Archive for the ‘events’ Category
3M’s – Message, Music, & Munchkins
I was recently asked to give the top 3 things that were my priorities in ministry. After thinking about it there are three things I’d die for – battles that I’m willing to fight for in church work and they go like this:
- Message – biblical and relevant
- Music – contemporary and passionate
- Munchkins – excellent children’s ministry, the best hour of their week
These priorities indicate a lot about my perspective on those things that are impossible for a church to ignore or overlook. I think these three things have the power to transform an unchurched/dechurched person from jaded or lost in the mix to someone that has an opportunity to explore the claims of Christ.
Isn’t that why we exist in the first place? Andy Stanley says, “The Church is a family expecting guests in their home.”
Guests deserve our best message, music, and care for their munchkins every Sunday. The way I like to frame it is that our facility and our friendliness needs to have the attitude that Jesus is walking in through our doors every week, because His guests certainly are.
So put on those winning smiles I see so many Sundays, get those hands out of your pocket, and welcome everyone with a simple thought in the back of your mind, “God loves you and so do I!”
-Pastor Clark
The Day I Paper-cut my Eyeball
My good friend Jacob over at his blog has just posted a great treatise on an experience that forced him to see life from the perspective of a blind person.
His gripping illustration of blindness reminded me of a time I lost my own vision. I’ve been a radical clutz in my journey thus far in life. In fact, I’ve had my eye drilled twice to remove obstructions.
But that’s not what happened one fateful Tuesday morning in 2003. No that day I was packing up some books I’d sold on ebay to ship out. I was padding the box with newspaper. You know the stuff- greyish white paper, black print.
I whipped open the paper and because I have horrible slow reflexes – I paper-cut my right eyeball. Now I’ve been told that child-birth is painful. I’m not so sure paper-cutting your eyeball isn’t a close second.
I was brought to my knees with intense pain and tearing. I couldn’t see a thing out of the right eye. Anytime I opened the eye – shooting pain.
Inevitably my wife rushed home and took me to the ER – where under a special lamp and liquid squirted in my eye (pain again!) it was determined that I’d paper-cut my eye and that it would need to heal up.
I think I could have told them that and I haven’t even been to med-school.
Jacob asks a haunting question near the end, “How would my life be different if I could systematically remove the distractions for a period of time?”
My temporary blindness caused me to trust in my wife – an outside source to come get me and transport me to the doctor.
I wonder if the challenges of my life – the temptations, crisis, and loss – aren’t similar times when God speaks to me and says, “Be still and know that I am God.” Psalm 46:10 NIV
$99 will make you 99% more effective…
You’re probably aware of my fascination with Granger Community Church in Granger, Indiana. Creative, risky, in love with Jesus – is there anything else?
If you’ve ever had lunch with me I know the phrase “wiredchurches.com” was probably uttered more than you’d have preferred. If we haven’t had lunch – let’s set it up – I love to steal new ideas – I might even give you a few.
I implore you to spend $99 and take a little trip to get inspired beyond belief about what can be done for the Kingdom in the field of clear communication. Complete details are here. In October of 2006 I attended Kem Meyer’s conference when Granger did some regional breakouts and it forever altered how I view communications in the local church.
Everything from our church website (which got a massive overhaul when I got home – okay okay I began at the KCI airport) to bulletins to how I think about long-term message planning was initially birthed at that one-day workshop.
At the time I was pastoring in Texas and caught a Southwest flight to Kansas City because I was so impressed with Granger’s books – the “Simply Strategic” line. So do the same thing – jump on a plane and go. I’d go with you but I’m already booked up in March – argh!
Since then I’ve read many great books that built on those concepts – including just about everything by Seth Godin, which Kem inspired me to read that day as well. You will walk away with strategies, transformation, and inspiration to make your ministry 99% more effective – and that’s probably a really low-ball estimate. So go register already.
To me Kem combines the exuberance of Kate Hudson, tenacity of Katie Couric, and motivation of Larry Winget into a presentation that will command your attention from the first, “Let’s get started” until the cleaning crews are pulling you away from the round table discussion at the close of the day.
I’m not kidding and I’m not a paid endorser. I’ve been to many of these church-growth events, missional conferences, outreach conferences, etc. I’ve heard almost every big name in the evangelical circuit. This is not fluff, this is the real-deal. This isn’t a theology seminar, it’s very pragmatic in approach which most of us theology types need.
What happened following the conference where I pastor:
- Implemented long-range planning for message series, including graphics and mailers
- Bulletin was completely overhauled to reflect less clutter, clearer information
- Response cards were thrown out – redesigned with easier to understand options – noticeable increase in responses each week
- Website was moved to a blogging platform, complete redesign, no more than 3 clicks to access all information, removed many links to useless info – went for minimalism look (I pastor a generational church of 500 members and our website had a little over 3,000 unique hits last year. We rank #1 in google when you search – ‘baptist church oklahoma’ – this didn’t happen before Kem’s ideas were implemented.)
- New church logo, brochures, newspaper ads, etc.
- Implemented a weekly church email newsletter with increasingly simplified subjects – to the point of only one main emphasis per week now with no more than 250 words – because no one reads the rest anyways!
Okay, if I haven’t convinced you by now, you’re not going. So just buy her book when it comes out in March ‘09 – I’ve got mine preordered. I’m guessing it’ll have much of the same information sans the transformational power of a live interaction. But it’s better than nothing! Less Clutter. Less Noise.
About
Clark Frailey is a husband, father, and Lead Pastor of Coffee Creek Baptist Church in Edmond, Oklahoma.
clarkfrailey.com
