By NewChurches.com: In Episode 545 of the NewChurches Q&A Podcast, Daniel and Ed discuss planning out a one-year preaching calendar.

In This Episode, You’ll Discover:

A step-by-step guide to planning out a preaching calendar
How long a sermon series should be

 Shareable Quotes (#NewChurches):

“I do like to have a two-year broad 30,000 foot vision.” – @edstetzer
“I chose those books in part because of the need of the church.” – @edstetzer
“For me, Mother’s Day to Father’s Day is a great time to do a family series.” – @edstetzer
“I think 6 to 10 sermons in a series is doable.” – @edstetzer
“I don’t want people to get exhausted that we are always in this book of the Bible forever.” – @edstetzer
“I want it to be faithful to the text, biblically-delivered, and in ways that are easy for people to get their mind around.” – @edstetzer
“Doctrinal teaching is often better done in another setting, like a small group.” – @edstetzer

Recommended Resources:

Listen to Episode 543: Thematic, Topical, and Expository Preaching
Read The Big Idea by Dave Ferguson

Help us Multiply the Mission:

Please subscribe
Leave a rating and review on iTunes
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When you’re recording, introduce yourself and your context in about 15 seconds and then record your question for 30 seconds

The post Episode 545: How to Create a Preaching Calendar appeared first on NewChurches.com – Church Planting, Multisite, and Multiplication.

Source: Episode 545: How to Create a Preaching Calendar

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By Ken Adams: I am a man who lives by a plan. The truth is, I plan out just about everything. I have an annual life plan. I make a monthly plan, and I try to consistently execute a weekly plan. I know a thing or two about having a plan. I think having a plan is good, but one thing the Lord has taught me is that I need to write my plans in dry erase maker, not permanent marker.

Proverbs 19:21 says,

“Many are the plans in the mind of man, but it is the purpose of the Lord that will stand.”

Plans and Purpose

The Lord is not against planning. In fact, I believe it is good stewardship and good life management to live by a plan. The point however, is that the Lord’s purpose for your life always trumps your planning. Your plan might need to change in order for the Lord’s purpose to be accomplished. God’s purpose for your life, no matter what it might be, is always better than whatever plan you originally concocted.

I often share with people that when the Lord made it clear to me that I was to further my biblical training by going to seminary, I made a few things clear to Him. I made sure the Lord knew that I did not plan to be a senior pastor. I did not plan to be in a Baptist church, and I did not plan to minister in the South. Guess what happens when you tell the Lord your plans?

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For the last thirty one years, I have been a senior pastor in a Baptist church in the South. “Many are the plans in the mind of man, but it is the purpose of the Lord that stands.”

I can’t tell you how thankful I am that the Lord’s purpose trumped my plans. The last thirty one years have been the ride of a lifetime and I am so glad that the Lord’s purpose superseded my plans. Going to seminary was a good plan, but the Lord knew I needed to be a pastor in the denomination I grew up in near the town in which I was raised. God knew what I didn’t know and His purpose for me was so much better than my plan.

His Purpose

As you think about your life, I hope you have a plan. I believe the only thing worse than not fulling your plan is never having a plan to start with. I do hope, however, that your plan is not written in permanent marker. Don’t you just hate looking at a dry erase board that has been written on with a permanent marker? A dry erase board with permanent marker never is a mess.

Write out a plan, but write it in a way that the Lord can use it to bring about His purposes about in your life. He is the one you want making things permanent. He is the one you want making the final calls in your life. Write your plans with a dry erase marker so that the Lord can change them and rewrite them with His purpose in mind.

By Ken Adams

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Source: Write Your Plans with a Dry Erase Marker

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Source: Multisite Churches After COVID-19

The post Multisite Churches After COVID-19 appeared first on Passion for Planting.

In Episode 490 of the NewChurches Q&A Podcast, Daniel and Todd continue to discuss how to develop a future strategy.

