Month: April 2012

Creating a healthy staff culture

Most of us could probably tell some great stories of horrible church staff situations. I’ve been a part of several, some of which were highly political where few trusted each other and I’ve been a part of church staff where things even got hostile. I’m not quite sure that the perfect church staff culture exists out there, but I’ve been a part of some good ones too.

While at The Orange Conference last week, Andy Stanley spoke specifically to to the issue of staff culture. Many of the points I’ve heard before in one of his leadership podcasts, but it was a great and timely reminder. He spoke at length about creating a staff culture where mutual submission is present. Yes, God may have called key leadership and senior staff to do something significant and the primarily purpose for additional staff is to serve that vision (I truly do believe that), but this doesn’t mean that senior staff doesn’t and shouldn’t serve the staff that works for them. This type of mutual submission creates a healthy culture where people want to work.

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ORANGE 2012: Game Changer

I’m at the 2012 Orange Conference and so far, it’s been pretty amazing, but Orange is always like that.

I’ve actually been able to attend more breakouts than last year… and I’ve actually been paying closer attention in the general sessions as compared to last year. I hope to publish my notes from some of the sessions/breakouts later tonight. I also had the opportunity to lead a preconference breakout on yesterday, and include some notes from that as well.

Stay tuned…

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The Eric Trap Blog Tour: Day 10

Day ten, the end of the second week of the Orange Trap blog tour. It was a great week.

On this day, Jay Martin, Or jaymart as I know him wrote a great post about the book. He included a clip from the famous movie, “Spartacus.” I have to admit, I’ve never seen this movie, but he includes the clip of the famous part of the movie where multiple people stand and say, “I am Spartacus.” Jay described that when he read the book, he immediately identified with Eric Newman and after hearing so many other people declare “I am Eric Newman,” it made him think of this clip.

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The Eric Trap Blog Tour: Day 9

I’m writing this several days late. I had a super busy weekend and I’m now at Orange… but I didn’t want to miss pointing out more of the great reviews. So, look for the updates catching everyone up.

Matt Norman who actively blogs over at Kidmin1124.com wrote a great post. Matt simply posted a brief summary of each chapter which is helpful as by just reading his summary’s you’ll see how this book is just right for you. I did love his opening line thought:

“the week caught up with Eric as he buried his face in his hands and wept.” With this one sentence I knew that his book was for me.

I think many people can relate to that experience.

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Orange Conference Breakouts: A Little Help

So, next week is the Orange Conference. I can’t tell you how excited I am to get there. Things have been so busy and crazy, I’m just excited to get away. However, I do need a little help.

My boss, the Executive Pastor at Gateway is coming with me to Orange (Which I’m super stoked about) this year. He came to the Orange Tour in Dallas and has read Think Orange, so he gets the whole Orange strategy. This is the first time I’ve brought someone who isn’t on my kidmin or student ministry team, so I’m not sure what breakouts he should attend.

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The Eric Trap Blog Tour: Day 8

Yesterday was a big day for The Eric Trap blog tour. We took four virtual stops and people had some great stuff to say! So, let’s get started.

The first stop is over at the Compel Blog, which is the kidmin encouragement/resource blog for the Church of God of Prophecy denomination. Jason Vernon, the blog’s author is the senior pastor at RTP Community Church (which I wrote about a few weeks ago). He’s a great guy and I’m so glad to get the perspective of a senior pastor for this book. What spoke to him most was the chapter on delegation. Craig Gyergyo who wrote that chapter did an incredible job approaching delegation in a very unique way. Many of us do a great job delegating tasks, but we don’t delegate authority, which is huge. This chapter alone is worth the price of the book. Read Jason’s review here.

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The Eric Trap Blog Tour: Day 7

So, yesterday was a slower blog tour day with just one stop. There were two other initially planned stops, but we’re going to circle back around to those stops in a few days. However, I got a real kick out of the featured review for the day.

Tom Roepke, who says he is not Eric Newman, does indeed work for New Hope Community Church, the same church where Eric Newman works… except Tom is in Ohio I think and Eric’s New Hope is in Houston. Pretty funny though. Tom Created a video review to go with his post where he showed the infamous hallway with his altercation with Jim Swanson. Don’t know what I’m talking about… well, you need to read the book.

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The Eric Trap Blog Tour: Day 6

It’s week two and the blog tour is at it again with three more stops, yesterday.

My friend Brain Dollar posted a great review on his blog. He shared with his readers the three reasons why he liked this book so much.

  1. It’s a leadership fable – who doesn’t like a leadership fable?
  2. Eric is easy to relate to – because he’s just like so many of us.
  3. The lessons are impacting – even those of us who have been dong this for a long time slip in these areas from time to time.

Brian is giving away a few copies, so if you want one, check out what you need to do to win.

Jeremy Echols also posted a review of The Eric Trap. My favorite part of his review is in his “Spoiler Alert” section.

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The Eric Trap Blog Tour: Day 5

Today marks the last day of the first week of The Eric Trap blog tour. In five days, twelve people have given unique perspectives of this new book in blog posts, facebook updates and youtube videos. Not only do we still have two more weeks, but almost 40 more reviews. Wow! We’ve got a lot more coming your way, so we’re going to take a breather on Saturday and Sunday and start back up again on Monday.

Today though we had three more great reviews.

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Blue Like Jazz Opens Today

A few weeks ago I got to see an advanced screening of Blue Like Jazz. It was a wonderful movie and I was inspired to do whatever I could to support the film. I certainly want to see more movies like this go to the box office. Movies that tell great stories that point to authentic Christianity. The best way you can support a film is to go see it on opening night. How a movie does on opening night may determine its future at the box office.It will determine if the movie will open in more theaters the next week or if it will begin shutting down to even less theaters.

So, I decided to do my part in supporting BLJ and I organized a group outing. I’m taking almost 30 of my student ministry volunteers and high school students who play in our student band to go see it.

So, here are some ways that you can support Blue Like Jazz:

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