Orange Conference Breakout Session - Carey Nieuwhof

Here are some thoughts from Carey Nieuwhof in his breakout session covering the 'Future of Church.'

Thesis:  everything is changing

--Change is not an option, but how your respond to it is.

Five Traits of Churches that will impact the Future:

1)   Future Churches will commit to the message but stay flexible with the method.

Innovate to bring unchanging message to a changing world

Clearly distinguish between mission, vision, and strategy

KEY:  Evaluate Regularly

2)   Future Churches meet people where they are before they help people see where they could be.

Ministry before theology

__Children will evaluate us by how we treat their parents

3)   Future Churches will value online relationships as real relationships.

--future churches will understand that some people will only connect online

4)   Future Churches will embrace quicker, lighter, smaller, footprints

--Fewer resources on facilities, lower cost venues, will translate to higher growth

5)   Future Churches will encourage experimentation

--Future churches will risk failure to achieve success

--Greatest hindrance to future success is current success.

--Devote 10% of your time and budget to things your not sure will work and reward that which works.

The future church must create a culture of innovation.

Orange Conference Tour

Yesterday I has the opportunity to spend a few moments at the Orange Conference Tour stop in Frisco, Texas.  The Orange Conference takes place annually in Atlanta, and is a great experiance for those seeking to understand the philosophy and nuts and bolts of the Orange style of ministry.  Reggie Joiner is the creator of Orange, and one of the original staff people from North Point Church with Andy Stanley.

Here are some notes from the talk that Reggie gave yesterday throughout the day:

When you see how much time you have left…

1)   You get serious about the time you have now

Orange has released a Legacy Countdown App

Ps. 90:12 – Teach us to number our days.

2)   You tend to make more what matters, matter more.

3)   You tend to value what happens over time.

Words have power and can impact someone’s decision in life.

n  words over time provides direction

Right work helps kids:

n  Reason  - when its named, its knowable

n  Win

n  Believe  - words give definition to belief

Current Generation is HIGH in arrogance and LOW in self esteem (Tim Elmore Article)

Practical Tip:  Expand your vocabulary – learn the words kids near to hear.  5 important childhood messages:

1)   Your loved

2)   Your unique

3)   You have gifts

4)   Your safe

5)   Your valuable

If you want kids to know they matter, then remember what you say to them matters.

Session 2:

What do you want someone to become?

--Theology without love is religion

--Love is the one thing that matters most!

There are people that I’ve met that are not as theologically correct as I am, but they are better Chrisitans.

--What you say will matter to kids when they know they matter to you.

--When you don’t say what you say in love, you discredit the truth.

--You have value to God.  You may be the best chance for a child to know they have value to God.  Tribes will often give belonging, creating an environment when kids are known and loved.

--Test of a leader is not killing what’s dead, but killing what’s alive so something else can thrive.

Learning Leadership w/ Collin Sewell

     From many previous posts you can glean who Collin is, and why I would desire to learn from this prominent business man in our community of Odessa, Texas.  For this reason, I'm going to jump right into the thoughts and leadership learning.

In a few weeks, I will be heading to Brazil to teach as an Associate Trainer for EQUIP  http://www.iequip.org/.  Collin is on the board of EQUIP and has done many such training.  In a bit of an open session, I took the opportunity to ask Collin a few thoughts about EQUIP in South America, generosity, and finally some leadership questions.

Collin on EQUIP training:

--Be sure to discover the group dynamic of the location you are heading to

--Understand what it is the Pastor desires to accomplish by being a part of EQUIP

--Get as much back story and background as you can from those you interact with

--Spend time with your translator, meet them early, Skype them if possible, have a good relationship


Collin on Generosity:

Q:  You are a generous person, what grid do you go through to decide who/how to give to?  How does Collin Sewell know its right to give?

Collin offered 3 areas to ensure he is giving what is right, both in time and money.  

1) Priority must be a driver
2) Need in the organization or persons life -- he is looking for an organization that is multiplying dollars
3) Heart -- in order to keep the heart soft to being generous, Collin is sure to give without strings attached

Collin on Leadership:

What is one mistake you witness leaders making more frequently than others?

L      Lack of Humility, leaders often think they are smarter than everyone else.  As a result, soon after they quit learning.

        

        How can you make them want to ask questions, want to grow and learn?

           

            Be a living example, help people where they need help instead of where you think they need help.

