MaxiMeyer.com

Tim Stevens

• There have been trends of the “latest and greatest” of styles, focus, what works, what doesn’t work in churches… When you don’t get the results you want, it doesn’t mean you move the target and bash the old… think  ”reinvent” - the culture we live in is always changing…  Yesterday may have been OK but today is a new day…
• “Missional Schmissional”
• “I haven’t met the pastor or church that is only about the weekend and getting a big crowd… I just haven’t met them… there has always been some element of missional in the attractional churches…”
• “Attractional Schmactional”-  sometimes I just get tired of feeling like we’re only as good as our latest series, last year doesn’t matter, the feeling of performing, and the pressure of coming up with the next thing is tiring… sometimes we can get tired of those who take take take but never volunteer, give, or contribute in some way…
• About four years ago we stopped growing- it was very tough on staff, what were we doing wrong?  We blamed each other, our programming, the people, the weather, you name it…  We tried several different methods to make changes…
• More and more people feel like they have a good relationship with God without going to church…  40% may go to church in its current model, 60% will never come to “the box” (church)
• Just about every church in your community is saying “Come to us”…
• “I have shifted to a profound conviction that in our community- 60% will never step foot in our church..”
• It seemed we have two choices, pour all our resources in the shrinking 40%- those who may be open to going to church, OR scrap everything and shift focus to helping the growing 60% that they matter to God
• 3 things we know at Granger:
• We must begin reaching the 60%
• We must reach more of the 40%
• We must help the 40% reach “their” 60%
• The attractional “come to the box” model may be the most/best missional strategy to reach suburban America- that may be the method that best works for the 40%
• Past:  Get the community into the church   Future:  Get the church into the community
• Past:  Church largely defined by the weekend service   Future:  Church defined “where you are”
• Past: Primarily centralized, top-down structure   Future:  Infuse a decentralized, organic structure for quick growth
• Past:  Tracked Attendance and giving     Future:  Tracking community impact and “loving others”
• Past:  No designated giving    Future:  Lots of ways for people to give to your passion
• People more than ever want to see the impact of their giving, less trust in organizations
• Past:  People come to the church building to do their ministry  Future:  Ministry isn’t confined to a building, it happens wherever you are
• Past:  Buildings serve the church, the community is invited to join  Future:  Buildings serve the community- the congregation also meets there
• What if our building is no longer called Granger Community Church, renamed “Harbor Ridge”- the place you go for hope and healing… the moments of your greatest need  (example only- idea of changing the purpose of the building called church to a community focus… help for finances, marriages, classes, etc.)
• This change is going to be “messy”- tension is the new order of the day…
• “What works and is needed in Granger, Indiana will be different than what happens in your community…”

• Dave Ferguson
• “I’m kicking you OUT of this building!”
• In the last 20 years, the number of people that say they have no religious affiliation has doubled
• “I’m good with giving the money, it just seems there is more I should be doing..”
• God wants a movement of people that have found their niche’- think “how can we mobilize people on mission?”
• Missional People+ Multiplying Churches = Missional Movement
• Some churches our doing well on the “macro” level- mission on a big scale but are having a challenge on the “micro” level- one person making a change-  Think the movie “Blind Side”
• Ordain every Christ follower- empowered to be sent out…  Simply ask the question, “Is there a person or group of people you’re being called to reach?”- give that permission to the people in your church
• We have to lead with a “Yes”  If someone comes to you with an idea of how they want to use their gifts and talents, lead with “yes”
• Identifying your brand and target can be a great money maker but is not a good “movement” maker- say “yes” often…
• We set the bar way too low for our teens/youth- they can make a dramatic difference
• “Find your passion and do it.”

