2011 Church Leaders, Web, Mission & Planting Conferences
These are the conferences I am scheduled to speak at this year through May, 2011 (except the first Mission conference where Goheen/Fairchild are leading). I will add the second half of the year later, where I’ve committed to speak at: Echo Media Conference, First Covenant Sacramento Mission retreat, GCM Collective in Huntsville, AL and may present at the NRB Research Symposium. Would love to connect with you if you are going to any of these and stay tuned as a few more trips may be added.
Mission: More then a Slogan
March 11-12th, San Diego
This conference is intended to help planters, pastors, and leaders better navigate through the minefield of competing missional ideas while remaining faithful to the rich story-line of the bible.
Christian Web Conference 2011 | Biola UniversityCWC / 2011 – Christian Web Conference. Affiliated with The Imagination Summit. At Biola University / April 14–16. The Christian Web Conference is designed to equip individuals with the vision, knowledge, and relationships that are necessary in order to be thoughtful practitioners and consumers of developing web technologies
Hawaiian Islands Ministry Honolulu March 24-26, 2011 | Hawaii Convention Center – Save the dates, more information to come but I will be doing three sessions, two on technology and one on creating gospel communities on mission.
CLA Conference April 25-28th in Dallas, TX. Join us in April to the Ministry Internet & Technology Summit (MITS) during the 2011 Christian Leadership National Conference. MonkDev hosts this summit at the CLA National Conference because in our experience, it is great for equipping ministry leaders like you in the range of skills and knowledge needed to navigate the challenges of leading ministry in the future. With more than 120 workshops in 14 tracks, 25 full-day seminars and cutting-edge summits this is truly a one-of-a-kind educational opportunity. Thousands of ministry leaders from across America will be there, and I’m hoping you’ll consider joining us too.
Exponential Conference April 26 – 29, 2011 in Orlando, FL.We are putting together the Exponential Communication & Technology sessions. Stay tuned for more details. The Exponential Conference and the Verge Conference are joining forces to host an historic, international event in April 2011. Join thousands of other church planting leaders for a time of inspiration, encouragement, equipping and challenging. Our theme is “Missional Communities: Discovering Old Truths in New Paradigms.” Regardless of your current approach (attractional, incarnational, mega, multi, micro, etc), you will be challenged to apply old truths and principles in fresh ways to reach those far from God.
Cultivate Conference May 4-5, 2011 at First Christian Church in Huntington Beach, CA. Cultivate is about bringing you together with the skilled, the experienced, and the insightful, and together you will drive the content. Together you will discover breakthrough insights. Cultivate is about organized conversations, and each conversation will be designed to nurture collaboration without confining the experience to a box. Expect to be stretched. Expect to be challenged. Expect to cultivate a new way of thinking. If you are creative, strategic, and responsible for influencing how your organization communicates, there is a chair waiting for you.
Christian Alliance for Orphans May 12-13, 2011 at Southeast Christian Church in Louisville, KY.
The Christian Alliance for Orphans unites more than 80 respected Christian organizations and a national network of churches. Working together, our joint initiatives inspire, equip and connect Christians to “defend the cause of the fatherless” in adoption, foster care and global orphan care. Through the annual Summit, the Orphan Sunday campaign and an array of other initiatives, we seek to help grow communities in the local church known for “defending the cause of the fatherless” (Isaiah 1:17).
Mission: More than a Slogan
Join us for Mission: More than a Slogan
This conference is intended to help planters, pastors, and leaders better navigate through the minefield of competing missional ideas while remaining faithful to the rich story-line of the bible.
Over the last 20 years churches have shown a growing interest in God’s mission through his church. This encouraging trajectory is not without its challenges. As the church explores and adopts a more missional posture, there is a growing discomfort that these practices have become another pragmatic growth strategy. Sadly, the term “missional church” is more commonly used as a slogan to indicate a trendy way of doing ministry rather than a deeply understood narrative running through Genesis to Revelation.
How can the church encourage its missional identity in a biblically faithful way? What are the unique contemporary challenges the church must grapple with? What biblical and missional history can we glean from? What influence does the emergent church literature have in shaping our missional understanding and practice? What idols must we avoid and what truths can we turn to so that our practices are arrived at through deep biblical reflection? These questions and more will be the focus of our time together.