In This Episode, You’ll Discover:

Ways to connect people to community
How to develop a strategy that can grow with you

 Shareable Quotes (#NewChurches):

“We don’t have to convince people that community is important right now, we just have to get them easily connected.” – @danielsangi
“How do you identify individuals who will start a new group?” – @danielsangi
“I believe when all of this is over there will be a greater divide between mature and immature believers.” – @danielsangi
“We need to emerge out of this season with individuals who know how to disciple those who make disciples who make disciples.” – @danielsangi
“During this season we need to look to Jesus and be the church.” – @danielsangi
“Even if you are a single staff church, you have leaders in your church you can go through this process with.” – @toddadkins
“How do I come in realign, restructure, and reopen my church?” – @toddadkins

Recommended Resources:

Listen to Episode 488: Your Ministry Strategy for COVID-19 – Part 1
Read Leading Beyond the Blizzard by Andy Crouch
Learn more about Ministry Grid
Learn more about A Complete COVID-19 Guide to Lead Your Church Toward a New Normal

Help us Multiply the Mission:

Please subscribe
Leave a rating and review on iTunes
Ask a question by clicking Send Voicemail on the right hand side of NewChurches.com
If you’re on a phone or a tablet, then go to www.speakpipe.com/newchurches to download the app and record your message
When you’re recording, introduce yourself and your context in about 15 seconds and then record your question for 30 seconds

This Episode’s Sponsor:

For more than 25 years, Portable Church® has helped thousands of churches launch strong and thrive in a mobile setting. They design custom solutions that fit each budget, vision, and venue. Everything you need to launch a mobile church — an inviting worship space, kids ministry areas, welcome spaces, storage cases, etc — all in a system refined to make it fast, easy & fun for the weekly volunteer teams.

The post Episode 490: Your Ministry Strategy for COVID-19 – Part 2 appeared first on NewChurches.com – Church Planting, Multisite, and Multiplication.

Source: Episode 490: Your Ministry Strategy for COVID-19 – Part 2

The post Episode 490: Your Ministry Strategy for COVID-19 – Part 2 appeared first on Passion for Planting.

Source: Rethinking Post-Coronavirus Ministry

The post Rethinking Post-Coronavirus Ministry appeared first on Passion for Planting.

By Jim Wideman: Life can get wild and ministry can get crazy. When you don’t think things can get any busier, they can and they do. In my life I’ve learned “busy” is a relative term. What one person calls busy is not busy to another. The fact is no matter how you define busy it causes you to be deal with pressure. Pressure can cause you to grow or it can also expose weakness in your abilities. Either way pressure is your friend. People are paid by how much pressure they can handle and deal with. If you want to make more money learn to handle more pressure and how to control crazy.

Jesus is our help and peace in stressful times. He is our help when life gets complicated, but it’s up to us to call on that help. He’s given us His word that He will help us here are a few of the Scriptures I stand on when life gets crazy for me. Psalm 46:1 says, “God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble.” John 14:27 tells us “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.” John 14:16 promises “And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever. That other helper is also referred to as another Comforter. Jesus never leads you into something that will harm you. He is a safe guide His word always works.

Jesus is the master of simplifying life. The laws of the Old Testament were many and complex yet Jesus made it very easy to follow them. Let’s take a look at Matthew 22:36-40. “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?” Jesus said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”

Jesus’ answers concerning life are always simple even though they may not always be easy to carry them out. These verses simplified the law but they are a fulltime job to carry out. Paul had a heart for following the Lord’s example. You can tell he patterned his life after the example of Jesus by writing in 2 Corinthians 1:12, “For our rejoicing is this, the testimony of our conscience, that in simplicity and godly sincerity, not with fleshly wisdom, but by the grace of God, we have had our conversation in the world, and more abundantly to you-ward.” The devil always tries to complicate life just like he complicated God’s simple instructions to Adam and Eve. He loves to complicate our lives by injecting wrong thoughts into our minds.

Second Corinthians 11:3 tells us … “the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtlety,” so Paul warned believers to beware lest “your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.”

We must choose to keep life simple! Sometimes our responsibilities and the pressures of life affect us all in a negative way. We have to choose simplicity. In Luke 10:38-42 we find the story of two sisters. Sisters who made two very different choices in how they reacted to Jesus coming to their home. The Scriptures tell us “As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, He came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to Him. She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what He said. But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to Him and asked, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!” “Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.”

The key to simplifying life for me is to be a student of learning better personal and time management. Have you read my book Beat The Clock? This resource has helped thousands of leaders learn some leadership and time-management basics.

