“So why have you quit going to church?”

“I just got to the point that I was just going through the motions.  Week after week it was the same ‘ol thing.  I wasn’t changing.  There was no challenge to change being issued.  I know I need to change, but the message I heard week after week was just maintenance stuff…”

Let’s face it, as a leader, no matter what you do, teach, how you lead, people are going to leave your church on a regular basis.  Stats show that consistently, about 15% of your current weekend population will leave by this time next year.  I’ve said it before – forgive me for repeating this vital counsel – you and those you are training need to be always be on the “connect, invite, include” path continually.  With you there are no strangers – period, ever.  You are the type that meets ten people daily.  In so doing of course you will pass on this value to your leaders, people this vital value and practice.

But what about those who are already there?  Often, if not normally, when people comment, “I don’t ‘feel fed’ – they are not really talking about the topics or the depth to which you are explaining or teaching on a topic.  In fact, lay off on the parsing of the Greek with rare exception.

What Are Your People Starving For?
With each week’s message pass along a challenge to make a reasonable adjustment in the way life is lived.  What does a healthy challenge look like?

1.   Small challenges are realistic.

Realize you are in this life adjustment thing for the long haul.  A little bit of challenge a week is attainable.  Make it with love, not parental.  Make it hopeful and loving.

2.   Don’t worry about critics who resist the challenges.

Undoubtedly, as you begin to consistently challenge and get practical in your messages, some will squeal.  Mark 1:27 captures the people’s initial near shock at the difference between the Pharisee’s approach to passing on information without doing and Jesus’ message which was always obedience-centered. “What’s going on here? A new teaching that does what it says?”

I recently read a critical Atheist’s harsh words of several one-time church visits he had made.  He wrote that his visits reminded him of “poorly executed versions of a Tony Robbins seminar.”  My response:  “Whatever!” (For full effect, get someone with the Valley Girl accent to say that one word…)  What this man wrote was obviously filled with fear – fear that if what was taught just might be true.  If true, then he would need to change – something he was not in the least interested in pondering.  The only reason anything Tony Robbins or any other motivational coach shares may work is because it is based on the truth of the everlasting wisdom of the scriptures.  Even a blind squirrel can find a nut now and then!  Don’t be repelled by the cheap shots of critics who use such extreme comparisons to make a false comparison.  A non-practical, non-challenging message is a neutered message and bears no resemblance to the ministry or message of Jesus.

3.  You be the leader of the change.

When speaking of the change you are calling people to, make sure you are putting those changes into play in your own life.  Tell a few failure stories as well – the funnier the better.

4.   Ask God for an overall strategy for a given time period.

Change is doable as you maintain a reasonable amount of it.  In a given year I usually work on four issues at a time and keep rehashing those matters, only with different language angles so it is not so obvious we are repeating the theme again.

Change is one of the few constants in this life… and the next.  If you don’t like change, it’s time to get adept at it.  There is plenty of indication that heaven will be a time and place of ongoing growth as we more fully understand the depths of how great our God is.  More discovery equals more change in us.

Communicating to Change Lives, Pt. I  
Any pastor or teacher who still calls himself / herself a “preacher” is either in love with the terminology of the past or simply doesn’t understand the fullness of the comprehensive call to connect with the culture around us the God so loves.  

We will primarily look at the matter of upgrading the speaking skill level of each of us in these sessions.  

Among other focus issues we will look at:

•    Capturing the Vision God has for your people in this season     

•    Converting that vision into a series / several series in order to strategically direct the people in the direction God is taking them through your teaching gift

•    Learning how to lean into your teaching gift / how to hone the teaching gift that is already in you – by walking in the right attitudes that allow God to move through you

•    Linking tools that will give you a leg up from where you are to the next step – no matter where you are  (the secrets many of the best known communicators in the US use you probably aren’t aware of and how they hit a “home run” every week)

•    How to grow in confidence / naturalness regardless of how many times you have spoken – one of the huge keys to speaking profoundly

•    Learning to pick up on the nuances that come along as you are speaking – while this has happened to most of us already, how can we learn to increase the best of what comes to us “on the fly” in combination with carefully prepared notes…

The Essential “Stay Alive” and “Expand” Skill — Networking
Whether you are a new church plant, mid way into the process of reaching your community or your story is long established, your group (or you personally) are only as effective as your capacity to connect with those around you.  
Some seem to have a natural skill at meeting and making relationships while others have to work at it to become fluent “inviters” into the life or your organization.  
The difference between those who succeed or fail… or those who barely survive by a thread, is this skill of being able to connect with others easily, fluidly, and with enthusiasm.  
Networking is not the realm of insurance salesmen.  It is the very language of Jesus and the kingdom of God.  As we learn it we can pass it along to our people who can be liberated to become inviters themselves throughout the city!   