• Matt Carter, Pastor Austin Stone Community Church  TX
• The attractional model is still reaching people in the US, there is still a need for it
• Many people are looking to lay low and be able to lurk in and out of church, small groups aren’t the venue for these people
• The current attractional model alone is incomplete. 
• Planting a thousand megachurches isn’t going to be the strategy to reach our nation in the next 10 years.  Why?  We just did that but the overall church is on the decline.
• 18-30 year olds are not wired to sit on the sideline in ministry, they want to be part of it… That age group is leaving the church in droves- churches are missing the opportunity to get them engaged
• The responsibility of “mission” is not with clergy and paid staff, it’s with all of us… We’re surrounded by thousands of people that want to be part of something great- it doesn’t match what is in Acts either…
• What would spending millions of dollars on a facility do for our community?  It may impact a few thousand but is it changing our community? “Instead of growing a thousand people in your church, what if you released them out of your church to go make a difference in your community?”
• Jesus poured into 12 and kicked them out into the world…into their community…
• What if it’s possible to do both?  Attract a 1000 and send a 1000 out… 
• Missional community:  Training people to come together for the purpose of actually being the church together… impacting their workplaces, the community…
• Three things you need to do:  #1  We changed the definition of success for our small groups:  From a group of people having a Bible study to “has the group moved beyond the gathering and found a place of people with need and are they engaged for the Gospel and glory of God?”
• There’s nothing that can foster community better than getting people on a mission together…
• #2  Teach people to be self feeders rather than consumers in their faith
• #3  Raise the bar in their minds and their hearts about what God is able to do through them-  Are we challenging the people in our churches and releasing them to use their talents and resources outside the four walls of our church?

Q & A:

• What were some of the early barriers?  It’s taking time to help people get used to them being the one’s “doing” the ministry
• What do you do if people ask to have you start programs vs. them doing it?   “Yes” doesn’t mean you have to fund what they’re doing or even promote it… It could simply be to encourage…
• What are some examples of failures in the process?  How do you help people with that pain?  Some of the stories get shared so people can learn from the process and that it’s OK to try and fail- the church has the opportunity to show support
• Even in failure, the cause of Christ is worth it- even in the hardest times of our lives
• What would you do differently?  3 C’s -  Celebrate, Connect, and Contribute   Watch the practices you put in the DNA of your church, realigning what the win looks like, would have spent less time on the Sunday morning experience, and shift thinking to you “ARE” the church your don’t “GO” to church
• How do you fund the movement?   The more you release people and give away ministry the more people give… generosity is like a muscle that gets stronger in people…

• The Trilogy of AND
• Episode One: Church Wars, we had battles of worship styles… Attractional ministry
• Attractional 101:  Church got more effective in inviting the community into church, external focus, cultural relevance, the priesthood of believers- everyone is a minister
• Granger Community Church talked about being a missional outpost… not a church (it’s early days)
• “We were a church for messy broken people… growing 10-20% a year…”
• Missional 101:  External focus, sending people out of the 4 walls
• Some of the biggest criticism of attractional is that it’s not missional- some to the point of calling it illegitimate
• If you asked people, “what is church?”- they wouldn’t say it was a white hot relational, exploding movement
• Episode 2:  Missio dei strikes back
• Model in missions has been there is an organization that fits the role to reach the mission field, churches donate money to those places, occassionally sends people, and they call it missions
• In new model, everybody leads, everybody follows… everyone gives and receives… every part of society
• “Attractional is actually embedded inside of Missional”
• Example 1:  MC3 (Community Center) Example of micro/local missional… started with Son City Kids, then education for adults,
• “Big Church” can support the “micro movement”- financially, strengths, etc…
• Example 2:  India,  957 churches planted, over 120,000 attendees
• 15 months of coaching, teams training the trainers sent from Granger Community Church
• All the “metrics” for church have exploded from how many come on a weekend to how many wells were drilled, how our GPA’s improving in the impoverished areas, how many businesses started?
• Starts with a church leader, in about 18 months they have 10-30 people, doing the 5 purposes, sacraments, plurality of leadership…. this is an Essential Church
• Next step is that they’re reproducing, starts identifying other groups of people with other leaders looking to launch other churches…  works in India…. why not here in the West?  Right here, right now?
• Episode 3:  Return of the Movement
• What if every neighborhood, coffee house, cultural group… launched an essential church
• 300 churches launched locally, essential churches,  1700 globally (dream in the next 5 years)
• The Megachurch is “base camp”- to launch missional!
• Is the church division or diversification?  Sturdy and swift… Strong but nimble…
• Can we launch and press into the edges to launch more movements?
• Can attractional and missional come together?  We believe they can dance together…

Q & A

• How do you deal with the concern of false teaching in India with the new church plants and leaders?   “It happens all the time… just like Paul in the New Testament, he was constantly correcting and redirecting… don’t let the fear off false teaching stop your from trying…. coach, redirect, guide….”
• How does the model in India work at home?  “Working on best practices, we have a lot of church baggage in the West, it’s not apples to apples…”
• Has training started locally for missional work?  Entermission coaching currently… most of the workshops have shifted to coaching models in Wired Churches
• See Rob’s crazy slide here:  http://www.andconference.com/speakers.php