With this in mind here are 15 Steps in keeping life simple and controlling the crazy.

Set your priorities. This is something you have to get in the habit of doing daily. You can’t keep priorities if you don’t have priorities! Arrange your events, tasks, and duties by priorities!
Keep your priorities in order. This is job one! The fact is, priorities change. The order of your priorities may be different at different times. One of my favorite Scriptures is Proverbs 28:2 “When a country is rebellious, it has many rulers, but a man of understanding and knowledge maintains order. This is you responsibility!
Delegate to others those things they can do for you even if it’s short term. When you’re out of time the only way to get more is to use someone else’s. Make a list of everything you are doing that someone else can do and allow them to do it! Use checklists and job descriptions to get others to do it your way.
Use time-saving tools. Some of the tools I use are my iPhone, iPad, a timer, iCal, voice mail, email, I’m even starting to use a program so others can choose an appointment so I don’t have to go back and forth with them. But these tools can become time wasters if you use them wrong. Know when to talk not type, keep your notifications off when you are working on other things. Add a worker website, post videos and let blogs replace worker meetings.
Do more than one thing at a time. Take advantage of commute times and wait times to study, have meetings, people development, return messages, and make assignments to others by phone. Use meals to put into people. Ride together and set up what the meeting is about. I pay so we’ll talk about what I want to cover. On the way back we wrap up and make assignments on what needs to be carried out. Take reading with you wherever you go as well as other work. (Here’s another reason I love my iPhone!)
Decide what can be postponed or eliminated. This goes back to your priorities. Keep those activities and events that are urgent or important on top. Don’t just look at the task, look at the time it takes to pull it off also. Learn to say no! Learning to say no also means saying yes to the right things. To say yes to urgent and important matters means you say no to less urgent or less important things. When time is short look to focus on now and don’t look too far ahead.
Get creative with your family time. Take them with you whenever you can and combine family time with business and leisure activities. Call them and let them know you were thinking of them.
Schedule a break even if it’s only for a few hours. (Even convicts get time off for good behavior) Some of my getaway activities are playing guitar, going to the music store, Starbucks, the bicycle store, and Best Buy.
Be open to change in your lifestyle (Different results require different actions) Don’t despise change. It’s all right to do things differently. Guard your thoughts and your tongue.
Do your homework and see what others do in hectic times. Check up on busy people—see what they are doing on Facebook, or Twitter. Network at conferences and also on sites like KidminCoach.com.
Stop and listen to Jesus. Make time for the Word. It’s your responsibility to stay refreshed spiritually. Feed your spirit daily; you feed you belly daily. If you can’t go to church, listen to the podcast or watch the livestream. But it will truly help you spiritually to go to church.
When you are tired and busy, don’t think. Rely on a checklist. Paper is for remembering, your brain is for thinking and dreaming. Have the information you need with you when you go to meetings including, flowcharts, and other reports.
Don’t quit or make big decisions during busy and stressful times. Wait to make big decisions when things slow down. Also never make people decisions when time is limited. Slow down and think it through.
Develop a plan to make next year better the minute an event or activity is over. Learn from your experiences; and the best time to do this is while it’s fresh on your mind. Start next year’s file now. Speaking of planning, ahead go ahead and put next year’s date on the calendar as well, and plan as far ahead as possible. Do you have 2019 or even 2020 planned yet? Smart leaders plan as far ahead as possible to keep life balanced. Get feedback from others to help you plan better. A smart person makes time to listen and learn. When it’s over, crash. Get some rest. Always schedule a break between big pushes and events. Watch out for too many irons in the fire.
Do more by doing less. Focus on the main thing! Are you doing what only you should be doing, or are you doing things that someone else can do? It’s time to evaluate and ask yourself if you are focusing on the main thing.

To keep life simple and control the crazy, you must evaluate constantly. Measure your progress including your fruit, gains, loses, and efficiency. Listen to your spouse on what should you discontinue, change, and/or add. Things naturally get chaotic on their own that’s why you have to be intentional to keep life simple. Get out that calendar and make a plan to make you, your family, and your ministry better.

By Jim Wideman of D6 Family

The original post, used by permission, is available here.

