How's your vision?

Is your vision big? Is it gigantic? Is it growing larger every day? If not, you may need a "vision inflater." What is a vision inflater? It can be a lot of things. Usually, it's looking at the next guy's vision and knowing that yours is just a little bit better. Maybe a lot better.
More and more, leaders and visionaries are thinking outside the moxie.
These days, a vision inflater can be a book by a mega-author, a deep discussion session with your creative team, a purchase of new church management software -- or, most helpful of all, a pastor or leader's conference. Nothing recharges, relaunches and repacks vision like an expensive, but worthwhile, conference. So, if your vision needs glasses, look around and find a vision inflater. It will be worth your time.
If Church Leader Alive! is your choice, register soon.

A Conversation with Rich Klerrick

Some of our leaders from Church Leader Alive! met up with Rich Klerrick and discussed his Sinker&Lure tour of the Southeast. From his blockbuster autobiography SNAGGED! we learned that “Rich was Senior Mentor Head Pastor at the explosive, multi-campus fellowship in eastern North Dakota: ServiceMasterFellowships, Inc." Rich innovated the popular Depth-finder Seminars that are catching attention worldwide. Today, he leads Reeling Reality, the new relevant and authentic movement of biblical “fishing” teams and missional multiplication, that has captivated the United States.

Here are some of the insights he shared with CheezeWhiz:

Three kinds of missional anglers:

1. Those who go along on large, impersonal trawlers (pew sitters)
2. Those who partner with others but don’t set sail alone in innovative ways (nursery workers, etc.)
3. Independent contractors: Fishermen with no other agenda but catching fish and doing it well (supporters)

Fishing is more than just a vocation Most Jesus-followers have been fishing in the wrong streams and using the wrong equipment at the wrong time with the wrong crew. They're wrong. Say it. "WRONG!"

Jesus said we would be “fishers of men,” but we keep returning to the Lake of Tiberius hauling faulty line, stinky bait, worthless lures and unreasonable expectations. It’s time to be true fishermen using extreme methods to haul in bail-loads of fish. We need top equipment and better methods than the piddly little operations all around us. Here are tips from Klerrick's new blockbuster bestseller, Hook, Line and Sinker:

• Scan the horizon – Good fishermen know what conditions they face, what is brewing beyond their immediate  view, what they are likely to encounter. They know they will face opposition as they move traditional churches toward becoming missional megaliths.
• Know your crew – Better yet, handpick the crew. You don’t want weak hands hauling net. You don’t want worriers upsetting the crew, and you especially don’t want potential mutineers on board. It’s essential to pick yes-men and sycophants who will do what you tell them to -- at just the right time
• Care for your boat – You don’t want leaks developing mid-stream. Most churches are just bailing and sitting still. You don't want to be like that. It’s important to provide proper maintenance to the vessel that your very life depends on. You must care for the building as well as the people in it. You must spend what is necessary on sound equipment and staffing, on plush carpet, check-in systems and coffee kiosks. It’s what James and John would have done. It’s what Jesus would do.
• Always carry the best gear -- That means depth-finders, not just rods, reels and nets. You need the best in church management software; the best in audio-video; the best in web presence, in finance, in member-tracking and especially -- considering impertinent and disruptive bloggers -- the best in church security.

Rich warns of lazy fisherman, unprepared fishermen and mostly timid fisherman.

Klerrick is a frequent speaker at Church Leader Alive! He is the author of six bestselling “you-can-do-it-too” books. He is available to speak at your church -- in hologram form or through satellite. Don’t even THINK about asking him to address your little, pathetic group in person. He will be keynote speaker for FAM 2012 in Aberdeen, S.D.

How to talk about money without seeming to talk about money

Face it. Your comfortable, suburban members could be giving much more to the mission, but they are distracted by baubles and entertainments (not the ones emanating from the worship center). Here are a few ways to encourage them to be more sacrificial in their giving, without scaring them away.

Sophisticated servant-leaders know how to shame and beg creatively and distinctively -- while seeming to be above all the nasty, but necessary, money talk.

What to do, what to do... Well, you could write a letter to your sheep, full of other matters but sandwiching in the need for funds, somewhere in the middle. But that is pretty obvious unless your members are new to church.

You can whip up enthusiasm by tagging the sheep as part of the growing excitement of a growing movement. Also, you can cast every fundraising success as proof your group is on the verge of bringing in the next new wave of innovation and change.