SEND Baltimore

This is very interesting.  The North American Mission Board has decided to turn the focus on several urban environments throughout the USA because of the lack of churches in those areas.  Further, it is calling these cities 'SEND' cities, and has a plan to put 15,000 church planters in these cities over the next 10 years.  My brother is planning to be one of them in Baltimore and it is a city close to my heart as i grew up near there.   Below are some notes from a session telling about the spiritual lostness of Baltimore, and the plan to 'penetrate lostness' in this city.

I'm not serving at an SBC church, however, I am excited to see the NAMB bringing people and resources in the population centers that are un/de churched.  Jonathan Falwell was the presenter....

"The uttermost parts of the earth will never be found inside the walls of our church"

Churches per person Stats:

• Mississippi - 1 person for every 1,351 people
• NYC - 1 person for every 59,000+ people
• New Jersey - 1 person for every 76,000+ people
• Canada - 1 person for every 121,000+ people

Strategies in Baltimore are going to need to be different.

• 1 out of 2 people in Maryland live in Baltimore
• 2/3 African American, 1/3 Anglo
• 280 neighborhoods in Baltimore
• 8% of the 6 million in the Baltimore-Washington Area have a relationship with Christ

In the last year, 880 SBC churches closed their doors in this country.

"The only thing that can change the world, is the Gospel of Jesus Christ proclaimed through the local church."

"We are not called to build a big church, we are called to build a Kingdom."

SEND Geoff Surratt

Geoff is a multisite guru that has been a part of Seacoast Church, Saddleback and has written extensively on the topic.  Below are some thoughts from SEND 2013.

Four crucial questions to ask before going MultiSite:

1) How healthy is your church?

•   Is it growing?
•  Are people finding their way back to God? (asking if people found Christ at 101)
• Are new disciples being made? (S.P.R.E.A.D.) Activity based tracking (surveys)

      2) What is the driving reason for going multisite?

• Three Drivers - Rapid Growth, Underserved Community, Visionary leader 

3) Are key leaders onboard?

• Multisite will NOT thrive as an aside to the church
• Jesus didn't get everyone on board, you can't get everyone on board 
• People don't know what they don't know (Sears- garage door openers, Apple iPod) 

4)  What Should you reproduce?

• What do you value?
• What are you uniquely good at?
• Of the things you are good at, what is reproducible?
• What do you do that you shouldn't reproduce?

Stu Hodges SEND (MultiSite)

Stu Hodges: is the Pastor of Water's Edge Church and is very passionate about the MultiSite Church.

Stu believes it is the most effective and efficient means of moving the church forward beyond anything we have discovered.

The Case For MultiSite:

• About 5000 current, 1650 mega churches
• 6million people attend multisite church
• 75 of 100 largest churches in North America are Multi Site
• 62 of 100 fastest growing churches are multisite
• Average church goes multi site at 850
• 360 is the average multi site campus attendance
• 1 in 3 multi sites are result of merger
• 1 in 10 have internet campus
• Only half utilize video
• About 15% of multi site churches have 4 or more geographic locations
• Majority are within 30 minute drive
• Multisite campuses have a 90% success rate!!
• Campuses are reporting more growth, baptisms, salvations and volunteers
• Multisite campuses usually becomes self sustaining financial 1-3 years
• Multi-site is the new normal

Practical Thoughts:

Utilizes the platform from LifeChurch.tv for their online campus.  Its completely free!

Multi-Site Changes everything!!  If it doesn't, your not doing it correctly!

• Only 10% of multi-site churches fail, one main reason they fail, is because sending campus doesn't change and adjust to include the receiving campus.

Multisite Is Not For Everyone:

1) Are you System and Process Oriented?

2) Is your strategy simple and reproducible?

Craig Groshel "What we do at one, we do at all, if we can't, we kill it"

3) Are you willing to release control?

4) Is momentum on your side?  -- If your not growing, don't do it.

5) Can you make the financial investment?

Waters Edge opens a campus with 4 staff:  (pastor, worship, kids, volunteers)

6) Are you raising up leaders?

7) How strong is your brand? -- What are the things that you HAVE to reproduce?

The Campus Pastor is the Key:

These are the leaders who own the vision of the church.  They are absolutely essential!

Multisite takes men and women and increases their leadership capacity.

Video Teaching Works:

Most people don't care....in Stu's experience, more people have responded via video then even when its live!!

Multisite is Financially Efficient:

Many of our costs can be a shared cost!

Multisite = Growth

Numerically, financially, makes it easier to invite people, leadership, reproduces leaders, spiritual growth (its not about me mentality)