Start Reaching Real Lost People Not Church Shoppers
This post is not for everyone. First, its for followers of Jesus who really want to reach messy people groups with the gospel, including some entrenched in darker darkness. Second, its for people who live within Las Vegas or a Southwest airlines trip to there at cities like:
San Francisco, San Jose, Oakland, Reno, Sacramento, San Diego, Phoenix, Tucson, Albuquerque, etc.
Vault is one of the most unique equipping opportunities you will ever have. This mini-conference (noon to noon, Monday-Wednesday next week) will bring you deep inside the thinking and methods Vince Antonucci and Verve Church use in Las Vegas, which have led them to reach atheists, pimps, prostitutes, bikers, Wiccan witches, Buddhists, strippers, lesbians, and many more of the truly lost, the people Jesus called all of us all to reach. I have been onsite with Vince and his team two times- his church work is the real deal!
How can YOUR CHURCH go from reaching church shoppers to reaching people who don’t like church? That’s what Vault is all about, and you don’t want to miss the conversation!
This year special guest John Burke will be leading three sessions of Vault. You may have seen John speak at Willow Creek’s Leadership Summit. He’s the author of No Perfect People Allowed, and the church planter and pastor of Gateway, one of the most evangelistically effective churches in America. John will share principles you can use to reach people who are truly far from God.
I will be there sharing thoughts on redemptive passion and vision clarity. Most importantly I am bringing one of our Auxano navigators, Dave Saathoff, who has learned how to reach thousands of people, far from God in San Antonio, Texas.
The cost is only $125 (or $100 for groups of 2 or more), which includes three meals and book giveaways! The conference is limited to about 100 people, which provides for an amazing dynamic that promotes learning and relationships. But it also means that registration will fill up soon, so register today!
Steve Jobs Delivers 3 Life Lessons on Personal Clarity
Steve Jobs, one of the world’s most influential inventors, died today. If you have the slightest interest in pursuing a personal vision, this 15 minute video is a must watch. And if Steve Job’s innovation has impacted your life, you will like these three life lessons even more.
Life Lesson #1: FUTURE ORIENTATION- You have to trust in something.
- Trust that it will all work out in the end.
- Dropping out of college allowed me to “drop in” on what I wanted to learn.
- Most of what I stumbled in on turned out to be priceless down the road.
- Trust that the dots will connect down the road.
- You can’t connect the dots looking forward you can only looking backwards.
Life Lesson #2: LOSS AND LOVE- You have got to find what you love.
- I was lucky I found what I love to do early in life
- After 10 years and building a 2 billion dollar company with 4000 employees I got fired.
- I had been rejected but I was still in love.
- It turned out that getting fired from apple was the best thing that ever happened to me.
- The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again; I was less sure about everything.
- It freed me to enter the most creative period of my life.
- And the only way to do great work is to love what you do.
- If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking, don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it.
Life Lesson #3: DEATH – Your time is limited, so don’t waste it.
- When I was 17 I read a quote, “If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you will most certainly be right.”
- I have looked myself in the mirror every morning and asked myself, “If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?”
- Remembering that I will be dead soon is the most important tool I have ever encountered to help me make the big decisions in life.
- You are already naked, there is no reason not to follow your heart.
- Death is the destination we all share.
- Death is the best invention of life. It clears out the old to make way for the new.
- Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life.
- Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition- everything else is secondary.
- Stay hungry, stay foolish.
FREE Clarity and Vision Casting Tools from The NINES Content
If you watched my talk at the NINES online conference today, below are the free tools I referenced.
The Vision Casting Spider Diagram
Download the Church Unique Visual Summary
Leadia by Leadership Network: Why Church Leaders Are Going to Love this New App!
Leadia was just announced by Leadership Network and it will rollout to the world tomorrow at the online conference, The NINES. What exactly is Leadia? In short it’s “leadership + media-” It’s a short digital book, combined with embedded video, audio and social media. Check out the intro video:
I have been working with the LN team on it for the past couple of months as a contributor of one of the first four Leadia Experiences. Here is my take on why you are going to love this innovative app.
#1 It’s a totally new genre that’s more fun and more effective than other ways of learning
#2 The experiences are less than 10,000 words so you can interact with them in one sitting
#3 The learning is customized and expandable allowing you to go deeper if you want
#4 New and diverse content will come from a broader range of authors
#5 The content costs less than a book and lots of ebooks
#6 It’s downright fun because use you can be surprised as you go through the experience
#7 It’s great for individual or team use.
I will be sharing about my contribution (FLUX: Four Paths to the Future) once Apple approves it for publication within the Leadia app.
Six Key Tasks of Pastors Who Make a Difference
Two weeks ago, I spent a few hours with Bob Buford who always passes on great nuggets from the life of Peter Drucker. Through the dialogue we came to what Drucker called the “tasks of the CEO in the new millennium.” I know that connecting the role of the senior pastor to the role of a CEO will, no doubt, cast a shadow on what I am about to say for some. Yet I believe that Drucker’s insights have profound implications for the role of the senior pastor who wants to make a difference. These are adaptations from chapter 43 of Drucker’s book entitled, Management.
#1 To define the meaningful outside of the organization. This is a very interesting way to think about a leader who keeps the church on mission. This would be Drucker’s articulation of “external focus.”
#2 To work on getting the information “outside” into usable form. Beyond an external focus, a leader must translate and infuse the most important information into the “bloodstream of the church;” to the staff, leaders and members of the church.
#3 To decide on what results are meaningful for the church. The problem here is that the functional bottom line for most churches is still attendance and giving which does not constitute the true measure of mission. That’s why I use the Vision Frame everywhere I go to help pastors focus on output results.
#4 To decide the priorities. On this point Drucker’s words need no translation for church leaders: “In any but a dying organization, there are always far more tasks than there are available resources. But results are obtained only by a concentration of resources.”
#5 To place people into key positions. Drucker reminds leaders that, “In the last analysis this task determines the performance capacity of the institution”
#6 To organize top leadership. Of course your church’s governance heritage will shape your leadership structure. Yet, the question remains, who wakes up thinking about the necessity to restructure and organize top leadership?
