History In The Making

Remember me mentioning Perry Noble in an earlier blog? Perry is pastor of NewSpring Church in Anderson, SC. This past Sunday they had their biggest Sunday EVER. Remember, this is in Anderson, SC (not a metropolis): They had over 8200 people in attendance and at least 214 people accepted Christ. Say what? Read that again. 8200 people, of which, 214 accepted Christ….in Anderson, SC. It’s a TOTAL God-thing. I mention them to brag on God and to encourage you to keep an eye on them. He blogged about this past Sunday HERE and HERE.

BONUS: 

Planning a series on stewardship/finances? Grab Midnight Oil’s free monthly download!

 

Wk. 4 At My Church (Using EasyWorship)

The journey continues. Today was week 4 of “the switch”. Remember 2 Sundays ago, I trained 2 people on EasyWorship. One ran it last week and the other ran it today. I just came in for about 10 minutes before the first service for a “refresher” with Amy. She rememebered well from 2 weeks before and ran both services alone today. I was in a Sunday School class during one service, then sat with a friend and my wife during the second service.

I also popped by the church this past Friday afternoon to train two new people. One of the people I trained is the person who had been creating the slides each week in PowerPoint – she was a crucial one to train so that myself or the Technical Director, Brian, don’t have to set up the slides each week. Now she can continue to prepare the slides (which is part of her job), but now on EasyWorship, instead of PowerPoint. I showed her how easy it was to connect to CCLI’s SongSelect Lyric Service and import songs into the EasyWorship database. It really is simple and impressive. She caught on quick and will now begin preparing the EasyWorship slides each week during the week.

A SIDE NOTE OR MINI-LESSON:

In my conferences on “Beginning and Developing a Media Ministry”, I talk about two teams:

1. The PREPARATION team – A person(s) who creates the slides each week (that’s who I trained Friday)
2. The PRESENTATION team – These are the people who come in on Sunday morning and just run what has already been created for them.

PERSONAL THOUGHT:

This was an especially cool and out of the ordinary Sunday for my church. The theme/focus was “worship”. If you know me, you know I was a happy camper. The pastor wove his message throughout the entire service. He actually started the message before we even sang our first song (that really blew people’s minds). He pretty much magnified God and said why we worship, which led into a time of worship. We would sing 2 to 3 songs, then he would come back up and teach some more. The pattern repeated a few times. It was a great worship experience and a nice break from the norm.

 

Tim Stevens Summarizes Perry Noble

Tim Stevens just wrote a summary of the ICC talk given by  Perry Noble, Senior Pastor of NewSpring Church in Anderson, SC. I met Perry 3 years ago at the Creative Church Conference (when both his church staff and mine were on a tour of Texas Stadium – I didn’t know I’d end up moving to Dallas!). God is using Perry to do some amazing things, including starting and leading a mega-church in ANDERSON, South Carolina. Please understand, I was born and raised in Greer, SC – 20 minutes from Anderson. That city is the least likely to have a large church – it’s purely a God-thing.

Below is Tim Steven’s summary of Perry’s talk:

• A county of 170,000 people.
• I can’t figure out why God is using us. We just pray, “yes — whatever you want, that’s what we are going to do.”
• Message to Senior Pastors — your church will get on fire when you do.
• In 1999, God laid it on my heart to start a church. This was a problem because I didn’t even like churches. Pastors seemed fake to me.
• In the south, we are known for two things–Waffle House and churches. There is one of each on every corner. But still, 48% were unchurched.
• August of 2002 we had 500 people. The next week we had 900 people show up. The next week 1000, then 1100 the next week. We went from 500 to 1600 in six weeks and I still have no idea why. It was a God thing.
• We had over 4500 people coming every week in rented facilities.

Four quick thoughts that have worked for Perry and his team…

1. Engage — church is boring. Church should be the most engaging place on the planet. If the tomb really is empty, let’s get excited about it.
2. Enlarge — numbers represent souls. No one has ever accused me of being deep. We decided to be more concerned with comes in the door than who goes out the door. Some people say we need to close the back door of the church. Are you kidding? The church is the body. You close the back door of the body, you end up with a constipated church.
3. Endure — A church is not effective when the pastor ministers to the people. They are only effective when the people minister to each other.
4. Enable — let people do what they are good at. Empower them for ministry. I’m not responsible for the passion of someone else. Find people who love God. If you get them involved, it will be amazing what will happen in their life.

