At the Dynamic Church Conference, I said I would post some links for resources. Here you go:

• Master Dashboard – Click on the “Dashboard Spreadsheet” link at the bottom of the post.
• Personal Growth Plan – this is the plan used by the staff and church at Faith Promise.

Leave a comment and I will update any other information needed.

You guys were great!

Kim and I had the privilege to teach a session at the Faith Promise Marriage and Parenting Summit last Friday. It was an incredible time sharing our hearts with those who were a part of those 50-minutes together. The session was titled, Parenting: The First Five Years, and we reviewed the areas that we won and the areas that we needed improvement as parents.

During the session, we asked the couple to answer 4 questions, and I’m going to share those with you in a four-part post. So, let’s dive in:

As a couple, what have been your greatest relational struggles since you had children?

There were three answers that dominated this question:

1. Time together/intimacy
2. Agreement towards discipline/parenting styles
3. Feelings of exhaustion/energy

I wish that I could say that we’ve always won in these areas, and we could spend days unpacking them. However, I want to give you some thoughts that we believe will help you with each.

• Clarify your expectations. Each person in a marriage comes from a different background – spiritually, emotionally, relationally, etc. So, each person has a different idea of what time together looks like or parenting styles. Talk about your expectations in each of these areas, and compromise to a place of agreement that each person can feel good about the decision made. Then, live it out! Most of our struggles come when we have lack of clarity due to lack of communication. (Note to guys: don’t try to win…COMPROMISE for the best solution.)

• Establish family values. Discipline is often driven by values, and each of us have different personal values. When we have kiddos, our personal values collide! Establish family values that incorporate what each person sees as important. For instance, we value ministry (serving together). So, we decided that we would never “punish” our kids from serving or attending church. No matter what, they always get to be a part of ministry, because that is something we value as a family.

• Recognize the pitfalls. Lack of energy happens because of the often sleepless nights or the sheer exhaustion of the effort put forth in parenting. I think we deplete our energy level even more when we attempt to make major life decisions at the wrong times. Often, we want to argue and debate things that do not really matter or can wait because we are tired. Several years ago, a friend shared the acrostic H.A.L.T – Hungry, Angry, Lonely, Tired. Each of these areas cause us to have a skewed perspective of life, impact our decision-making skills, and ultimately lead us to situations of frustration. Lack of energy, or being tired, is a pitfall that leads us to make irrational emotional decisions. Work together as a couple to help each other see this when it is happening and trust each other to get out of it together.

Tomorrow we are going to look at the question, “As a parent, what are the top 3 struggles with your children?”

Had the chance to talk to my friend David Putman last week and was reminded about the Velocity Conference 2011. David and Shawn have a great line-up of speakers and it really is worth your time to be there. Here’s the info: February 21 & 22. Mountain Lake Church. Cumming, GA. Register HERE.

Today, we had a great experience with a new provider. The service was not working because of an issue in our house. We told them that we were unwilling to pay $80 to fix the problem and that we would just cancel with them and keep our current provider. The response: NO WAY! The on-site representative came inside, fixed the issue for free and said, “I’m not going to let you leave us.” WOW!

Customer service really is a challenge – as you grow, it’s hard to offer the same things at new levels. I think it will always be a challenge.

For instance, numbers tell you something about the health of your church in many areas. Let’s say your church values community for spiritual formation through home small groups. If you begin seeing decreasing numbers of people attending those groups, then the numbers may point to the fact that people are not experiencing spiritual growth in that context. However, at the same time, increasing numbers may not point to spiritual formation. Only more focused analysis could answer that question.

Numbers point us in the right direction for more analysis to change, tweak or create new strategies. And yes, some people arrogantly point to numbers to help their self-esteem. But, that does not make all numbers bad.

So, really analyze the numbers in your ministry context. Seek more information where needed. Improve or change strategies where needed. But, don’t ignore the number – they really matter.

Last week I was reminded that crisis can be a good thing. In the Gospels, Jesus’ entrance into the religious world created a major crisis or chaos. Jesus challenged the status quo of the religious leaders of His day and destroyed religion as it existed. In turn, He set up a new order – one based upon obedience, faith and grace – instead of works and legalism.