Alternately, you can convince older members to leave you their retirement income when they die.

If all else fails, blog about not caring about numbers, growth and celebrity. Watch the offerings pour in when you are perceived as a humble servant, uncaring about those things you spend the most time thinking about, brainstorming about, blogging about and conferencing about.

Enroll early!

Church Leader Alive! is a unique conference experience designed to kick-start your passion and mobilize innovation and mission. It will also kick-start mission and mobilize and innovate passion. 

It’s that time once again, time to get in your early registration for Church Leader Alive!  in pristine Ellendale, North Dakota, the weekend of April 30 - 31 in the plush Ellendale Hilton.
  What can you expect at this year's ALIVE! ?

• The most engaging, topic-unpacking speakers ever!
• A host of dynamic vendors, pastors and best-selling authors converge to reveal top, life-changing, skill-revitalization secrets to totally renew your leadership ministry
• Break-out sessions, break-in sessions, workshops and seminars every leader will find mind-blowing, equipping and revitalizing -- learn how to leverage missional workers so they might use words to penetrate culture and bring real change
• Deluxe accommodations loaded with every amenity possible, from Perrier at the bedside to large-screen, Twitter-enabled hot tubs - all in spectacular prairie surroundings near the exclusive Ellendale golf course and country club

Church Leader Alive! 2012 challenges cutting-edge church ministry professionals to recharge and replenish their entire worship performance, through lots of words. Even MORE words than last year. More words than ever before! Heart-confronting words and truth-focused words; best-selling words and top-expert words; mentor-blasting words and truth-engagement words. You will leave packing the most soul-working, God-enthralling words EVER!

This year, movement-movers and missional milestone makers will discover new launching strategies for planting dynamic cultures and exploring compelling conversations on authentic leadership formation events.

Don’t miss it! We have a whole line-up of keynoters waiting to transform your worship journey. Discounts galore for early registrants! If you book four attendees, the prices will be in the basement. But hurry! The best prairie-view rooms will go fast!

Once again, we’ll hear from all your big-name celebrity speakers and best-selling authors.

• Renowned multi-campus pastor John Worshipmonger speaks on forceful and dynamic ways to reap rewards from the gospel. Learn how to book cruises and get others to pay your way.
• Glen Blather, Best-selling author and Leadership-Mentoring expert, challenges pastors to increase giving by the Four-fold Flattery-Fortune Nexus. He builds on the idea of driving pledges and planting promises. No-fail tips on how to increase offerings more than ever before
  
• Mark Salesemann, pastor of Laodocean Worship Center - a thriving, 25,000 member fellowship - shows how to turn a culture-confronting, multi-platform electronic presence into piles of cash, at the touch of a button
• Blockbuster author Ben Doindat, lists 36 face-palm-simple pointers on churning out best selling books of lists - to boost your community presence. He’ll show you how to plug your books during worship services and also at other churches, for that extra royalty boost
• Rich Klerrick, Senior Pastor at the multi-campus CrashCrunch Hollow Church in Ellendale, ND, shows you how to use the age-old lure of sexual power to reach 20 and 30-somethings and draw attendees from an entire region. Hold a gimmicky marriage sex marathon event and draw in the unchurched and churched alike
• Josh Joaching, head of the international Watch-us-Grow Believer's Fellowship Association, demonstrates how you, too, can organize a pastor conference and watch as Jesus-followers press wads of bills into your hands every time you turn around

And NEW THIS YEAR!: Chris Godfurher, of the new BloggerBusters Security Corporation will present workshops on Christian security measures: Church Security: Why you need a strategy and how you can use Christian muscle-men to keep pesky bloggers from embarrassing you more than once.

This conference will help your creative team discover new avenues of inspiration and vision mastery. It empowers and recharges!

Register today for a 30 percent discount. For your conference pack, simply send a $666 deposit to Luxury Pastor Resorts c/o Judas Jeffries, 666 College Park Circle, Gehenna, SD 57666

Show devotion to your pastor this October

How? Book a cruise.  FBC Watchdog compiles several popular church cruises that allow you to rub shoulders with actual megachurch pastors, in person. While you are enjoying sun and sea breezes, you'll be helping pay the pastor's way, and contributing to valuable ministry in your fellowship. The next time your pastor purchases a sermon from a sermon sharing site on Paul's journeys, you'll know that you played a big part in helping him understand it. At the same time, you'll be able to enjoy the buffets, events and great tourist sites.