Among other focus issues we will look at:

•    Learn to think expansively

•    Learn to think as a natural networker – fluency is attainable as with a new language – not translating in your mind then speaking in the new tongue but thinking in the new language in an instant, naturally!

•    Learn to see people as Jesus did – celebrating all he came in contact with – there are no longer any mere, common people – everyone is special beyond words because they are moving somewhere spiritually.  

•    Learn the habits of those who connect with 100% of those they meet; EVERYONE’S information is captured for future reference

•    Lots of tools for regularly connecting with your newly acquired friends (do you already have enough friends?  I will never have enough friends even if I continue to add several a day and life to be 110!)  

•    Learn how to coach those around you – those you lead – into building their network of connections into vast numbers so they begin to live differently than they currently live / see / think 

Embracing Your Church’s Unique Focus

In my extensive travels throughout the Church world over the past 20 years in the US and beyond, this Bride that I love, this lovely thing that Jesus says will endure throughout all of eternity, is nearly always unclear as to what her unique focus is in the local context.  

In Rev. 2 and 3 Jesus spoke to the churches of Asia Minor.  One thing stood out to all of the churches focused upon – each had a clear and distinct, unique reason for being they had been called to carry out.  As leaders it is incumbent upon us to hunger and thirst and do whatever it takes to discover our seminal focus in God’s kingdom.  

Lots of practical tools will be looked at, dug into, shared and given to you as a leader that you can pass on to your leaders in turn to use in further digging into your team’s focus.   

Among other focus issues we will look at:

•    Defining your church’s unique calling to this time, this place, this people, this city

•    Tools for identifying your church’s unique spiritual history – that has a tremendous bearing on where you are headed in the spiritual realm

•    Tools for identifying your church’s unique people history – to gain an understanding of what has taken place among people – some things that may need to be addressed / set straight in order to go forward with full enthusiasm / strength

•    Hearing from God – his unique, distinct, clear and exciting invitations to bring change to your city, your people and to usher in the newness of life that comes with the kingdom of God going forward in your church.  

•    What to expect when the kingdom of God is at work in our midst in a strong way – the new realities that indeed will happen as we simply hear God’s invitations and reply with a “yes” as we go forward.  

•    How to negotiate the new realities with our leadership team / staff without losing our minds… or our friendships as intensity increases. 

Walking Out Your Unique Focus as a Leader
Each of us has a one of a kind focus that we have to contribute that only we can give away out of all of the inhabitants of Planet Earth.  We are unique creations in Christ.  If snowflakes are unique, then surely we are all the more unique as Jesus’ Spirit fills us and calls us to do his bidding in the world.  
The challenge is this:  How do we walk out that seminal focus that we can give away?  
One thing is certain…  We will never be fully satisfied, fulfilled until we walk out our unique calling.  First that uniqueness must be discovered.  The good news is that discovery process is not as complicated as one might think.  
In the course of my personal struggle over the past several years since my devastating
medical accident I have been forced to simplify my personal focus – to say “Yes” to what I am for and to say “No” to what I am not for.  Join me in this exciting coaching opportunity!  

Among other focus issues we will look at:

•    Looking closely at your leadership history

•    Gaining a clear view of your calling based on where you first started / first were called

•    Learning to get a “clutter free” perspective of what God is speaking / has spoken to you regarding your unique, one-of-a-kind focus

•    Learning to slow down your inner metronome to the point that you can pick up on the signals coming your way in order to hear the invitations that have come / are coming your way to stand out as a distinct leader

•    Picking up on the distinctives you have been made for / called to that no one else can do

•    Building a leadership strategy that will allow you to begin to walk out your unique gifting / calling that will ultimately allow you to get to what we call “Living the 90% Life…” (spending 90% of your time doing only what you are made for – walking free from doing the frustrating things you have not been made for…)  

Learning to Walk in the Outflow

Truth be told, all in ministry began with a vision for outwardness – with an ideal that people’s lives would be changed, healed, even revolutionized.  

Somewhere along the way, many of us have given us in frustration with this ideal concluding that this goal was too lofty or simply “too much for me” or perhaps “not meant for me” and therefore settling for a maintenance role in God’s kingdom.  
The reality is being a change agent in God’s kingdom is not as difficult a thing as we have perhaps made it to be in our minds.  
With a few adjustments to our current leadership style, with a few approach alterations that are highly doable with nearly all of our current gift mixes – we can likely all be used of God to lead our churches outwardly.  
We need practical steps, stories of transformation, tools, tips and opportunities to seek counsel.  Here is where that happens… among those who have turned inside out already.   

