As I complete a 90-day leave of absence from my consulting work, I wanted to share my first update. As you probably already know, I resigned in May from a company I founded in August of 2020 – the Future Church Company.
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Some of the hardest working, most devoted pastors work in the smallest churches in terms of attendance. If you’re a small church pastor, you probably feel more alone, more tired, and (at times) more frustrated than pastors of churches 10 times yours in attendance. And that was before the COVID disruption.
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Why attend the Future Church Collective? Because you know that business as usual won’t suffice. You have dreams for ministry and people are waiting for you to turn those dreams into action. You will be inspired, challenged, and supported as you and your team move into 2022 and beyond.
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It’s imperative for every church to both optimize their first impressions and be extremely clear about what they’re inviting people to engage with. And the pervading sense of uncertainty about the future that I hear from pastors these days clouds every conversation about these issues.
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The Enneagram isn’t just another tool to help people understand themselves and those around them. As a matter of fact, the Enneagram was originally used as a tool to guide spiritual discipleship.
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The final reason to change your church's name is when your current name is working against building awareness.
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The fourth reason to change your church's name is when a name streamlines communication by shortening or modifying to reflect common usage.
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The third strategic reason for a name change is when the new name re-clarifies a church’s identity during a relaunch, an organizational rite of passage, or a new strategic direction. In this post, I explore a few examples of this.
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The second strategic reason to change a name is when your name is a barrier to the people you are trying to reach. Churches serious about reaching people far from God have taken great strides to "remove all barriers" to fulfilling the mission. In this case we learn how history trumped creativity.
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The first reason to change your name is when the scope of a church's ministry grows beyond a name that is geographically limited. This has occurred for many churches venturing into a multisite strategy. For example, as First Baptist Church of Springdale prepares to launch its third campus, they recently navigated a name change to become Cross Church.
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Your name is always your first opportunity to cast vision. Your name says something and means something to everyone who hears it or sees it. A wise leader understands the importance of a ministry's name and maintaining continuity with a name for people inside and outside the organization. Yet, there are some strategic seasons when a name change can be a powerful decision for the vision of the church.
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I'm giving away some Vision Decks! This tool can be so helpful and so easy to use with your team. Check out the full post to see how to claim one while they last!
[...]I want you and your ministry to experience the benefits of stunning, God-given clarity. As a pastor turned vision coach, I’ve worked with an unprecedented variety of churches from growing mega-churches and missional communities, to mainline revitalization and church plants. I started several interconnected organizations that help the church embody the movement that Jesus founded. My visionary planning tools, the Vision Frame and the Horizon Storyline, are used by thousands of churches every year through my calling to raise up other consultants and trainers. In 2004 I started Auxano, which I sold to LifeWay. In 2014, I founded Younique to deliver gospel-centered life design through the church. It is now the world's only comprehensive, open source, life planning system. In 2019, I founded Denominee to help networks and denominations reinvent how they bring value to the church. I've written seven books, including Future Church, Younique, Clarity Spiral, God Dreams, Innovating Discipleship, and Church Unique. I enjoy speaking about how to live a life of more meaningful progress. I live in Houston with my wife, Romy, and I have four children.
I currently work with a small group of churches and leaders. If you are interested in life planning or executive coaching individually or taking your church through a Vision Framing engagement based on Future Church, just reach out to set up a conversation.
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