Han Solo’s Guide to Effective Outreach

My 4-year old daughter has fallen in love with Star Wars.

 

She wants to watch Star Wars night and day. She loves to wear her Star Wars t-shirts. She even wants me to grow my hair out so I look more like a Wookie (OK, I may have made up that last one).

 

But in watching Star Wars recently I was reminded of Han Solo’s description of his ship, The Millennium Falcon. He said, “She doesn’t look like much, but she’s got it where it counts.”

 

Calvary Fellowship, the church I pastor, doesn’t have a building. We’ve been meeting in rented facilities for 11 years, yet we’ve seen over 1,000 people come to know Jesus in the last 18 months. I’m beginning to think of Calvary as a “Millennium Falcon” church. We may not look like much, but we’ve got it where it counts.

 

How do we reach so many people every year?

 

We’re intentional about outreach.

 

We know that we can’t ever take our focus off of reaching people far from God.

 

That’s what Outreach Ninja is all about.

 

It’s a monthly program that teaches you how to reach more people and spend less money in the process. Pastors that participate in Outreach Ninja literally save their churches thousands of dollars by learned the strategies we discuss every month.

 

Read what one Outreach Ninja recently sent me…

“Bob, I have learned so much through the coaching of Outreach Ninja.  Our church has tripled in size as we applied what we learned.  It still amazes me that we are seeing so many new faces each week…and that so many decisions are being made.” – Andrew Wilburn (Generation Church Columbia, SC)

 

By the way, Yoda was WRONG.

Remember when he said, “Try not, do or do not, there is no try?”

Well, we don’t believe in that here.

 

We WANT you to try out 100% Outreach Ninja for less than 50% of the normal investment.

So hop in your X-Wing Fighter and go to www.outreachninja.com/testdrive

Leadership Conspiracy Theories

I’ve noticed something in the church leadership “genre” that seems to be overlooked. Maybe you’ve noticed it too…

Lots of books on how to be a better leader, but very few on how to develop and train leaders within your church.

It’s like there’s a group of “Church Leadership Illuminati” that are keeping this info from getting to us.

Maybe I’ve just watched too many episodes of the X-Files :) Or maybe there really is a hole in the leadership information that’s available.

I’ve worked with thousands of churches like yours and most of them are looking for solutions on how to create a leadership pipeline where leaders are developed at every level.

That’s why I’m leading a FREE webinar next week (September 13 & 14 @2PM EST) called, “Creating a Leadership Pipeline in your Church”.

In this 45-minute webinar, I’m going to show you how we’ve created a system for developing leaders at every level of our church.

If you’re interested, hop onboard your Area 51 spaceship and register for the webinar here.

5 Mistakes that are Killing your Ability to Develop Leaders

I spend a lot of time around church leaders. One of the biggest issues church leaders face is discipleship and leadership development. In fact, I’ve noted 5 leadership development “killers” that you need to avoid like the plague…

1. There’s no training for existing leaders – Giving training to your existing leaders makes them better leaders and allows you to create the model for the next level of leaders.

2. There’s no list of potential leaders – We keep a list of people that we have our eye on at Calvary. This list is those who are serving faithfully and growing in the Lord. This way, when the next round of training comes along, we already have a group of potential participants to invite.

3. You’re unclear as to what your leaders need to know – Peter Drucker said, “Start with the end in mind.” That being said, think about the kind of leaders you want, then reverse-engineer what they need to learn to become that kind of leader.

4. You’ll compromise proven character for potential – I have an entire chapter on this in my book Zero to Sixty, but the point is that as Pastors we can discern those who have great leadership potential. But we should not act on their potential alone. That’s why the Bible says that deacons “Should first be tested.” (1 Timothy 3:10)

5. Leadership development isn’t the top of the priority list – this is an area of ministry that won’t scream for your attention until you’re in a leadership crisis. So start ASAP.

If you want to create a leadership pipeline in your church, then join me on September 13th or 14th @ 2PM EST as a I lead a FREE webinar called, “Creating a Leadership Pipeline in your Church”. If you’re interested, hop on your magic carpet and register here.  

Last Call for “Sermon-A-Palooza”

Just a quick note to remind you that 50% off “National Expositional Preaching Month” sale ends today!

So if you want to save 50% on sermon series like:

Colossians, Esther, Song of Solomon, Proverbs, Judges, 2 Timothy,
Revelation, Ephesians, or the 10 Commandments.

All of our downloadable sermon series are 50% off by using the coupon code preaching50.

So mosey on over to churchstrategies.com and you’ll be able to celebrate National Expositional Preaching Month with us!

P.S. Lots of people have registered for our FREE “Creating a Leadership Pipeline” webinar. If you haven’t, click here to be part of it. 

What Diets and Leadership Development has in Common…

As a guy who has lost a lot of weight over the last couple of years, I’ve noticed something about myself (and most people) when I’m on an eating plan: I am very intentional about what I eat. I’m careful to know the ingredients, calories, carbs and just about every other fact about each food.

I’ve learned that leadership development happens only when I am the same way – intentional about the process for developing leaders.

So here’s what happened: I recently did a survey for my churchstrategies.com newsletter subscribers and I asked, “What area of ministry do you need help with most?”

An overwhelming majority said, “Leadership development and discipleship”.

Here’s the thing: I was planning on doing a series of 3-5 minute vignettes about leadership development and discipleship. In fact, I had the material already written and I decided not to do it.

I realized that you don’t need 3-5 minute motivational talks.  You want nuts and bolts, practical insights about how to build a system that allows you to develop leaders and disciple believers.

So instead of the videos, I’ve decided to lead a FREE 45-minute webinar called, “Creating a Leadership Pipeline in your Church”. In this webinar I’m going to show you: 

- How to create a reproducible system that develops leaders at every level in your church

- How to never hear “I’m not growing” or “I’m not being fed” in your church ever again!

- How to help believers grow from infancy to maturity

- How to Develop the 1 quality every church must have to train strong leaders

- How to never need to look for staff outside your church again

- Plus a ton more!

As you can see, I’m going to do a lot more than I was planning to in my short video series, but I want to help you, so I’m happy to do it.

I’m going to lead 2 webinars: September 13 & 14th @ 2PM EST.

So if you’re interested, hop on your treadmill and register here.