• The megachurch put “evangelism” back into the ministry (Rick Warren/Bill Hybels)
• “Through America, I see a new church emerging in the Western world…”
• Future Travelers- 12 churches that are going on the “missional” journey  (Granger Community Church included)
• The Church is designed as an “advancing body” going against the gates of hell, not a defensive fortress
• Cultural Distance-  how far people are from a meaningful communication of the Gospel (line chart 1-4)
• Examples:  Language, race, religion/world view-  those 3-4 on the scale are really hard to penetrate
• In the West, we can no longer assume our culture is aligned with the church, barriers and cultural distance is expanding…  we are becoming increasingly cross cultural, sub cultures- more missional & culturally complex
• The church used to be operating as the “center” of society, the way it’s been for many generations, was central to communities- even the idea of being American is to be a Christian-  This works well when our cultural factor is one or less… no cultural hurdles
• Church is becoming more isolated in American society- our cultural barriers are expanding and growing (especially in the population centers on the coasts)
• Attractional:  Those outside come into the church but then they are alienated from their old culture… we’re extracting them from that setting/cultural group…  This is the underlying problem…
• Within 3-5 years of someone being a Christian, they lose their contact outside the church… they become culturalized within the church
• We need to shift thinking to cross-over to cultural differences… Our calling is to take the Gospel and take it cross-culturally… we’re to be the missionaries not those who are kicking the tires on church
• God, Jesus, Spirituality, Church- how does our culture view these 4?  Generally 3 thumbs up, down on church
• 95% of American’s believe in God in recent surveys
• “perceived set”- in a product line, you’re likely to only remember 3 products in a brand category… that’s where most businesses are trying to get their products in the mind space
• If you ask the question, who is the greatest person who ever lived?  Jesus is most mentioned… many of the other names that come up (Mother Theresa, Ghandi, others subscribed to the teachings of Jesus or actually were followers of Jesus)
• People are cool with God, Jesus, and Spirituality but are down on church… 
• Jesus yes, church no….  like Apple and AT & T- one you love, the other… not so much…
• Traditional church in steep decline
• Thinks 12-15% of Australians would find the “evangelical” model attractive
• Americans could be near 40% “evangelical” model attractive  (m0-m1 slice of pie)
• 1200 churches have over 2000 people that attend…  (out of 400,000 churches)
• 95% of our churches are trying to reach the same 40%, all our eggs in one basket…  that’s a strategic problem…. what about the 60%?
• What are the responses to those outside the church?  Blase’ (hey, good for you- just not for me…) to  Hate  (money grabbing, church will hurt you…)
• The problems of the church?  You’ll keep getting the same results if you use/have the same thinking… Organizational Insanity
• If doesn’t mean our current methods are not of God, they just isn’t working for the 60%…
• 60%- think blue ocean strategy… most of the church is trying to reach the same 40%…
• The future of the church, launching a missional view to every culture in our society…
• If you can’t imagine it, you can’t do it-  Einstein….  we need to recover our “imagination”
• Find in the place of “AND” to reach the 60%- think movement not institutions….
• Some Q & A:
• Is the house church movement addressing the 60%?  “Hirsch thinks no… typically they’re doing the same type of church in homes…just with a lower quality”
• How much of the attractional church model is just not attractional?  (Giving box of chocolates, Harley’s….  If that’s what the church has to resort to, it’s a bit pathetic…)
• How many models are represented in the 60% to imagine?  (How the Father sent me… Jesus modeled it… he went into the culture…  There should be many many different types of churches… Culture determines (should) the church and style…)
• Learn how to plant the Gospel first and then let the church come out of that within various cultures
• Movements can be organized, it just looks different-  they organize in networks and collaborate differently
• Can a Megachurch also be a movement?  (Yes… some examples of that… doing it within the Western culture the new challenge)
• What questions can a church ask itself to become more missional?  (Learning comes from being willing to ask candid questions of ourselves and our programming)
• Is a can opener really a can opener if it can’t open cans?  Is a church a church if it’s not doing what a church is to do?  What is a church?
• Does a church have to be large to become a movement?  Movements are about the people of God… everyone in your church is a church planter
• Can a pre-existing church shift to reach the 60% while not alienating the 40% (existing church)?  (The leader’s job is to define how people think about an organization…. the key leader needs to define it… If you’re a movement you start to act like a movement…  You don’t have to ditch what you’re currently doing to create a movement)