Are you a global church influencer?

Let's see just how important you are in the church influencing world. According to one leadership mentor expert professional, you might be a global church influencer if you are part of this list. Check to see.

Are you:

• a pastor of a church that's made it into two of the 18 top U.S. church lists?
• a pastor with a "relatively well known platform globally"?
• a "key leader of niche church movements"?
• a prominent blogger?
• a prominent author?
• a prominent event speaker?
• a broadcast media personality?

If you aren't any of these, then you are probably not among the 545 VIPs who are big influencers globally. (I wonder if Jesus is a global church influencer?)

You can look at a handy graphic to tell if you are one and to see what demographics are likely to produce big church influencers.

But if you are one of the big guys, or even if you're not, you can help lesser churches and non-white men and women who are not doing a whole lot of influencing. For just 31 bucks a month from 500 churches, this philanthropic, selfless group will "help global Church leaders equip each other with ministry ideas and free downloadable resources." Wow.

Soon, influencers will pop up all over the globe and won't be lumped in North American congregations like they are now.

Do you fear change?

  The biggest problem in churches today is not lack of finances, or declining membership or lack of passion for the Gospel. It's fear of change.
 We know this because all the best-selling church leadership books tell us this. All the popular authors , church professionals and superpastors have claimed that it's true. What better authority do we have than experts, leaders and celebrities?
   So we must stop fearing change and instead learn to embrace it.
   Is your church stuck in Bibleland? Why then, it's time to change: throw off old models of learning. Trade-in those Bibles for the latest bestsellers. Hold a seminar, conference or confab. Is your church languishing in hymn-soaked services, with all four verses, and hasn't sung a new song in three years? Well then, do what most megachurches do and use those ragged hymnbooks to prop up the speaker stands. Take down the cross and shine the words on the wall. Watch your congregation grow.
It's time to change your "special music" to a worship band featuring beautiful people with white teeth and perfect hair. Only then will God be glorified and numbers will grow.
  Is your church stuck doing communion all the time, same dull prayers, same old routine? You need a make-over. Explore sermon-sharing sites to see how the experts and professionals do it. Most importantly, get rid of the stale Folgers and serve good coffee in your foyer. Leave boredom central and get a brand new, shiny persona. Fast!
  You must not fear change.
Fear tradition.

No more Bibles!

In the church of the future (2 years?) young people will fill the pews. Why? Because church won't be church. The Bibles will be gone, as we know them today, and instead, eBibles or phones will take their place.

For kids, it's liberation. They can bring their favorite devices along to church FINALLY! After all, it could be a Bible. Who will know if it's not?  They will enjoy church because it will be the same as any other place, a place to be comfortable, to hang with friends and text across the sanctuary or across town. Imagine, the pews full of young people, playing Nintendos, watching replays of the football game on their small screen, finishing homework, sexting their boyfriends, ordering CDs.

Adults will be clicking through their Kindle Bibles or the iPhone Bible apps, and the kids will be looking at their phones, too. Or other device. Gaming, playing, communicating.

Every once in a while they might catch a word from the sermon, or at least the sermon illustration video clip and song lyrics. And that's a whole lot better than not going to church at all.

Everyone will be happy. The parents will be happy since they'll no longer be harping on the kids to go to church. The kids are happy because they can take their lives with them when they go. And the pastor's happy because the pews are full of youth and life. Sort of.

Canvass your neighborhoods!

To keep from withering in the desert of traditional Christianity, relevant, growth-minded churches must learn what it is their neighborhoods want in a church. Many missional churches go out to the highways and byways, surveys in hand, to find out how they can best serve their communities, how they can supersize their offerings and maximize their spiritual profitability.

What church member type are you?

There are five types of people in your church. Or was that four? Oh wait! Six! 
No, there are actually 13 types.  My mistake, there are three.

The main thing is to categorize. Categorize, categorize, categorize. Church experts believe that Jesus chose 12 apostles so he could divide them into 2s, 3s, 4s or 6s for various purposes during the course of his ministry. It's important that we do the same. As one leading church expert says:  
Categorizing people is helpful to determine where to focus your time and energy and to wake you up to the reality that some people, despite their excitement and interest, simply are not on board. -- Resurgence

The sooner you categorize those in your fellowship, the sooner you can weed out the burrs and thistles.