This is an amazing time to be alive. Can you imagine if Paul could blog? If Peter could hop on a plane?

 

The Innovative Church Conference

The Innovative Church Conference started yesterday and went through today at Granger Community Church. I would have loved to have been at this conference, but am just too sore to travel. Granger is a church that I’ve been following for about 7 years – since I heard their pastor speak at Saddleback’s Purpose Driven Church Conference. I’ve shared their web resource: WiredChurches.com with countless people. They are a great church and are helping many other churches become great.

For a play-by-play analysis of the 2006 Innovative Church Conference, check out Tony Morgan, Tim Stevens, Perry Noble or Mark Batterson’s blogs. Check back at WiredChurches.com to see and hear more slices from this year’s conference.

And if you couldn’t make it this year, don’t worry. There are more opportunities coming up. Next year, the Innovative Church Conference will be held on September 27-28, 2007. You can also check out one-day workshops that are being held on Granger’s campus November 10, like Maximizing the Arts, Simply Strategic Volunteers, Communications and Discipleship.

 

Southeast Christian Goes Multi-Site

Thanks so much for all your prayers, comments and emails. I made it through surgery fine yesterday. The surgeon said my gallbladder was diseased and it was a good thing they took it out. I feel such a relief and validation. I knew my pain wasn’t all in my head! I’m just real sore and taking it easy, grateful to God for His comfort and presence and thrilled to have it behind me! On to today’s blog:

Many of you know of Southeast Christian Church in Louisville, KY (one of the largest churches in the US). They have recently decided to join the multi-site revolution. I know there are many thoughts and philosophies on the multi-site movement. SCC put together a pretty funny and interesting video clip to introduce the concept/vision to their congregation. They interviewed the President of Kentucky Fried Chicken and asked him why he doesn’t just have one big KFC that everyone could go to, instead of having multiple KFC’s throughout the country. Check it out, by going to their sermon page and clicking on “Church on the Move”. What are your thoughts?

FYI – To my communication and video friends, they have some cool job openings:

Communications Ministry Director

IT Network Engineer

Information Technology Director – Full-time

IT Ministry Liaison Technician

IT Data Entry Technician

IT Desktop Technician

Student/Vine Sound and Lights Media Manager

Student/Vine Ministry Team Programming Director

Communications Ministry Videographer

Worship Team Video Producer

 

My Sunday Experience (Wk. 3 of Switching Over to EasyWorship)

The past couple of weeks I blogged about my church’s switch from PowerPoint to EasyWorship. Today was week 3. What was different about this week? I got to sit in the congregation with my wife! The person I trained last Sunday ran it all alone today and did just fine. The name really says it all – the software has a very low learning curve and most people pick it up within minutes.

Of course, one of the main reasons (besides flexibility) that people switch from PowerPoint to a worship presentation software is the ability to put text over moving or looping backgrounds. Today, for example, we sang “God of Wonders” with the “In the Heavens” long play behind the lyrics. It looked amazing! No wonder it is the #1 motion at WorshipHouse.

Another thing that was cool today was my pastor, when he began to read Ezekiel 36 (about the dry bones) said, “Close your eyes and try to picture this.” Inside I was shouting “YES!”. Remember my blog on engaging the imagination in worship? He practiced this and it was quite effective.

I mentioned WorshipHouse Media earlier. Many of you know me from there, though I’m no longer the Director there. I still support their website and consider the whole team friends of mine. WorshipHouse is asking their customers to take a simple survey to help them better serve you. If you haven’t already, I’d encourage you to take it. It’s just 10 questions, every participant gets a $10 off promo code and the chance to win $250 in gift cards to places like Starbucks, iTunes, Amazon, Brinker restaurants, and WorshipHouse Media. Click HERE to take the survey and be entered to win.

PERSONAL THOUGHT:

Now, I must settle down and watch the big game: Cowboys vs. Redskins. My dilemma? I live in Dallas, but moved here from Washington DC. I like both teams! I guess it’s a win-win situation for me.