Today in the US, close to 99% of churches are either plateaued or are experiencing a decline in numbers.  Why is this the case?  Certainly the situation is not a simple one to analyze nor to adjust, but one thing is clear to anyone who is simply taking a “drive by” glance at the American church – we have built a “dug in” – “maintenance” mentality into our mindset of how church life is conducted.  Near the top of what needs to change is moving our aim away from us / inwardness and toward them / and outwardness.  

Among other focus issues we will look at:  

•    How to build a heart toward outsiders

•    How to hear God’s voice as he invites us take small risks / investments in showing love to not-yet believers (“See a need and meet it; feel a hurt and heal it!” – CoastlandTampa Church motto)  

•    How to systematically build a team that will join together in becoming outwardly focused

•    How to communicate through series (numerous series – strategically presented over a stretch of time) that will help “birth” a local church into outwardness without losing a high percentage of your people…

•    How to birth the vision of God that he has given to you for this unique place at this unique time for this unique people – as you serve your way forward – not merely taking a cookie cutter approach toward leadership / serving, but truly getting a strong sense of leadership and the conviction that God has led / spoken so there is a sense of strength behind your actions / words. 

Starting Off Right – Church Planting Smarts
    …a strategy for launching that hasn’t failed yet
Currently approximately 80% of all church start ups fail within a 3 to 5 year time frame.  To add to that statistic, what is defined as “success” is set as such a low mark (100 in total attendance on a good weekend – counting adults and children) – I suspect many reading this would like to see more momentum than simply that after such an enormous amount of input as is required in a church plant.  

After planting four churches personally and directly coaching over 50 churches with just 3 failures from that group, our strategy obviously is doing some things differently than the typical planting approach.  

It is no surprise that at its root, much of what we will look at are building skills and perspectives that balance an inward and outwardness on the teeter-totter of church life.  Very few church planters have in-born skills that are anywhere close to what is needed to gather a group of people who will eventually comprise the church they aspire to see.  Without significant coaching church planters are destined to become teachers who:  
- gather already believers from other churches (not from outside the Church world), OR
- gather already believers who are patrons of the “smorgasbord” of fine dining of the church world – church aficionados with an acquired taste for a particular kind of church that appeals to them, and will serve them.  Unfortunately, much of what was billed as part of he church planting movement has degenerated to this form of “church” in lieu of a redemptive model the Great Commission Jesus spoke clearly of.  
IMPORTANT NOTE:  Each of these coaching sessions will be conducted from the angle / assumption that the church planter / team in question desires to build a church that will ultimately reach the city / culture at large, NOT simply move people from Church A to Church B, which is what is going on in the vast majority of church plants currently when accurate stats are laid out.  
These sessions will be presented based on our experience which has been to connect with a high percentage of not-yet believing people as well as some percentage of already believing people.  Everyone claims to reach the not-yet believers, but in reality few are producing results.  
Our story tells how to do the above.  

Among other focus issues we will look at:

•    Looking each session at super practical issues that every church planter – no matter what point you are at – at the pre-planting / planning stage, or midway into things (1 or 2 years into things), or perhaps you are a church planting coach…  The emphasis here will be placed upon practical tools for planters who are carrying out the task of putting a new outward focused church into orbit.  

•    How to connect with your city without falling into the trap of becoming an “Either-Or” church (“We have to decide to be EITHER a church for not-yet believers OR a church for the committed, deep veteran believers…”  There is a third way that we have built that works wonderfully that attracts both groups powerfully.)  

•    How to prioritize your limited time as a planter.  

•    Learn how to transition from phase to phase depending on where you are, where you are going in your plant.  

•    Learn how to think strategically with your plant.  

•    Learn now to think as a team person, not a “Lone Ranger” (Lone Ranger planters are small, and stay small forever – teams grow but one must learn essential team leading skills along the way)

•    Learn how to recruit a team based on your strengths / weaknesses as the “Lead Goose”  

•    Learn how to see beyond what is now toward what is coming / based on the plan God has given you / is giving you and you are faithfully carrying out…

•    Learn to operate in daily / weekly profoundness and avoid mere cuteness or cleverness

There are a lot of smart and hard-working people out there.  Some are both.

Have you noticed that power and influence most often seem to only be in the hands of a few who use this influence for personal gain or the destruction of others? There is a smaller percentage of influencers who genuinely seek the betterment of others.  These are “Ideators” – a simple word to capture the strengths of these inspired influencers.

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