The thought hit me: Sometimes God does His best work when we are in a crisis.

People are more willing to listen when they are in crisis. People are more responsive when crisis hits. Often, people change because of crisis.

So, I’m praying that the church will recognize the current crisis and respond by listening and changing. There’s a great opportunity to see major shift that will impact the world in a whole new way.

One of the challenges ministries are facing today is the rapid pace in which the culture of ministry is changing. We’ve noticed that lots of things are changing – some driven by the economy and some driven by a greater desire for stewardship. One area that I see the ministry equation changing is in the area of staffing. In the past, we worked with this equation:

Current Expectations + Added Staff = Greater Output

Churches often believed that new staff had to be added to achieve greater output. But today, churches are facing budget crunches that are forcing new thoughts that affect staffing. The equation today looks more like this:

Increased Expectations = Greater Volunteer Involvement + Possible Staff Hires

In our ministry context, we committed not to hire any new staff members in 2011, but to develop the staff that we have into greater leaders. As we look at hiring in the future, we will likely evaluate the level of volunteer involvement and how an added staff position will increase ministry expectations – instead of just adding staff believing that expectations and output will increase.

What are other equations in ministry that you see changing in the 21st Century?

My friend, Pastor Chris Stephens, has a passion for helping others pastors and churches. Although the church today has tons of potential, many churches and church leaders are struggling. So, he created LIT, a one day, passion filled, conference that will help take your ministry to the next level. It’s being offered in 4 cities this year, and it’s time to register. Here are the dates:

• New Orleans – February 10
• Nashville – March 24
• Knoxville – May 12
• Virginia Beach – November 3

This is the type of experience priced to allow you to bring your whole team. REGISTER by clicking the links above – hope to see you there!

In 2004, we were facing a budget constraint related to debt. In order to “right” the budget, we were looking for areas to decrease the budget. Everyone was on board with the process. As we analyzed the budget we realized that our cell phone charges were getting out of control. You see, in 2002, we had given everyone on staff a cell phone – with no parameters. It was the days of Direct Connect, and everyone was supposed to use that feature of the phone that did not charge minutes. Unfortunately it did not work well and everyone resorted to just making calls to each other. The result: majorly inflated phone bills. It was out of control (that was still a time of bad phone plans and .40 cents/minute overage charges).

But we got a do-over. That year we canceled all cell phones and everyone on staff bought their own phone and plan. We eliminated a major expense in the budget. Fast forward 5 years. In 2009, we reinstated a plan for cell phones, this time opting for personal reimbursement over church provided phones. It has resulted in major savings and a controllable situation.

When you get a do-over, thing strategically about the future. Those opportunities do not come around often!

Where do you need to take advantage of a do-over in your ministry?

• Most things take longer and cost more than expected. Dr. Chris Stephens
• Get help from others. We used consultant Jim Tomberlin of Multisite Solutions. Jim was highly recommended and he helped us formulate a plan that worked. Since we had no experience, that was significant in the success of the launch.
• Ask lots of questions. Jenni Catron at Cross Point in Nashville answered tons of questions and made us realize that we were not going insane during the process (or maybe she confirmed it).
• The transition will be more difficult than you expect. Tons of things are impacted by multisite – especially communication. As long as we planned and as strategic as we were, there were still areas that I did not expect to be impacted by multisite. If you do not have a culture of change and adaptation, be weary of multisite.
• Prepare your entire church for multisite, not just those in the launch. We were intentional about creating buy-in from the entire church. I think that made our launch more successful.
• Hire the right Campus Pastor. Nothing can be more important, particularly in the first location. We hired a person who had the DNA of FPC and had been at the church for 10 years. It was significant in the success.
• Don’t plan on replicating everything, just the essential things. A church of 600 does not need what a church of 3400 needs. Try to evaluate the needs of each location and launch with those things. (This is challenging because it is hard to remember what is essential at different levels).

I could go  on and on, but remember that multisite needs to be right for your ministry and a leading of God. We literally talked and prepared for multisite for 5 years (a little to long). Today, our Blount Campus averages over 600 in attendance, after beginning with only 225 people.

What multisite experience would you share to help others?