This fall, six couples joined Kaleo Church’s eight week pre-marriage class. The remarkable thing is, only one of these couples had attended Kaleo for more than three-months prior to the class. The other couples sought out a church because they decided to get married. Marriage is one of those events that cause people to reflect on their life, and frequently, people want to find a church to help them in this season. These people often bring (drag?) their non-Christian fiancé to church with them. It is in this moment, that the church has a great opportunity to communicate the gospel. In our case, two of those who attended became Christians while in the class.

Pre-marriage classes are just one of the many opportunities your church has to gather people into Kingdom mission. There are numerous windows in people’s lives such as pregnancy, moving, job loss, children growing up, marriage, death, counseling, etc. But let me explain how 10 people joined our church using pre-marriage as the example. Several months ago, Kaleo created a page on our website about San Diego pre-marriage counseling. When couples in our area search for san diego pre-marriage counseling, Kaleo ranks #1 on Google [and who doesn't use Google?]. It is through this that all five of the couples found us on the internet. (More couples contacted us but opted against our 8-week Pre-Marriage course once they learned about our adherence to Scripture).

This is just one technique to use the internet for the spread of the gospel.

Case Study: How you can gather people to your church through search engine optimization for premarriage or any other ideas.

Crazy article I saw while researching an article I am writing for the San Diego Reader….
A group of atheists at the University of Texas in San Antonio is trying to tempt college kids into trading their Bibles for pornography. It’s part of a program called Smut for Smut sponsored by the student organization called Atheist Agenda. On Monday, MSNBC’s Tucker Carlson welcomed the group’s president, Thomas Jackson, to ‘The Situation.”

Full article @ MSNBC: Trading bibles for porn

Goodmanson.com was added to PlanterBlogs.com… PlanterBlogs.com is an aggregator of the personal blogs of a diverse group of church planters. It is an opportunity for current and potential church planters to learn from the experiences of their peers. This collection of blogs is meant to offer a range of views in planting style, personality, and theological background.

Calvin has always had a profound impact on my life. I recall when I was in 5th grade, one of my first book reports centered on Calvin. While I was young, I felt like I could live vicariously through his life and trevails. With my birthday coming up, my family got together and purchased the complete works of Calvin, much to my surprise. My encouragement to people working in the ministry is to get to know and appreciate some time reading Calvin & Hobbes by Bill Watterson, it’s a necessary break in the labors of the ministry.

Mars Hill received a 5-page spread in the new Blender Magazine

The Emo-Driven Life
Churches like Mars Hill in Seattle are quietly upending conventional notions of Christian rock by featuring devotional bands with an indie-rock sensibility—and the tattooed hipsters are turning up by the thousands.

Article only in the print magazine, you’ll have to pick up the December issue to read it.

The Condition of the Church in America
Complied by Andy McAdams

1. 1,400 pastors in America leave the ministry monthly.
3. Only 15% of churches in the United States are growing and just 2.2% of those are growing by conversion growth.
4. 10,000 churches in America disappeared in a five-year period.
17. Only 60% of Christians say they are deeply committed to their faith
21. Just 1/3 of church attendees believes that they have a personal responsibility to share their faith with others.

From Mondy Morning Insight Weblog: Read Full List The State of the Church: 2006

I attended the National Outreach Conference for my San Diego Reader Job (see Outreach Article). At the conference, while at a seminar led by Nelson Searcy, Breaking Attendance Barriers, a coupon was handed out for Searcy’s website.

About the Author
Nelson Searcy is the founding pastor of The Journey Church of the City in New York, NY. The Journey is an innovative, multicultural, multi-site church in Manhattan and is one of the fastest growing churches in the Northeast. Nelson previously served as the Director of The Purpose Driven Community at Saddleback Church. He is also founder of EpicAdventures.org and Smartleadership.com.

With coupon in hand, I purchased the Breaking the 125 Barrier CD for $5. The 45 min seminar offers a collection of pratical insight on how to ‘break through the 125 person barrier’ at a church. Here is the description on the website:

This CD contains teaching, motivation and ideas for breaking the 125 attendance barrier. Learn how to structure your staff, your budget and your church for dynamic growth. This CD includes:

* Why break the 125 barrier
* The challenge of 125
* The shift from Pastor-Shepherd to Pastor-Leader
* The pastor’s role in breaking 125
* The good, bad and ugly of breaking 125
* The top two decisions you must make to break 125
* The three big challenges in breaking 125
* The top 10 proven ideas for breaking 125

Searcy says the top three challenges at this size are Space, Small Groups and the Pastor.

