-I didn’t teach this Sunday at Calvary. Instead, I was teaching at our annual Couples Retreat – What an amazing weekend! – We watched God work in the lives of couples in our church. It was an amazing experience! – Our theme was “Building a Rock Solid Marriage”. Our theme text was Psalm 127. – I opened the retreat on Friday and closed the retreat this morning. – I was totally blown away by the Naples Grande. Their service was incredible and the facility was beautiful. – Back at home, Pastor John taught at Calvary and continued our Inside Out … Read More
Friday Rewind
Here’s what you might have missed this week at bobfranquiz.net as we talked about getting the most out of the summer: Sunday – In this week’s Sunday Stuff, I talked about the grind of preaching and how much I’m loving preaching through Romans. Monday – “Making the Most of Summer” was about the things we need to do to ensure that we don’t experience the giving and attendance slump most churches experience. Tuesday – “Surviving the Summer Money Crunch” was about inspiring new giving over the summer. I even highlighted one of our resources to help you implement this immediately. … Read More
A Forgotten “to do” over the summer
One of the most important things we do as church leaders over the summer is prepare for the Fall. I am amazed when I talk to church leaders who are starting to prepare for the Fall in September because the summer got crazy with vacations and staff members being out of town. Many churches don’t experience the power of a big Fall because they didn’t take the time to plan over the summer. Here’s what I’d encourage you to do… 1. Set some appointments before the summer to talk about the game plan for the Fall. 2. Meet during the … Read More
Building Momentum over the Summer
Part of the problem over the summer is not only the dip in attendance and giving, it’s the loss of momentum that happens. So how do we build momentum over the summer? Here’s 3 things we’ve learned: 1. Strategic Events – Plan a strategic outreach event each month over the summer. July is a great month to do an outreach that will attract newcomers. People tend to go on vacation right after school lets out and 2 weeks before school starts. So besides 4th of July weekend, most of July is wide open for outreach. 2. Leadership Development – Summer … Read More
Surviving the Summer Money Crunch
In working over 4,000 Pastors through Church Strategies I hear the stories of church finances that bottom out during the summer months to the point where Pastors are forced to make hard decisions that impact ministry and families. As we enter the Summer in just a couple of weeks, I wanted to share 2 ways you can navigate the summer giving slump and maybe even see a bump in giving over the summer (Yes, that actually happens). #1 – Inspire new giving – this best way we’re done this at Calvary is through the Tithe Challenge. When people hear God’s … Read More
Making the Most of Summer (Episode 1)
Sorry for the title. My daughter is officially obsessed with Star Wars, so everything is becoming Star Wars related these days. Most Pastors dread the “Summer Slump”. Typically, this is when giving and attendance fluctuate the most in a given year. Yet here’s what I have learned over the last 10 years: 1. Summer is not as bad as people make it out to be 2. You don’t have to take as big of an attendance hit (I’ll talk about in depth later) 3. With planning, you can eliminate the giving slump (More on that later) 4. The key to … Read More
Sunday Stuff
– Great day at Calvary! – I taught Romans 3. I can’t believe I decided to teach the entire chapter in 1 shot. File that under: questionable decision. – I know I went long today. I’m sure I’ll hear about it tomorrow 🙂 – I sounded like a staunch Calvinist today as I talked about “No one seeks God”. Instead God is seeking us. If that bugs you, wait until I teach Romans 10 and talk about “Whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved”. I’ll be called a flaming Arminian. For the record, I’m neither. – … Read More
Friday Rewind
Here’s a quick review of the posts this week: Sunday – (Sunday Stuff) I talked about our service on Sunday and some thought on Senior Pastors preaching on Mother’s day Monday – (New Resource) We released a brand new resource called, “Ministering in the Hard Places”. Tuesday – (Who are you Listening to?) In this post, I talked about the 3 types of people we can listen to and what each bring to the table Wednesday – (Is it Wrong to Target Christians?) In this post guest blogger Bill LaMorey talked about one way to target people when you’re ministering … Read More
Q and A: What Makes one Area Harder than Another?
One of the questions that’s come up since the release of our newest resource, “Ministering in the Hard Places” is, “What constitutes a hard place?” I think it’s a great question. My friend Bill LaMorey who co-taught this resource with me says, “A hard place is any place that doesn’t have a church and a Chick-Fil-A on every corner.” Seriously, there are areas (like Miami and New England) where the soil isn’t immediately ready for the Gospel. There’s a reason in some areas a church can launch with 300- 500 people and in other areas it’s more like 30-50. If … Read More
Is it Wrong to Target Christians?
This is a guest post by my good friend Bill LaMorey, Pastor of Calvary Fellowship in West Hartford, CT… When I left South Florida and returned to my home state of Connecticut to plant Calvary Fellowship in West Hartford, I had a solid conviction: “We’re going after lost people and we aren’t interested in reaching Christians.” My thinking has expanded on this point! Let me explain. The reason I didn’t want to go after Christians is we wanted to catch fish, not swap sheep. I felt there was no value added to God’s kingdom by stealing sheep from already churched … Read More
