Will Mancini

Why should a church leader invest in online presence and functionality for mobile devises today?

These ten stats might surprise you.

1.     There are 5.3 billion mobile subscribers (that’s 77 percent of the world population).

2.     Within 5 years mobile will overtake PC as the most popoular way to get on the Web.

3.     In 2011 over 85 percent of new handsets will be able to access the mobile Web.

4.     25% of mobile Web users in the US are mobile only.

5.     The number of mobile Web searches has quadrupled in the last year.

6.     71 percent of smartphone users that see TV, press or online ad, do a mobile search.

7.     Mobile ad spend worldwide is predicted to sky rocket to $20.6 billion in 2015.

8.     The most used mobile apps in the US are games; news; maps; social and music.

9.     Paying by mobile i.e. m-payments will be worth US$240 billion in 2011

10.   M-payments could reach over US$1 trillion by 2015.

After a few moments of reflection any leader dialing into these stats will want to take action. Here are some questions to consider:

• How do you leverage mobile internet access for the mission of your church?
• How does mobile web and marketing relate to classic ways of building awareness?
• How does mobile web provide new possibilities for brick-and-mortar ministries?
• How does mobile web create a new possibilities for equipping and connecting?
• How does mobile web impact the landscape of missions and missional living?
• How will the mobile web shape how we give?

These ten stats were taken from the longer list at MobiThinking. I found them thru a tweet from  DJ Chuang. DJ, by the way, is a great guy who consults with dual passions- the Asian-America church and ministry technology- specifically web and social media. Another guy who can help you stay on top of the technology curve is Tim Peters, a church communications consultant with Auxano.

Last Sunday, I worshipped with a a 6-month old church called Neartown, planted in the heart of Houston.  Russel Cravens skillfully ended his message, not with a plea for church membership, but a call join as mission partners.

But this language is not the move of church planters only. Well established churches like St. Andrews in Newport Beach, California are evaluating their language. Another example is the regional force known as Christ Fellowship in West Palm Beach, Florida. In a process with them two weeks ago, they passionately refused to call their folks “volunteers” out of preference for the meaning that comes with the role of “partners.”

What about your church?

Sure, we are so well entrenched in the language of church membership, you make think it’s absurd to ask. And after all, isn’t the idea of “church membership” biblical? Paul does use body imagery to boldly remind believers that,  ”so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another” (Rom. 12:5).

Despite it’s historic use and the viable connection to make with the Scriptures, I think its time for a shift. In fact, I think most churches would benefit dramatically from flushing the terminology of “church membership.” I recommend the change for one purpose: to make the mission of Jesus for His church more  clear and concrete in the hearts of our people.

Here are five reasons to start. You help me build the list!

#1 Membership is culturally hijacked terminology by its use from country clubs to platinum cards. Partnership is a term that carries less baggage and brings new metaphors biblically.

#2 Membership may emphasize privilege to the neglect of responsibility. Partnership emphasizes both.

#3 Membership could bring deeply rooted assumptions about church in general that are no longer valid for your church. Partnership creates an opportunity to reset expectations.

#4 Membership is a static. Partnership brings a sense of both action and direction.

#5 Membership is a relatively small portal for vision-casting. Partnership opens a dynamic metaphor range for future-orientation, impact, togetherness, adventure and risk-taking.  It captures the “sentness” of a missional reorientation.

Have you made the move yet?

If so, drop me a quick note to share what language you use.

Many churches focus big energy on the weekend crowd. While it’s always important to gather and worship well, it’s a huge mistake to do so to the neglect of developing leaders who will fuel a disciple-making movement.

Churches that excel at developing leaders move well beyond a a few training classes and pay attention to the leadership culture. Here are a few simple ideas for creating a leadership culture from a book I wrote entitled Building Leaders.

#1  Provide “No-Draining” Training: Cancel all other ministry meetings, small groups, etc. the week that leaders gather for training or development. It will make a huge statement to your church and provide sanity for your leaders.

#2  Create a Leadership Glossary: If you church has a clear vision and distinct culture, you probably have some unique vocabulary. Make leaders feel welcome and speed up the process of enculturation with this tool.

#3  Target Leaders with Social Media Content: Start a leadership blog, facebook group or twitter account targeting the leadership community in your church. Ken Werlein at Faithbridge, a church in Houston, creates a 10 minute podcast twice a month, just for the leadership community.

#4  Expand the “Shallow End” of the Pool. Emerging leaders need to know there is a time and place to get their feet wet as it can be intimidating to be a newbie. Double the invitations and the opportunities just to attract new and potential leaders. Create a new leaders orientation experience and make it safe for potential leaders to sprout their wings!

#5  Do a Message Series on Influence and Highlight Individual Leaders in Your Congregation: Reinforce the expectation that all believers should have gracious influence. In addition, clarify that some believers have a special leadership gifting (Romans 12:8). Honor lay leaders in the series (and all the time) who model influence well.

#6  Ignite the Practice of Apprenticing: Many church’s aspire toward apprenticing but few follow through. First make apprenticing a primary “bullet” on any paid staff role description. Second, train and role play how to invite someone to be an apprentice with your existing leaders.

