on a street and kill the unsuspecting motorists instead. These are his only two options.

Well, I’m on that jet too, and I say this pilot is going to land on the Hudson River and the plane is going to float and everyone will get out safely and then we’re all going to hop onto some big passenger ferries that will be exactly where we need them to be.

Don’t laugh. It could happen.

A history book of ancient Israel tells of a starving city surrounded by an enemy army. “Now there were four men with leprosy at the entrance of the city gate. They said to each other, “Why stay here until we die? If we say, ‘We’ll go into the city’-the famine is there, and we will die. And if we stay here, we will die. So let’s go over to the camp of the Arameans and surrender. If they spare us, we live; if they kill us, then we die.”

That story ends happily. Not just for the lepers, but for everyone in the city. Well, not quite everyone. There was one man who insisted that God himself couldn’t save the city. Interestingly, everyone made it safely onto the ferryboats except for that guy. He was the guy screaming hysterically ‘We’re all going to die!’ while the pilot was trying to land the plane on the Hudson.

It’s really an interesting story. You ought to read it.

People interested in finding a LifeGroup pre-registered for the short get together held immediatly after the Sunday morning service.  Everyone was seated at tables and were asked to share answers to a couple simple ‘ice breaker” questions.

A simplified version of our vision and purpose for LifeGroups was shared with everyone and then people at each table “voted” for what the best day of the week worked for each of them.  If you were not available that day you could move to another table.

After a few minutes of negotiations we had three new groups ready to meet, a host location agreed upon, and 30 new people excited to step into the small group world.

Training will be held for the hosts and facilitators later this week.

Many of these people were people who had tried to connect with another group unsuccessfully prior to this.  For what ever reason, it appears that starting new groups may be a far more productive way of getting people into the small group setting than other methods.  Once a group has started and is healthly growing, it does not seem to want to divide.  And if it’s growing it is also soon too big for new people.

What do you think?

A year ago our average Sunday attendance was just over 100.  Now, we’re averaging 170.  We’ve already had three Sundays over 200 this year.  Our biggest Sunday last year was in the first two weeks of December (are we ready?).

Every week we hear a story about someone who has found the true, loving God through MapleGrove – one person recently shared that “MapleGrove is the first church I’ve ever been to that is more about what we CAN DO than what we CAN NOT.”

Kids @ MapleGrove are now experiencing their own praise and worship every week and have nearly doubled in attendance since spring.

Student LifeGroups are meeting weekly, and our monthly Catalyst event had over 65 people its’ first month, drawing students from all over Lapeer – many of whom have never been at MapleGrove before.

We got to be a part of baptizing 11 people in August.

Adult LifeGroups were started again in September and during the FIREPROOF series almost 70 people attended.  Many people’s marriages were touched by this message.  More to come on LifeGroups soon!

People are also getting to know each other better and meet each other’s needs directly on-line through Facebook.  There are over 75 people from MapleGrove using this great tool.

We just had our first Harvest Party, and are about to have our first Winterfest.  We plan to have these become annual, highly anticipated, events for our community.

The clinic continues to expand its services, and we continue to help meet the needs of the pregnancy center and the refuge.  Several new Compassion children have been sponsored by MapleGrove members.  …  Seek justice. Help the oppressed. Defend the cause of orphans. Fight for the rights of widows. – Isiah 1:17

There is a growing buzz in Lapeer about Jesus @ MapleGrove.  This buzz creates a crowd just like it did when Jesus performed his first miracles (… they went out and spread the news about him throughout that region (Mark 5:21-43; Luke 8:40-56)), and this growing crowd creates a couple issues;

Parking – our parking lot is in overflow mode.  We are having the grass area south and west of the south lot kept clear of snow, so that those of us with vehicles that can handle it can park on the grass there.  We are encouraging people we invite to park along the east side of the lane in front of the building in special “guest only” parking.

Seating – Many new people like to have the choice to slip into the back few rows their first several times here, so are asking team members to leave those rows open for our newest guests.

Thanks to all of you that have shared your time and talents with others through your work and service @ MapleGrove.

We’ll have LifeGroups meeting in homes and special events through the series in support of marriages.

My wife and I got to see the movie in advance a couple weeks ago.  I have to say, it was very well done and should inspire more churches to reach higher.

Spam filtering
The best spam filtering I have ever seen.  I had spam filtering before changing to Gmail, but I spent hours a week going through filtered messages because of over zealous “rules based” filters.  And I was still getting way more spam than I wanted.  Once Gmail learns your preferences you get almost no spam.  On a slow day I get well over 500 emails, and over 75% are spam messages I never have to see.  And if by some slim chance one of your important messages gets filtered, you can find it, un-spam it, and mark it so that it doesn’t happen again yourself.

Search
Everyone knows that Google is the best search engine in the world.  “Google it” is now a popular term for finding information.  Now you can search just as fast on your own email.  Try about one second on over 25,000 messages.

Archive vs. Delete
Most productivity experts tell you to delete messages you no longer “think” you need as soon as you are done with them.  To keep your inbox cleaned up.  But have you ever wanted to find a message you thought you wouldn’t need a few days or a month later?  Gmail’s archive function moves mail from your inbox but keeps it searchable for years.

Labeling vs. Folders
The old way to organize information was to drag it into a folder.  Great, if you can remember what “folder” you put it in.  Not so great if it applies to more than one????  With Gmail you can apply multiple labels to a conversation and even create filters to automatically assign these filters.  And, even through you have a label on a message it can still be in your inbox.

Threading
Ever had someone reply to your email as if they are the only person you ever talk to.  Something like “yes”, but they don’t include your email in their reply?  Now your conversations threat together and show you what you sent them, even when they don’t.  And when you archive, or label a message it applies to the entire thread too.  Twenty messages back and forth between you and five other people now appear in your inbox as one message.

Personalization and Integration
I now have one place for all my email accounts.  My multiple personalities (company names, organizations I work for, etc.) are all in one place, each with their one personalized domain and signature (I use some great add-ons that we’ll talk about some other time).

Storage Space
As of this writing you can store up to 7GB of emails, attachments (any files you want to) up to 20MB in size.  If you’ve ever used Outlook, you know that when you get over about 250MB performance starts to lag and the program eventually stops working completely.

Portability
You can access your email from any computer (Mac, PC, Linux) or your web enabled phone anywhere, anytime.

When the team doesn’t know, doesn’t understand, or doesn’t agree with the vision of your organization there will be distraction. Why? Because they are not motivated by the same vision you have. And when someone is testing their own actions against a different set of filters, they make different decisions.

Examples:

If someone is thinking more about fixing someone’s idea of theology than helping hurting people, then they will choose debate rather than use their energy to help them.

If someone cares more about what we eat or drink than helping people without clean water to drink, then that’s where they will spend their energy.

If we debate about what we should wear while children around us are naked, then we will buy new cloths instead of trying to cloth the poor.

When we lead an organization, our vision needs to be more than a statement written on our website. It needs to be what we do, where we go, and what we based our decisions on.

At MapleGrove, we say “We Value unity in our vision & purpose and agree to set aside our differences in order to serve people.”  This means we agree not to debate things that distract us from our purpose.  We don’t spend time debating about how we (or others) do things.

This doesn’t mean we always agree on everything, we all have our opinions and experiences, and those are going to influence our decisions, but we agree to get over it and get on with our work. We try not to let our differences distract us.