Getting the look

It's hard to be a relevant, missional servant-leader. Your efforts are rarely acknowledged and your creative attempts at lifting worship to a higher plane so often go unnoticed.
I was in my luxury suite at a hotel in Miami last week, and looking over my Twitter feed and realizing that no one, NO ONE, seemed to know I was not working away at my home church.

This is a common problem. Things that seem obvious to us just pass by other people. We start a new sermon series and no one says a thing. We move into a larger office and nothing is said. We arrange a large, multi-regional pastor's conference and it's all, Ho-hum.

If we change our clothes or appearance, we are lucky if anyone says a thing. We might as well be invisible.

But it's all okay, because God notices when we use a new, state-of-the-art headset. If he has the hairs on our heads numbered, he also has our headsets numbered. He notices when we've lost five pounds at our new home gym. He enjoys our new Ipad and likes our clever Facebook status message, even when no one else does. He takes notice when we've rubbed shoulders with our new friend, the hot Christian celebrity. Or when we've clinched the book deal. He knows. And that's really all that matters.

6 Ways to Drive Readers to Your Si -- -uh -- The Kingdom

We are commanded to make fishers of men, to go into the world and make disciples. It's hard to do that if we are invisible to the world, so being visible is important. The best way to become visible is to have an active and thriving web site. And making lists is the best way to have an active site. So, by making lists we become fishers of men. It's THAT EASY!

1. You can list things that should be totally obvious to anyone who has reached the third grade. No matter how simple and face-palm obvious. It will still drive traffic to your site because people like to nod their heads in agreement with simplistic lists.
2. You can list bits of standard advice that make you sound knowledgable. Simply by using a slightly different approach or unusual metaphor, you can take the banal and dress it up as genius, and people will come to your site for tidbits of vast wisdom.
3. You can list entries filled with quotation-marked vocab words. This has a dual effect. First, it shows that you know how to use quotation marks, a skill "churched" people are not quite sophisticated enough to "handle." Second, it shows that you are nuanced enough to look with condescension on "inferior" concepts. It also allows you to list something without being totally "committed" to it. Does he really think the concepts are "inferior" or is he just joshing? No telling.
4. Whenever possible, leave God out of the list. It's just ever so much more efficient that way. You don't get all garbled up with the theological stuff and you can cut right to the heart of the matter: making lists!
4. Try to tie your lists to cultural icons. You can draw fish in for the kill simply by tapping into current memes or popular topics. If there is no real spiritual dimension or application, that's okay. The thing is to be in all relevant and cool venues because that's where the unchurched targets are.
5. If you want to have an edge, you can make your list audiovisual, but then your target, the fish, would have to be willing to wait around for the bait to load and play. Many fish are too busy feeding to swim in one place long enough to watch the whole thing. Still, it's an option.
6. Dress up your lists with quality graphics. It's not enough to just lay out a block of text. To keep the fish circling, you must make the site attractive so they will stay long enough to nibble on the message.

There you go. See how simple it is to invest in the Kingdom? The thing to remember is to have a controlling image you return to time and time again and to mix your metaphors as much as possible to keep the fish off guard. Pretty soon they will all be belly up, floating at the top of the aquarium, and that's right where you want them because the pickings are easier.

Vacuum-Model Churches

It's the wave of the future, so install a new beater bar, and plug 'er in. What to do about your stubborn old church refusing to budge from the dark ages? Frustrated about your congregation that somehow thinks that the words of Charles Wesley or Fanny Crosby can even compare to Yes, Lord, Yes, Lord, Yes, Yes, Lord? (Oh, wait. That's an oldie now.) Or maybe your staid denomination just isn't getting with the program fast enough.

Well, now there is a solution to all these problems: The Vacuum Model of Church Development. Simply this.

1. If yours is an old, fuddy-duddy church and missional members want to make it relevant, you just build. You don't tell the aging members that after the new building is ready for move-in day that the words will be on the screen in front, the hymn books headed for the incinerator and they'll have to stand for 40 minutes of the service. heh No, you forge ahead with Contemporary 101 and let the geezers follow along or amble on out into the parking lot.
2. Here's where the vacuum part comes in. Old "stuck" churches, stuck in their ways, still want to grow. New megachurches want to grow. What to do? Vacuum! The megachurch swallows up the old church and both are happy.
To make it sound all right, you call it "revitalization." One church growth expert puts it this way: "Revitalization mergers also allow smaller struggling churches to have a new beginning by being adopted by a stronger vibrant church." See, the struggling church is the old people, hymn-besotted, "stuck" church and the stronger, vibrant one is the one with the sound system and lights and purchased sermon package. Everyone wants a new beginning!
3. Those stodgy, old denominations still love new growth. When offered a merger with a vibrant (multi-media drenched, multi-site, multi-plex) church they will jump at the chance because it means greater numbers. Then you don't have to worry about those pesky denominational headquarters calling the shots and nixing all your great plans for sexy services. As the same church growth expert says: "Denominations increasingly will take their lead from their growing churches rather than the other way around." No more having to bow to denominational bigwigs.
It's time to power on and vacuum up the old, the small, the obstinate.
Eureka!