Scott McClellan

 

• Everyone says content is king in blogging, but design matters too
• Try to get inside the mind of the person coming to your blog to see it with new eyes
• Make the About Me clearly visible to help people understand what you’re about- blogs have the most recent post and could be less inviting-  Create a framework of who you are and what the context of the blog is about
• Don’t let your blog communicate, “Hey, you’re not in the club” vs. “Glad you’re here, here’s what this blog is about”- this can be done in design
• Some people use their “About Me” page as the landing page to help welcome people to their site
• “What should I do for my business that only I can do?”- helpful tip for organizing priorities… same applies to your blog, “What topic can I blog about that only I can blog about?”- could help bring focus to your “voice”
• Rhythm- readers and writers benefit from rhythm to blogging-  what is sustainable… then commit to it
• Saturday Night Live comes on the same time every week…  if you post on your blog 4 times one week, skip a month, blog once, skip 3 more weeks…. you have no rhythm
• Good bloggers read blogs.  How can you be a good movie maker if you’re not reviewing other movies
• Ask “What is this good blog doing?”… “what did my eyes skip over?”, “what prompted me to want to respond to a particular blog?”, “what was the length? what is the rhythm they use? 
• Generous Artists-  Artists give gifts with no expectation of return…  A lot of times we create blogs to get something…
• Seth Godin “Linchpin”- a great blogger is generous- an artists creates a great work and gives it away
• Great blogs tell a great “Story”…  we have tools from pictures, to videos, to text all available to tell a great story that aren’t just text and bullet points…. (wait, this post is text and bullets…
• “My brain goes to screensaver when I see some irrelevant blog posts…”
• “I’m starting to rethink comments”-  What is the right forum for comments and where do they add value? 
• “Why am I providing a forum for something I created for people to comment on?  What does it mean to facilitate comments
• Intentionality matters.  The best blogs reek of purpose and intentionality… they’ve been researched, tweeked, time was spent on it…
• If you’re waiting to decide everyday whether or not you’re going to write, you’re going to lose that battle.  You need to decide once that you’re a writer and commit to it…. with purpose
• Ask yourself, “What is it that I’m trying to do with this blog?”- write it out, articulate what you’re trying to do
• “If you don’t know what you’re trying to do you won’t know if you’ve done it or not”
• The smaller the point you’re aiming at the closer you’ll get hitting the target…. aim small miss small
• Great creativity is a “to-do” list- it doesn’t just happen…

• Much of the stuff on your to be delegated to someone else list should simply go away. Don’t push your garbage to someone else on your team.
• Make sure everyone on your team understands the answers to these 3 questions:

1. What is our organization trying to accomplish?

2. What are the top 3 components of my role that best moves our organization to its goals?

3. What’s on my plate now that doesn’t have any effect on these top 3 components?

• Most people on your team will need help in knowing what to stop doing and pruning their activities. Schedule a meeting with your team members to review their top 10 tasks and bring out the hatchet.
• Sometimes the boss or owner is the biggest problem. People tend to “drop everything” when the owner speaks, your managers/owners may need some coaching on how they communicate their needs. (Yep, tread carefully…)
• Good employees are artists at keeping (or looking) busy. Pull the plug, chop the list, and refocus the bullseye.

The Employee Junk Drawer: Busy activities that seem to be important, often delegated by others, but simply cause drag to your organization.

Special thanks to Tony Romo and Matt Forte for leading the charge this year… “We…are the champions…. my friends….”

Merry Christmas Everyone!

Test post from today's service.

Moblogging is da bomb.

Maybe I over-analyze, maybe I’m stubborn, maybe I’m just slow… While on vacation in Palm Springs, CA this week, I’m looking forward to getting to know my friends. All in my first day here, my blog, Facebook, and Tweeter accounts are officially launched…

In a few short hours on Facebook, I realize, I have 15 friends… I could be cool and act like it’s nothing but a thing- but it fills my tank. My friends and my relationships matter… I feel loved. I love my life and I love doing life with you all…

My hope for us all is to “maximize” life here as it’s so short. Let’s not simply grow old, let’s change this world. You (my friends) are my boardroom, my consultants, my team, my support… I can’t wait to see how our stories play out!