#7  Give away a Great Leadership Book: Encourage everyone in your church to go through it. Consider a classic like Oswald Sander’s Spiritual Leadership, or Robert Coleman’s Master Plan of Evangelism. A good new book you might consider is Exponential by Dave and Jon Ferguson. If you don’t have the budget, consider significantly offsetting the cost.

#8  Plan an All-Leaders Summer Retreat: Get together and have fun. Remember you can’t create a culture unless the leaders form a “leadership identity” together. How many times have all the leaders in your church spent time together?

#9  Interview Leaders as a Staff and Ask them How the Church Can Add Value to Leaders: Stop assuming you know what leaders need in your church. Just ask. They will be glad you did. Follow-up this focus group style with a survey to all leaders to get further input.

#10  Expand the “Deep End” of the Pool: If your “leadership pool” is only 4 ft. deep, then your highest capacity leaders won’t find a place to swim. Make sure you create special opportunities and make unique invitations to get the “level 10” leaders engaged. If you don’t have the highest level leaders (10’s) you won’t attract the 7’s 8’s and 9’s who want to  swim deep in your leadership community. What have you wanted to get done but lacked the horsepower? Maybe its time to take a risk and ask a new “big dog” leader to tackle it.

Troy Gramling is the creative visionary of Potential Church, formally known as Flamingo Road Baptist Church. I met Troy shortly after Church Unique was released when his leadership team attended a Church Unique Workshop. In the years following, Troy continues to lean into their uniqueness and pushes the envelope with bold creativity and shock-and-awe vision.

Here are four  ways that that Potential Church models the principles of Church Unique:

#1 Potential Church let’s their Kingdom Concept shine through their mission. The big idea is unmistakable as it is repeated clearly and boldly everywhere the church speaks.  The church’s mission is to partner with people so they can reach their God potential. In addition, on 10-10-10 the church made the single word of their Kingdom Concept the church’s name—Potential.  If you had to fill this sentence in with one word for your church, what would it be: “Our church exists to glorify God and make disciples by _______________.”

#2 Potential Church communicates vision visually. The pink seed is their defining symbol. The seed is a picture of potential as the video story (below) of their name change  and vision communicates. The pink pulls from the “Flamingo” of their heritage as Flamingo Road Baptist Church, and sets the tone for creativity and the unexpected in worship. A few highly creative and uber relevant sermons series that Troy has done include: The Bed, RationaLies, and a very edgy series called Spin The Bottle. How many churches have dealt with questions like, “Is it okay to watch porn with my wife?”

#3 Potential Church keeps their strategy simple. Actually for a gigachurch (over 10,000 in attendance) it is one of the simplest you will find. In addition to worship at one of six campuses, you will find only “three doorways” for further involvement.. The most important is Connect Groups. In addition to groups, they have a monthly event called Next Step and Volunteering. Check out their guest brochure here.

#4 When you cast vision, stretch minds with audacious faith. The mind-stretch is one of the six elements of a simple and dynamic tool called the Vision Casting Spider Diagram. Potential Church has raised the bar here. Just when you thought a gigachurch was big, how about going terachurch!  They are looking to a day when 100,000 people attend worship. Specifically its the 50-100-150 vision; 50 campuses with 100,000 people with a 150 million dollar budget.

Don’t get distracted with the size. Go back to the one word. What’s your potential? What’s your one word?

The American philosopher John Dewey said, “I should venture to assert that the most pervasive fallacy of philosophic thinking goes back to neglect of context.”

Could it also be said of church leaders today that our most pervasive fallacy of ministry thinking goes back to a neglect of context?  I think so, but you might expect that from a guy who sees most of our leadership sins through the lens of photocopied vision.

Remember when Paul said in 1 Corinthians 9:22 that we was willing to “become all things to all men in order to save some?” He was reminding us that your strategy for evangelism must be connected to your awareness of context.

The original meaning of context is “to weave together” and is often used in grammar. When words are taken “out of context” (like we often say about a bible verse) we are breaking the natural “weave” by removing elements before, after and around the words that add to a full and accurate sense of meaning.

With ministry we often bring strategies, ideas and plans for reaching or discipling people that neglect context. That is, we fail to weave our strategies together with realities of culture that live before, after and around what we do. The result is not a lack of “meaning” in the grammatical sense but a lack of effectiveness in connecting with people.

Think for a minute about why context should inform strategy:

1. Context carries localized assumptions about faith and God
2. Context creates localized nuances of and uses for language
3. Context encodes a history of heroes and enemies for your community
4. Context transmits a collective conscious of successes and failures
5. Context reflects and reinforces your community’s deepest hopes and fears
6. Context shapes and is reshaped by the real-time shared experiences of its people

Here are two action steps:

1) Consider what are you currently doing in ministry that was designed by someone else in a different context. Re-examine how your context might inform ways to tweak that ministry.

2) Before planning an new event, program or ministry initiative, spend some time thinking about context. And then let context inform strategy.