Celebrity Box Office Hit!

Cheeze Whiz Church is happy to announce the appearance of  [insert Christian celebrity here] at our sanctuary on Tuesday night. We are hosting the [Your celebrity here] Simulcast at 6:30 pm!!! Check out this video of [your favorite celebrity] speaking in his/her very own voice all about it. It is going to be an incredible event and we can hardly wait to see what God will do! 

Make sure your church gets involved with this if you are in the area! Be sure to speak to your [youth, men's, women’s ] ministry leader about registering for this simulcast, or find a church near you that is offering the same simulcast. Can you believe it? All over the country, all at the same time, words coming from the very lips of [Celebrity] will inspire and lift up millions of dreary lives. Believers all over the nation will be looking into the Word and [Celebrity]'s face together on this one glorious day, and that means the power of God will be here. Amen? And only for 25 bucks a pop! How cheap can we make God for you? The worship time alone is going to be amazing and worth at least 15 bucks of the cost. Be there! And bring your Bible, your wallet, and your friends!

Leverage social media to work for you

It's a new day, a new time. If you want to exert influence, and influence is what it's all about, you need to get up to date with social media.
Churches shouldn't be the last to embrace new technology; they should be leading the charge. Pastors who step ahead and grab social media by the horns will see fruit in the field of influence and be able to manipulate customers more efficiently than those who sit back and cling to their Bibles and hymn books.
We need to intentionally go out and give intentional pithy maxims on Facebook, post some intentional cool church photos on an intentional My Space page, twitter what we are intentionally doing every fifteen minutes and start REAPING!
Get with it, people!
Only by mastering social media will you be able to rub shoulders with other super leaders. How can you know what other leaders are doing if you're not twitting them and reading their twit feeds? You need to be able to learn what works and what doesn't from other business-driven church leaders, especially the big ones. So, it's time to get out there and connect!

New way to boost numbers: Watch for it!

The main thing is the main thing, we all know, and the main thing is growth. We want to grow, both in numbers and in spiritual façade, and that means bringing in the sheaves: the young, healthy, financially and organizationally stable members that will help us build from the ground up.
So, how do we ensure that upwardly mobile couples flow into our worship centers and decrepit oldsters file out? One popular way – and we are beginning to see it everywhere now – is to talk about SEX. We need to show that we are cool with SEXand not like those uptight, arthritic fundamentalists of days gone by.

No more keeping sex between a man and his wife, secretly celebrating the beauty of male and female in the confines of the marriage bed. NO! We will now smear SEX, in great, big, bold fonts on our web pages and church marquees, because we know it will hit home and draw crowds, especially the crowds of young couples with spending money who watch crude TV shows anyway.
We’ll throw in a bare minimum of scripture to make it a bit different from Oprah, and we’ll hold off on the lingerie shows at women's prayer group and Viagra spots in the church bulletins for a few months. We might not perform the Vagina Monologues for a year or so, but we’ll make it clear that we are not like your parents and that we are as open about SEX as the strippers down the street.
   When the congregation is ready, we might introduce a pole dance or two with our interpretive dancers on a Wednesday evening to make it clear just how relevant we are.

Sermon on the Move

We all know Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. Heh. No, we don’t. Well, sort of we do, but don’t quiz us on it, okay? Because our God is a creative God, and he wants us to be like Him, we should be coming up with our own sermons on the mounts. And because this is a new age and a new day, our ideas need to be new, too. His ideas were radical for his time, and ours need to be, too.
What’s YOUR sermon on the mount? Here’s ours, gathered from the best and most relevant and missional church sites available today.

1. Be Willing to Risk Time, Energy, Manpower and Money to an Idea (especially manpower) as long as you risk other people in making good ideas come to life, no problem.

2. We must exercise our responsibility to tend our own souls. It’s important to tend our own souls because if we don’t, who will?

3. To show honor to leaders is to treat them as being special because in reality that’s what they are. God has placed them in a unique position over you. Jesus honored Caiaphas and Annas, and we should likewise honor our superiors.