Space: Have you identified a place that can grow you to 250 people? Meaning it will need to seat nearly 350 people based on Searcy’s 70% full principle.
Small Groups: Searcy says a church will need at least 12 small groups to break through the 125 level.
Pastor: Do you believe it is God’s will for your church to grow? Do you want your church to grow? Are you willing to do whatever it takes to make this happen?

Searcy then provides 10 Ideas for Churches Break 125. In this, he offers suggestions like:

2. A pastor needs to transistion from a pastor shepherd to a pastor leader.
5. You will need to hire staff. “I have never hired staff with the money in the bank,” said Searcy. Hiring has to occur before the growth, done in faith.

These are just two of Searcy’s suggestions. On the CD Searcy offers eight other suggestions ranging from practical “to get irregular visitors to become regular, start a special series” to spiritual “always remember the harvest”. Where Searcy stops, he offers book suggestions to provide more depth in particular areas. (Sample book suggestions include: The E-Myth, Now, Discover Your Strengths and Next Generation Leader.)

Often the subject of church growth is frowned upon by those who say, “Why can’t you just preach the gospel and not be concerned with systems, space and business principles in the church?” Recently, I got in a conversation about these issues with another church leader. The reality is, even the early church had to change when Peter preached and 3000 people converted, they never met in the same upper room again. We all have processes and systems that are in place. Our God is a God of order, meaning there is good stewardship and serving of God’s people and bad ways to do it.

Many people who attend Kaleo Church for the first time are consumers. (They live in San Diego in the year 2005, how could they not be with the way our culture trains them?) They want to find a church that does things to their own preferences. Either we can stick our nose up at them and say “we’ll they should repent and sit quietly to hear the preaching of the Word the way we do it”, yet I believe churches have a responsibility to teach new people the reality of our sinful consumeristic hearts, and that doesn’t happen (typically) the first time they walk through your doors. Meaning, there is an element that we must be aware of the background of people who visit our churches and love/disciple them to a point of maturity in these areas. We need to build in systems and processes to think about how to lead people and set-up an environment that accomodates growth (hopefully through missional congregants converting those around them).

About this CD: Much of what is offered is common sense. Those who have relationships with church planting organizations (for us, Acts 29) these ideas have probably already been communicated through formal training or informal relationships. For those who don’t have these types of resources at hand, Searcy provides a resource to ‘check your sanity’ and think about the practical challenges of growing a church.

church, church growth, church planting

Also see: The TurnOut Solution: Solving the Problem of Plateau and Decline
Breaking Attendance Barriers

Hopefully this means Acts 29 will continue to aggressively plant churches worldwide:

As chairman of the board for newly formed Vision USA, Mr. Weiss aims to raise $300 million over the next 10 years for aggressive church planting in 50 of the country's most influential cities. The project is well underway in Orlando, where several million dollars of grant money will help open eight to 10 churches by the end of the year. Preliminary efforts have also begun in Seattle, Sacramento, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Denver, Nashville, Charlotte, New York, and Washington, D.C.

…it goes on to read…

Mark Driscoll, pastor of Mars Hill Church in Seattle and founder of the nondenominational Acts 29 church-planting network, is among a growing list of prominent leaders to join Vision USA, each hoping to combat the roughly 2,500 church deaths in the United States every year. "Church planting is hot right now," he told WORLD. "For years, guys wanted to get out of seminary and go get a church that had a nice salary and would call them pastor. Today, young entrepreneurial guys don't want to take over a church. They want to start one."

Full Article: Disney executive moonlights as director of church-planting effort (Registration Required)

Here is another book I’m ordering: Visioneering : God’s Blueprint for Developing and Maintaining Personal Vision

Vision is a preferred future. A destination. Vision always stands in contrast to the world as it is. Visioneering, according to bestselling author Andy Stanley, is “a clear mental picture of what could be, fueled by the conviction that it should be.” With warm, down-to-earth practicality, Andy Stanley explores the ordinary life of Nehemiah and his God-given vision for accomplishing the extraordinary. He shows how the life of this great ancient visionary, determined to rebuild the ruined walls of Jerusalem, reveals principles that can prepare us to find and follow God’s multifaceted vision for our own lives.

Simply Strategic Growth: Attracting a Crowd to Your Church is another book I’m getting. I’ll start off by saying, this book makes me a little nervous but I’m curious to see what it says. I’ll hope to have a review for you all when I complete it. Some of their recommendations include:
* Address specific needs. Like marriages, raising families, money, fulfillment, etc.
* Make children a priority. Granger is well known for their incredible children’s ministry.
* Raise the energy level of worship.
* Give people hope. Grace, not condemnation. People should leave challenged, but encouraged.
* Offer multiple services regardless of how full your church is.