Jim Wideman is considered a pioneer and one of the fathers of the family ministry movement. He is an Orange Strategist and thinker with over 40 years of hands-on experience in the local church. Jim currently serves as the family pastor at The Belonging Company in Nashville, Tennessee. Jim and his wife have two daughters and two of the most handsome grandsons ever born!

Photo by Bench Accounting on Unsplash

The post 15 Steps to Keeping Life Simple appeared first on Discipleship.org.

Source: 15 Steps to Keeping Life Simple

The post 15 Steps to Keeping Life Simple appeared first on Passion for Planting.

by Rich Birch: Are you an executive pastor wondering where you should focus your time and energy?

Are you wondering exactly how things are really going at your church?

Are you a bit mystified about how to evaluate what’s really happening under the hood of your church?

Executive pastors are an incredible gift to growing churches. The best executive pastors sit at the intersection of vision and reality. That is to say, they spend their time balancing the bright future of the church on one hand and the facts of where the church is today on the other. In order to move a church from where you are to where you believe God is leading you as a community, you need a series of robust systems. Systems are simply repeatable processes that “Save You Stress, Time, Energy, and Money”.

Executive pastors need to think about how these systems are performing across all areas of the church. In a very real way, the executive pastor is like a farmer cultivating a garden of systems by balancing each of the varying needs and requirements of the church against each other. An executive pastor should spend a considerable amount of time evaluating how well each of these systems performs and adjusting them accordingly when they don’t function the way they should.

This is a perfect time of year, the season of change, to build a plan for evaluation and adjust the systems required to help your church move forward. Here are six systems you should consider when leading as an executive pastor:

…

Source: 6 Systems Every Executive Pastor Needs to Evaluate This Year – unSeminary

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by Patrick Bradley: It’s Saturday morning and your volunteers have showed up to execute your church plant door hanger campaign. Now what?

You’ve already invested the time to design the door hangers as part of a larger campaign. And you’ve paid to have them printed. It would be a shame if the wheels fell off for lack of planning for the delivery phase.

Here are things to do to have a killer delivery day:

Get Organized Ahead of Time

Invite Outside Teams

You really don’t want to use your own Launch Team for putting out the door hangers. Work with a supporting church to get a missions team to come and deliver them. If they’re from out of the area, the church plant door hanger campaign could be one of the things they do when they come for a long weekend.

You could also invite youth groups from area churches and/or supporting churches. Teens have lots of energy, especially when you feed them pizza afterwards.

Prepare Delivery Routes

Before you jump right into creating a map, you’ll need to estimate how many door hangers teams of 2 can put out per hour. There are so many variables involved (including weather and elevation change), but the biggest seems to be the housing density: if you’re delivering to a neighborhood of track homes on postage-stamp-sized lots, you’ll get more out per hour than if it’s a neighborhood where every lot is an acre.

A note on apartments: most apartment complexes will have a ‘no soliciting’ sign or policy. While your church isn’t a commercial enterprise and the door hangers aren’t technically soliciting, they’ll probably be seen that way. So decide ahead of time whether you’ll skip them or fight that PR battle.

Consider using 75 per hour per team of 2 as a baseline for average housing density and flat terrain.

Now you can break down your target area into manageable routes using Google’s My Maps. Set logical rally points where your volunteers can park and divide up into teams of 2 to hit an area.

Lastly, set a firm stop time and place where everyone will reconvene for celebration and debrief. And at least some kind of food or dessert.

Set Up Communication Channels

Know how to get a hold of each volunteer ahead of time and while they’re out delivering. Cell phones are usually a good option since so many of us have them. But you other options are available, like walkie-talkies, etc.

Also consider having teams that have smart phones use one of those jogging tracking apps to record their route and progress.

Here are other helpful ideas to maximize your church plant door hanger campaign.

Just before Delivery Day

Print route maps and pre-bundle the printed door hangers in stacks enough to cover each route. Have a couple of water bottles to hand out to each team, too.

Prep your intercessory pray team to be praying over the volunteers and target homes during the delivery hours.