4. As the modern church strives to be relevant to a modern generation, I think it is important to remain focused on God and His spirit as the Decider-in-Chief of our collective mission. This is a great point. We should let the Holy Spirit have some say every once in a while, between leadership conferences.

5. All church starts with a very small group of people - sometimes even just a person - with a vision - and then should go global as fast as possible. Don’t forget the vision part. The vision part is THE most important part.

6. You never know when a game-changing blip will appear on the radar screen of your life. No. The game could change at any moment and we gotta be ready. My radar screen is showing a cold front moving in from the west. What does yours show?

7. Too many people both in and out of the church seem to have a vision that is unmovable. Movable vision. That’s what it’s all about. Do you have a fixed stare? The disciples didn’t. Their vision was moving all the time. Get a move on with that vision!

Feeling pumped? Time to be creative. Climb a mountain, or skate park hill, and come up with your own. It's easy!

When things go wrong

In the culturally relevant church, when a  team member exits, it's not just a matter of leaving the 90 and 9 and working to reconcile the brother. If the stray lamb doesn't return, you can't just shake off the dust from your feet and move on. No. In the relevant church, things are a little more complicated than that.

The hyphen-driven leader

Though some leaders are gifted with natural abilities to encourage a team and inspire those below them, for others, it takes mastering a challenging skill set. Among skills relevant church leaders need is the ability to craft hyphenated terms that jump-start compliance and enthusiasm. Some leaders are better at this than others.
To excel at this skill, an artist-leader should read Gerard Manley Hopkins poems whenever possible, until the hyphens begin flowing naturally.

Common words to end hyphenated terms with are -powered, -driven, -energized, -focused. But don't stop there. Gifted leaders will combine innovative words into unique terms. Faith-enriched, team-minded, leader-energized, player-centric, attribute-plastered, performance-focused. Once you get started, it's hard to stop, so you have to be careful.
If you can combine two terms from the megachurch dictionary, it's a bonus. Soon your awe-generated presentation will be admired by faith-mechanized servant-leaders all over the region. What's more, you will inspire others to reach the same hyphenated heights!

Interview with a leader’s leader

Klerrick

Rich Klerrick is the pastor of the multi-campus, explosively-growing church in suburban Oakes. Klerrick brought his group from a small, traditional, non-denominational body to the successful, vibrant church it is now in just a few years using the five BBQ-HOT! principles outlined in his latest blockbuster: KNOW your GROW: Formula Faith and Today’s Hungry Church.

CHEEZEWHIZ: So, Rich, pastors who want to expand their vision and take the next step are looking to executive pastors with a success record like yours and asking, How do they do it? Rich, how DID you do it?


RICH KLERRICK: [Scriptural reference of some kind here, yada, yada, Great Commission, yada, yada, vision, purpose, yada, insight, yada] And, of course, purposeful missional organization. We started as a small, family operation, uh, fellowship, just kind of struggling, never gaining much ground, hovering around 150 or so for years. Then, one day, I was [prayer type of reference here, seeking, asking, yada, but not too Jesus-specific, yada, yada, keep the unchurched in mind. Questioning God, yada, yada]. I felt led to the best-selling book, Living the Creative Missional Life, with Intent and Enthusiasm. While browsing the shelves of our local Christian bookstore, it, well, it jumped out at me and changed my life, my outlook, and eventually the whole fellowship.


CHEEZEWHIZ: That’s powerful.


RICH KLERRICK: Yeah. After reading the book, I realized immediately that things had to change, that I had to change.

CHEEZEWHIZ: So, what did you do?

RICH KLERRICK: For one, I had to start speaking in numbered lists. For two, I had to stop relying on random, haphazard ways of getting things done, like prayer groups . For three, I needed to adopt a whole missional approach to things.


CHEEZEWHIZ: What does that mean, exactly?

RICH KLERRICK:That means putting the program ahead of individuals, not letting distractions get in the way. Sometimes, distractions seem like a good use of your time, but you must constantly remind yourself that the mission is the most important thing. Growing the church comes before any individual need, no matter how important some people try to make you think it is.


CHEEZEWHIZ: Like?

RICH KLERRICK: Well, like a sick mother, for instance. Soooo many times some member wanted me to come pray for their sick mother in the hospital. And my brother even wanted me to come down and pray for my mother when she had bypass surgery. What good is that going to do, I’d ask? If God wants to heal her, great! If not, nothing I could do would matter, and certainly hanging around a hospital room with crying relatives wasn’t going to do anything. My being there isn’t going to change anything at all. But my attending the 4th Annual North Central Power Ministry Leaders Conference actually was going to make a difference to my congregation.

CHEEZEWHIZ: I see.

