An Online Spiritual Gifts Analysis and Inventory from Team Ministry

Our minister of education just showed me an online spiritual gifts analysis today that we’re asking our church to participate in called the Team Ministry Spiritual Gifts Analysis Group Database.

It costs around $190 for a year … and you can download the participants responses or results in spreadsheet form when you’re ready. You just post your church’s special link to the survey and members can instantly go online and submit their answers to the database. Then results can be emailed to your church’s contact for helping plug memebers in, etc.

May 22, 2007 · Filed Under Church Leadership

Comment

Faith in the Workplace: Ask a Career Coach Some Good Questions

Over the past month or so, I’ve been working with Yahoo! columnist and blogger Penelope Trunk … career coach extraordinare. She’s been a blast to work with … and just seeing the stats from her blog has made my eyes cross sometimes.

Well … she’s just released a new book called Brazen Careerist: The New Rules for Success.

Anyway, I was talking with her about doing a Q&A on the topic of work and career and the intersection of that with faith and spiritual values … and I thought I’d open up the brainstorming of ideas to the readers of this blog.

I think it’d be fun to poise some good questions to her about how a person of deep convictions — enter the evangelical Christian — can “successfully” live out your faith and values in the workplace.

Also … I’d love to hear some questions from pastors that they’d love to get the unique perspective of a “career coach” … both the questions and answers will be interesting to hear I’m sure.

Let’s be general about the questions. But also think about different scenarios a Christ-follower in particular might face. And the whole subject of “faith in the workplace.”

Send me an email with your ideas for questions … or fill out the contact form below.

May 21, 2007 · Filed Under CCP Talk & News, Case Studies, Church Leadership

Comment

What’s The Rush? Five Tips for Making the Deadline

The flurry of preparations and activities for Easter are behind us now. We can breathe easy…but just for a few minutes! There will be another event coming soon and a job board filled with projects to get accomplished. There is always more for you to do!

So how do you get ahead of the game? What can help keep you from last minute sprints to the finish line hoping that you’ll make it? Read more

April 24, 2007 · Filed Under Church Leadership, Church Marketing

Comment

How to Leave a Church Staff

Jeff Wilson, an elder and associate pastor at Henderson Hills, has an outstanding series called Church Staffing 101. He recently posted some excellent advice in a post titled I’m Leaving: Steps to take when leaving a church.

It’s loaded with sharp wisdom, but I really appreciated these quotes:

“After you have gone, don’t continue to lead/meddle at your former church. God has moved you. He will provide leadership for them. Focus on what God has called you to do not what He called you away from.”

“Expect people to react to your leaving in these ways: Anger, Resentment, Withdrawal, Happiness, Fear, Excitement, and a combination of Sadness and Joy.”

On a side note, I’ve had the opportunity to do lunch with Jeff on several occasions. I love his perspective and enjoy gleaning wisdom from his 25 years of ministry experience.

By the way, he just announced Henderson will be going to “multiple locations” by starting a new campus in Stillwater, Okla.

April 17, 2007 · Filed Under Church Leadership

Comment

What Should Your Church Marketing Budget Be?

There are many church planters and pastors who are now catching on that branding and marketing their church can be a good thing if it’s done with excellence and focus (the only time a church shouldn’t move forward is if they can’t do it well) and it’s very exciting to see churches begin to invest in great stuff! It really makes a difference in many ways.

One of the questions I encounter when working with churches is what is the cost for a great brand identity or marketing campaign. This is always difficult to address because there are so many scenarios and options. Every church is different and there’s not a one-size-fits-all approach. My reply question is usually “What is your budget?”, but many people don’t know what to budget or sometimes believe that it is going to be cheap. Before I tell you an estimated amount, I am going to share a few “truths” with you.

Truth #1: Think of your marketing budget as a mission investment and not an expense. Read more

March 28, 2007 · Filed Under Church Branding, Church Leadership, Church Marketing

2 Comments

Crisis Management: When Bad Things Happen

This is guest post on crisis management written by Kirk Longhofer who blogs at TechnoPraxis.

Dealing with bad news is a tough nut for a professional communicator. In the best possible situation, it’s painful. But bad news rarely presents itself in a convenient way.It’s generally wrapped up in emotion. It can lead to panic individually and as an organization. Leadership in the organization may want to hold the bad news tightly. Or respond slowly. Or only admit what they have to.

That, unfortunately is exactly the WRONG response.

We live in a blog-driven, instant publishing world. If one person knows, your bad news can be worldwide in a matter of hours, maybe even minutes. Quick, decisive and full disclosure response is critically important.

Put another way, when you have bad news, get it out now. Get it out wide. And most importantly, get it out FIRST.

Mark Ostreicher at Youth Specialties had to deal with that kind of situation last week. I won’t go into all the details. Suffice to say that some material in a book published by YS contained some racially offensive material. It got past the editing process and has been widely distributed for the past few months. Marko responded to the issue on his blog on Friday. It’s a great example of how to handle bad news.

Let’s break down Marko’s response. He opens with a very humble and transparent statement. “We really screwed up, big time.” Acknowledge the issue. Up front. No equivocation. And he apologizes, clearly and without reservation.

He goes on to describe, in detail, exactly the offense that occurred. He resists the temptation to hide behind a lack of ill intent… “intentional or not – that is not at issue here.” He then digs deeper and points out the potential systemic issues that led to the specific issue. He commits to addressing them, both personally and as an organization.

Then, and only then, Marko outlines what YS has done already, and what they will do shortly to correct the mistake and to make sure it doesn’t happen again. Marko had direct and extensive discussion with the person who brought the complaint. He wanted to make sure he understood the full nature of the issue.

And now, they are apologizing publicly. By E-mail, on Marko’s personal blog, and on the web. Marko is even providing his personal E-mail and phone number with an amazing and sincere offer to talk personally with anyone offended. How many corporate executives have you ever seen publish their contact details in the wake of, say, a peanut butter recall?

Does it make a difference? Marko posted at 8:00pm on Friday night. By noon Saturday, there were nearly two dozen comments on his post. All were appreciative of the apology. Several contained suggestions on additional actions that YS could take.

When the news is bad, get it out now. Get it out wide, and get it out first.

Kirk Longhofer blogs at TechnoPraxis.

March 3, 2007 · Filed Under Church Branding, Church Leadership, Church Marketing

Comment

← Previous Page — Next Page →