The rumors of direct mail's death have been extremely exaggerated. Direct mail still works… if you do it right. The real question is, why is most church direct mail not working? The answer is because most churches aren't doing it right.  Most churches get very limited results for several reasons. Here's one: churches try to mail to everyone in their area. Churches that get great direct mail results understand who they are and focus their direct mail efforts on reaching those that are most likely to attend their church.  We are say that it takes all types of churches to … Read More

– Awesome day at Calvary!  – We kicked off a new series called, "He Said/ She Said" – We're talking about the differences between men and women.  – This is the 2nd of 2 topical series that I'm doing this year. Everything else is expositional.  – Looking forward to talking about the roles of husbands and wives in marriage for the next 2 weeks. – Carey is going to join me teaching when I teach on the role of wives. – We announced that we're starting a Wednesday night service on March 9th! Can't wait to start in Genesis and work … Read More

– This is the promo for the new series we're starting on Sunday at Calvary! I can't wait! – I'm leading a FREE tele-seminar today on the subject of outreach and marketing. We're almost out of phone lines. If this keeps up, I'm going to need to find another service for these calls 🙂 – BTW – You can register for the seminar here if you're interested. It's today (February 9th @ 2PM EST).  – I really enjoyed this book. You should pick it up! – My new Explosive Outreach Tele-Coaching Network starts in less than a month! Amazing group … Read More

With the release of my latest resource, "The Leadership Pipeline", I've been getting some questions about where to begin in starting to develop leaders. I discuss this in great detail in the resource, but I'll share a few things here:  1. Start training your 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. Keep a 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 … Read More

Yesterday I talked about the power of observation in developing leaders. Today I want to talk about the power of opportunity in seeing leaders become everything they can be. We see this at work in how Jesus trained the 12. "By this time it was late in the day, so his disciples came to him. “This is a remote place,” they said, “and it’s already very late. Send the people away so that they can go to the surrounding countryside and villages and buy themselves something to eat.” But he answered, “You give them something to eat.” They said to him, “That would take … Read More

I've been reading through the New Testament and I'm noting how Jesus developed the 12. What has struck is how he had them observe and do. I'll talk about doing tomorrow, but today I wanted to talk about up and coming leaders observing what we do.  Think about this story of Jesus healing Jairus' daughter: "And He permitted no one to follow Him except Peter, James, and John the brother of James. Then He came to the house of the ruler of the synagogue, and saw a tumult and those who wept and wailed loudly. When He came in, He said to … Read More

I get this question in various forms, but I got it again recently: "What series/ topics/ books should a church plant be teaching in the first year or two?"  First off, this is a great question. It's important because how we begin our churches sets the tone for the kind of ministry we're going to have. And nothing sets the tone like the style and content of our preaching.  Having said that, here's what I'd recommend for a young church to teach in the 1st 3 years of planting: 1. One of the Gospels – We started our church teaching … Read More