Mark Your Calendars, and Take Your Mark!

THE PASTORS CONFERENCE TO END ALL PASTORS CONFERENCES

THIS WILL BE AN AWESOME TIME OF LISTENING TO SPEAKERS, SCRIBBLING NOTES YOU NEVER LOOK AT AGAIN, AND TEXTING YOUR DAUGHTER AT HER GYMNASTICS MEET

April 31 - May 6
This year in Wonderful Westport, South Dakota!

CHURCH LEADER ALIVE! 2011

Your Worship-Outlook Will Undergo a heart-minded transformation after this Fabulous Week!

• The most engaging, topic-leveraging speakers ever!
• A host of dynamic leaders, pastors and best-selling authors converge to reveal top, life-changing, skill-revitalization secrets to totally renew your leadership ministry
• Scores of break-out sessions every leader will find relevant and engaging, accompanied by break-in sessions for equipping missional workers in using words to penetrate culture and bring real change
• Deluxe accommodations loaded with every amenity that leading leaders could want - in lavish, prairie surroundings

Church Leader Alive! 2011 challenges relevant church ministry professionals to reboot and replenish their entire worship performance, through lots of words. More words than ever before: Heart-minded words and truth-challenging words; best-selling words and top-expert words; mentor-blasting words and truth-engagement words. You will leave packing the most heart-working, God-enthralling words EVER!

This information-rich conference will refresh and renew leaders with the very best resources available from leading churches of purpose and engagement. And ENGAGEMENT is what it's all about. Jesus emphasized engagement more than any other topic. It's time we did, too. Leave behind all your old, tired assumptions about how church is supposed to work, and be amazed!

Leaders will learn how to develop the heart-skills to revitalize congregations.

Servant-leaders will discover how to network with other missionally-minded fellowship professionals from all over the North-Central region. 
Learn how to boost servant-hearted efficiency, discipleship effectiveness and fertile-minded growth of your church by filling in the blanks on a genuine, preprinted notebook with our Church Leader Alive! logo on it. 

Don’t miss this rare opportunity to expand your congregation’s capacity for serving the needs of your faith community and surrounding unchurched population.

Discover how you can fill the exploding vacuum of church leadership holes in your workforce and effectively access a learning-driven, online community network of leaders to recharge your unique leadership voice. With purpose.


You will be given an entire supply of engagement-building tools and helps, just as Jesus provided for his leadership followers.


Enjoy the variety of dynamic presenters: 

• Renowned multi-campus pastor John Worshipmonger speaks on tactful ways to profit from the gospel 
• Glen Blather, Leadership-Mentoring expert, challenges leaders to increase giving by driving pledges and planting promises 
• Mark Salesemann, pastor of Laodocean Worship Center - a thriving, 18,000 member fellowship - shows how to turn a culture-penetrating electronic presence into piles of cash
• Blockbuster author Ben Doindat, lists 15 face-palm simple pointers on writing best selling books of lists - to boost your community presence
• Rich Klerrick, youth group coordinator for the explosive CrashCrunch Hollow Church in Ellendale, ND, gives timely pointers on planting and cultivating your youth investment
• Josh Joaching, senior pastor of Watch-us-Grow Believer's Fellowship Association, demonstrates how you, too, can organize a pastor conference and profit wildly in just months.

During the week you will see how building strategic alliances and engagement networks can effect heart-change in your congregation, resulting in wholeness, success and overflowing offering plates.

• You will be given tools to strengthen the culture of leadership among decision makers on your leadership team as you scribble furiously during the breakout sessions.
• You will learn how to turn liabilities into flattery, shortages into healthy balances both spiritually and financially by hearing how expert superpastors have done it.
• Your growth team will learn 18 ways to make tough decisions by tapping into spiritual reserves and charging up elements of faith - as well as efficiently and tactfully shutting up or kicking out (we call it disengagement) those who won't get with the vision.
• Leaders will explore ways to journey into undiscovered, knowledge-rich territory while mapping their gifts and planting a championship crew of advisers, partners, co-leaders and mentors.

The 2011 Church Leader Alive! Conference will show you how to build awareness and how to reap spiritual returns. Gifted presenters and top leadership giants will reveal relevant, missional ministry strategies, from the inside out, while encouraging authentic, interactive, engaging approaches to the whole church growth process. Through hands-on partnering with regional and national experts in growth ministries, and big pledge campaigns, you will begin, very slowly, to become one of the select few top leaders yourself.


There will be refreshing times of training for church worship staff, to discover powerful, out-of-the-box methods of reviving an authentic spirit of worship in your services. Once again, empty boxes will be virtually scattered all over the foyer!


The conference features leading voices, as well as voice-activated leaders, who will educate and inspire churches to boldly impact their ministries through dynamic tools and the latest technological breakthroughs.Is your church on Kindle? Do you provide a regular podcast? Do you have the latest prayer app? We didn't think so. See how it's done. And much, much more!


This conference will provide more than just knowledge. It empowers and recharges! Register today for a 20 percent discount. For your conference pack, simply send a $600 deposit to Luxury Pastor Resorts c/o Judas Jeffries, 666 College Park Circle, Gehenna, SD 57666

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!