Plan a brief vision-casting and training session to equip and inspire the volunteers on delivery day. Be prepared to over-explain a bit. Don’t assume things will be common sense, especially if you’re using teens. Give them principles for what to do about:

walking on lawns
gated communities
dogs
gated yards
someone engaging them in conversation

Stay Organized on Delivery Day

Make sure you have a command station somewhere. Everyone needs to have the phone number to text or call in for help. Make sure the command station has everyone’s contact info and copies of all the delivery routes.

Aftermath of the Church Plant Door Hanger Campaign

Be prepared for disgruntled recipients. One of my planters estimated that he got 1-3 angry phone calls per 10,000 hangers his team put out. Have a brief script written in your mind about what you’ll say and how you’ll handle those.

The good news is that the same planter had a guest come to the worship gathering 10 months later with the door hanger in hand. Your church plant door hanger campaign can have long-lasting effects in your community. So take the time to organize the campaign well!

The post How to Organize a Church Plant Door Hanger Campaign appeared first on Church Planting Tactics.

Source: How to Organize a Church Plant Door Hanger Campaign

The post How to Organize a Church Plant Door Hanger Campaign appeared first on Passion for Planting.

by Jim Putman: It is both the job and privilege of every Christian to be a disciple of Jesus. And part of that job is the call to disciple others.

You can disciple someone without holding a Bible degree – Jesus did a good job of demonstrating that by the men he chose to be his disciples. You may say – “But they were discipled by the Son of God, he didn’t need a Bible degree!” and that is true. But they went on to disciple others, and the people they discipled went on to make more disciples.

Discipling others may not require a degree, but it does require a process. And as the greatest disciple-maker in history, Jesus left us with a great example to follow. As I study Jesus’ approach, one of the keys to his success was that he was an intentional leader.

Disciple-makers need to be intentional leaders – I am thinking of people who lead by example wherever they are, I am thinking of people who have influence in the life of someone else.

That basically means all of us… we all have people like that in our lives. And if we are disciples of Jesus, we are also called to disciple them.

So – now that you know you are a leader, how can you become a more intentional one?

Here are three simple things you can do to become a more intentional leader:

1. Be an intentional planner (prioritize your schedule)

Make a weekly time to get together with the person you are discipling. Whether it is for coffee, a workout, or a bible study – having a consistant weekly time ensures you are keeping up an awareness of each others lives and what is happening.
Connect often. Put an alert on your phone a few times a week to remind you to send a text or make a phone call just to say hi and check in. Add them to your social media accounts, tag them in something that reminds you of them, be sure to comment on or like their posts. This may seem superficial, but it is one of those small things that can have a big impact on someone.
Put their important dates on your calendar. Birthdays, their kid’s games, their anniversary…etc – It will only take a moment of your time to text or message them about it, but It is amazing how much it means to someone when you remember the things they have going in their life. It shows a deeper level of care.

2. Be an intentional presence (listening, self-awareness)

When you do spend time with the person you are discipling, be sure you are really there. Put away or mute your phone, make eye-contact and listen when they are talking, ask them questions about their life, family, walk with God, feelings, struggles..and then listen for the purpose of understanding. Be sure you aren’t just waiting for them to pause so you can give them a response. And whatever you do – don’t interrupt them when they are sharing.
Try to keep an awareness of what your body language may be saying about your level of interest in the conversation. Lean in, keep your eyes on them, don’t fidget and look around – that indicates boredom and disinterest.
Commit the things they are sharing to memory, then bring them up in conversations later during the week. This shows you care and want to follow up, it also leads the way to accountability, which is a necessary component of disciple-making.

3. Model intentional transparency (lead by example)

This is key, and it is not easy – but in order to develop a relationship that goes deeper and that allows room for accountability, you will need to lead the way by being open and transparent.
When you share things you struggle with it can have a huge effect on the person you are sharing with. It lets them know that you are not perfect. It lets them know that they are not alone. It makes them feel safer about sharing their struggles with you.
Trust is very important as you enter this depth of relationship with the person you are discipling. Be certain you do not share the things that are said in confidence to you. This is a very important piece of being an example that cannot be overlooked. Trust is slow to be earned but can be lost very quickly.

This was originally posted on Jim Putman’s blog here. Used with permission.

Source: 3 Keys To Becoming An Intentional Disciple Maker

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