RICH KLERRICK: So, I had to learn to stay on task.

CHEEZEWHIZ: So what are your secrets, Rich?

RICH KLERRICK: Well, after I read the book, I had to start putting into practice the utilitarian maxims I found in it. Then, things started changing fast. We canvassed the neighborhoods surrounding the church, handing out surveys and asking people what they would want to see in a church. We looked over the results and put together a team.

CHEEZEWHIZ: Was that hard?

RICH KLERRICK: Not after I read the book. I looked at it like this. It’s about the same as getting ready for a barbecue. First, I had to get rid of all the broken, dirty old tools.

CHEEZEWHIZ: How did you do that?

RICH KLERRICK: (chuckling) It’s easier than it sounds. You just have to realize that old, broken tools aren’t going to do the job and that, hard as it is to get rid of them, you’re going to have to do it if you want to keep to the mission, and the mission is what’s important. So, we’d ask people who’d been there too long to step down. If they didn’t, we’d find ways to make them uncomfortable enough to leave.

CHEEZEWHIZ: Like?

RICH KLERRICK: Read my next book and you’ll find out.

CHEEZEWHIZ: I can’t wait.

RICH KLERRICK:: So you get rid of the old tools and you choose new ones. You need new coals, good lighter fluid, a decent fire-starter, and new implements. You weed out the old and put in place the new. You want tools that will help you get the mission done. That’s it. It’s kind of fun taking out the old ones and finding people who agree with everything you say and do. and who are always there for you.

CHEEZEWHIZ: Got it. So what did the team do?

RICH KLERRICK: We looked at what the survey results said and discovered that what people really wanted in a church was not a bunch of boring sermons and scripture and songs from the dark ages. No, what people wanted was a lot of bright colored lights, repetitive songs with super simple lyrics -- light on theology and heavy on mixed metaphors. They wanted coffee available, pastors in Hawaiian shirts, a quality performance and as little demand on their lives as possible. They wanted to check in, check out and get on with their lives, and we were there to help them do just that.


CHEEZEWHIZ: Amazing. You say things happened fast. How fast? 

RICH KLERRICK: Really fast. We did the survey in May and by the following September we had check-in kiosks in the lobby. We call it a lobby, not a foyer.


CHEEZEWHIZ:  Why is that?

RICH KLERRICK: The unchurched don’t know what a foyer is. That’s a churchy word and we try hard to get rid of churchy words and anything else that might make the unchurched uncomfortable. The unchurched is our mission field, not cushy, “church people” who can list off the Ten Commandments, the Beatitudes and the Four Spiritual Laws. No. Gotta keep to the mission.

CHEEZEWHIZ: So what is the main difference between how you did things then and how you do things now?

RICH KLERRICK: We used to be inward focused. The main thing then was piddly, little pathetic acts like taking baskets to new families and sick people, praying for each other in these sad little prayer groups on Wednesdays, and holding potlucks and picnics. Now, we have a huge budget for audiovisual equipment, have the latest and best programs, purchase video clips to show during the sermon and we host leadership conferences. Now THAT’s outward thinking.

CHEEZEWHIZ: How much do you rake in from the leadership conference?

RICH KLERRICK: Thousands! I mean, well, we have these huge overhead costs, of course, so we do it as a service. There is enough left over, though, that we can use as seed money for bigger and even more profitable conferences down the road.

CHEEZEWHIZ: Sweet deal

.RICH KLERRICK: It really is, but that’s off the record. [Scripture reference here, yada, yada, something about the importance of good leadership and a servant’s heart, followed by pithy maxim].


CHEEZEWHIZ:: For those pastors ready to take the next step, what do you recommend? 

RICH KLERRICK: Well, my book, for starters. It’s now in its sixth printing.Then, start rethinking a lot of your assumptions.


CHEEZEWHIZ: Like?

RICH KLERRICK: Don’t assume that just because Jesus would do something, it’s automatically the right thing to do. You gotta break a few eggs to get things done, you know? You can’t be all, Well, we’ve always done it this way, so it’s right. You have to question why you do things. Then, take risks. Moving from boring old hymns and choruses to fast-paced songs with two chords and emotional words, might seem like a risk, but it’s what people want. Do it! Do it now! You won’t regret it.

CHEEZEWHIZ: Any other thoughts?

RICH KLERRICK: It’s not easy being a servant-leader, choosing your team, working 24/7 on the mission, attending national conferences and promoting books. But it’s well worth it.


CHEEZEWHIZ: Thanks, Rich. We appreciate your openness. This is really exciting stuff.

RICH KLERRICK: God is awesome!