Here is a book I’m planning on reading. As we begin this next year at Kaleo, prayer is our only answer for the vision we feel God has for us. I’ve had a couple people recommend this book. Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire : What Happens When God’s Spirit Invades the Hearts of His People

Twenty-five years ago, Cymbala, worn out from pastoring two congregations, devoted himself solely to the dwindling band of worshipers at ramshackle Brooklyn Tabernacle. Today, the old building has been replaced, there are 6,000 worshipers at four Sunday services, the church choir wins Grammies and sings for Billy Graham’s crusades, and Cymbala is asked to speak all over the world about how he did it. Although he believes he didn’t do it–God did–Cymbala does have a secret: the church is first and foremost a house of prayer, he says, a place where souls can call on God. Accordingly, Cymbala established Tuesday-night prayer meeting as the most important church function (later, church members began a “Prayer Band” to intercede round the clock for all and sundry). With professional Christian writer Merrill’s help, Cymbala tells not his church’s story as much as the stories of individual souls whose saving illustrates the truth of his testimony that God responds to prayer made in repentance and faith. Cymbala considers his work part of the revivalist tradition of nondenominational Christian evangelism, and he cites 300 years’ worth of the great revivals and revivalists often, adding greater interest to a book that voices some of the oldest Christian wisdom with the vivid immediacy of telling tomorrow’s news.

Any other recommendations of books to grow faith and focus on prayer in the ministry?

New Kaleo Church Website…coming soon. We’ve built the framework (nice web standards/css) for the new site. It’s going to be nice to finally move from table based designs on this one. We’re moving all the content now into the Ekklesia System (this is saying a lot when you have 100’s of articles and sermons!). But man, is it going to make life easier when we’re using ES from now on. Also, the url’s will be rewritten so instead of

/teaching/teaching.php?content=the-gospel-and-our-finances.html
/teaching/the-gospel-and-our-finances/

Which will have an added bonus for ease of use and SEO.

Ok, now throw out some suggestions. What does every church website need? What do you think is critical to have on the home page for visitors? I’d love to hear your comments as we finalize it. Also, if you have any great graphic design people who want to throw their hat in the ring, I’d love some cool images….

I just got an advanced reader copy of Chazown. It should be an interesting read about Pastor Craig Groeschel, who planted a church that is now multi-site.

Chazown Book Description
Vision and Purpose: Dream It, Live It, Attain It Do you wake up each day motivated by knowing exactly why you were created? Guided by intention in every step? Enter: chazown. Hebrew for “vision,” God wants to give His for you, and this book will reveal it! Living God’s dream will rock your world and align every area of your life from your relationships to your finances and health. Chazown is packed with storytelling graphics, in-your-face honesty, bite-sized chapterettes, step-by-step guidance, surprising self-assessments, and scarcely containable energy in a fast-paced style that will drive you forward with purpose! Craig Groeschel cowrote this book, but he’s waiting for his partner - you. Because only you can discover how the book ends and the rest of your life begins…

About Craig Groeschel (Author)
Craig Groeschel is the founding and senior pastor of LifeChurch.tv, one of the country’s first multi-campus churches, with twenty-three weekly worship experiences at five locations. Craig, his wife, Amy, and their six children live in the Edmond, Oklahoma, area where LifeChurch.tv began in 1996. Craig and Amy’s passion, to lead people to become fully devoted followers of Christ, is the driving force behind his down-to-earth teaching that touches thousands of people weekly. Craig earned his BA in marketing from Oklahoma City University and his MDiv from Phillips Theological Seminary

NOTE: The book is scheduled to be released March 4, 2006.

I've begun reading a book by Pastor Tim Keller (Redeemer NY) and I highly recommend it. Ministries of Mercy: The Call of the Jericho Road is a dose of what every church needs as we move toward bringing the gospel to our communities in the form of mercy in serving and social justice. This book is a must read.

I'm sure many of you have seen this: Hi, I'm a casting director with Bunim-Murray Productions (Real World, Starting Over, The Scholar), and I'm currently working on a TV show about a pastor who is starting a new church. I found your church information on the Emergent Church website and since this is the type of church we'd like to document I thought you may have some good suggestions for pastors who are hoping to start a new church in the coming year. We are still in the developmental stage of this process, but we're looking for a dynamic pastor that we can follow as he plants a church over the course of the year. Some of the costs for the first year will be covered by our production company. If this is something of interest to you or if you can recommend someone else with whom I could speak, please feel free to email or call so that we can discuss this further. Thanks for your time. Best, Jaye Pace Casting Director Bunim-Murray Productions [EDIT : I omitted the Contact Information.]