For those of you not in the New England area, feel free to skip this post. For those of you who are in or near the New England area, my good  friend Bill LaMorey is going to be leading a 21st Century Outreach Strategies Seminar in West Hartford, CT on Wednesday, June 29th from 10AM-Noon. Bill has taken the principles that I’ve taught in this seminar and applied them to his own church and seen fantastic results. He is a great guy to learn from because he is actually doing it in the New England area. You can register and/or … Read More

Too many times, churches promote their services or an event and they fail to see results for one reason: they were unclear as to what they wanted the recipient to do. People reject things that are unclear or irrelevant. So above all, we must be clear. Here’s what I recommend: Ask yourself, “What do I want this person to do: visit our website? Attend our church? Call our office?” Whatever it is, start there and work your way backwards. Build your case in your copy so they feel they’re missing out if they don’t take advantage of the opportunity you’re providing. It’s … Read More

Today and tomorrow is my brand new webinar to keep your church growing into the Fall! It’s called, “The top 5 Outreach Mistakes Churches Make” and my goal is to help you avoid the errors that most churches are making. I have guys in my coaching networks who have doubled their churches in 1 day using the strategies I’m going to talk about in this 60 minute webinar. Trust me, this is one hour that will be well worth your time. Please note: Tuesday’s webinar (June 7) is at 3PM EST  & the June 8th webinar is at 3PM EST … Read More

I know this may come off as an odd post, but I think you should be on a lot of mailing lists (including mine…sorry… Shameless plug – haha!) Here’s why – I’m subscribed to lots of email lists. Some of them are ministry related, others are more motivational, others are clothing stores. Why? Because I send emails to our church every week and I’m always looking for ways to make sure our emails get opened and read. I keep a folder on my Mac just for emails that I find clever, effective, or funny. Email is one of the ways … Read More

Here’s your weekly “In case you missed it” post.  We talked about developing leaders this week. Monday – “Staffing: Where do I start?” – This post outlined the importance of a job description in hiring. Tuesday – “Getting Started in Leadership Development” – This was 5 ways to jumpstart your leadership development process. Wednesday – “The Scariest and Most Important Factor in Developing Leaders” – This post talked about how we need to give up and coming leaders opportunities to lead. They’re going to make mistakes, but it’s the only way they will be able to lead at a higher … Read More

Since we released our resource, “The Leadership Pipeline”, earlier this year, 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

I’m doing a brand new webinar this Summer to keep your church growing into the Fall! It’s called, “The top 5 Outreach Mistakes Churches Make” and my goal is to help you avoid the errors that most churches are making.   I have guys in my coaching networks who have doubled their churches in 1 day using the strategies I’m going to talk about in this 60 minute webinar. Trust me, this is one hour that will be well worth your time. Please note: we are expecting a lot of people for this webinar so we’ve scheduled 2 events (June … Read More

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

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