Schedule
Friday, March 11
9:10a: Greetings
9:15a: Worship
9:30a: S1-Our Missional God: His Church in the World
11:00a: R1-Reflection Questions & Discussion
12:00p: Lunch
1:30p: S2-Our Missional Movement: Gathered and Scattered
3:00p: R2-Reflection Questions & Discussion
4:30p: Worship
Saturday, March 12
9:15a: Worship
9:30a: S3-Our Missions: The Church’s Horizon
11:00a: R3-Reflection Questions & Discussion
12:00p: Lunch
1:30p: S4-Our Missionary Encounter: Culture
3:00p: R4-Reflection Questions & Discussion
4:30p: Worship and Wrap-up
More details here at ChurchBootcamp.
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Furthering the Triperspectivalism Conversation
After David Fairchild spoke at the Soma 201 training in late 2010, he posted notes on Triperspectival Leadership with hopes that it will help leadership teams applying TriP. Wanted to reprint these to further the conversation:
The Danger of Overgeneralizing
Using TriP as a kind of quick profiling of personalities is not really helpful or healthy. The danger in any DISC or Meyers Brigg type of assessment is that it leaves out what can not be discerned on paper (e.g., human interaction through relationships in community, the work of discernment by way of the Holy Spirit, past performance, passions and aspirations). Making statements like, “oh, this person’s a priest, so they can’t…” or “they’re a king and we really need a…” is going to slow you down in the long run because (as we’ll see below) there are variances to consider within their perspective that may allow them to be a great fit for a role you wouldn’t have initially considered.
Also, I’ve heard of churches use the TriP language to all but shun one of the perspectives because they thought they knew what “type” of person was needed. This betrays the point of TriP, which is to see each perspective relying upon and informing the others. God is the only one who is omniperspectival. We need each perspective to help us develop in our own area of weakness. Additionally, as you mature you move closer to the center of the PPK triangle since you’re growing in Christlikeness by listening and applying truth from other perspectives.
Ok, enough of the warning label.
Drilling Down PPK
There are different kinds of prophets, priests and kings based on their secondary perspective. In fact, their secondary perspective is sort of like their delivery method. In other words, you might be a priest and enjoy counseling, but your secondary is king. So you enjoy working with people that need pastoral care by applying wisdom to their particular situation like finances or work related counsel. This is effortless and easy for a kingly priest, but not so for a priestly priest. Let’s break it down.
PROPHETS
Prophetic Prophet
Prophetic prophets are usually concerned about the precise clarity of the word preached. They are more concerned that what they’re preaching is true than whether or not it’s practical or inwardly transforming. Not that these aren’t concerns for them, it’s just not what they are most concerned with. Think of John Piper or John Macarthur. These types of prophets are really, really needed and helpful to ensure we don’t pragmatically slide or emotionally decide what is true and accurate. Accuracy, doctrinal soundness and precept upon precept are words a prophetic prophet is comfortable using. Of course, the tendency is to slip into a kind of intellectualizing of the Gospel if not shaped and informed by other perspectives.
Priestly Prophets
Priestly prophets connect existentially with their hearers. They are able to take truth and effectively move the emotions and affections of others through their communication. Tim Keller is an excellent example of a priestly prophet that is gifted in communicating to the heart. This doesn’t mean they aren’t still normatively oriented, but the vehicle they use to communicate truth is existentially oriented. We need priestly prophets in our church. They help us to grasp the feel of the passage and move us to worship. In fact, their goal in preaching is heartfelt worship over intellectual stimulation or practical application. Heart, affections, adoration, and feeling the presence of God are words and ideas priestly prophets are comfortable with.
Kingly Prophets
Kingly prophets are excellent at vision casting and communicating strategy. They motivate by showing what God is like and what He wants His people to do. They are greatly concerned with the application of the word in the life of a Christian and community. They labor to make sure you see how this passage is worked out and applied. In fact, they’ll often think that unless the truth is proven by their life, no matter how much they claim to emotionally connect or intellectually understand, they haven’t yet grasped it. Examples, figures and facts are regularly used by kingly prophets. In my sphere of relationships, Mark Driscoll and Jeff Vanderstelt are excellent kingly prophets. Mark has tremendous gifts at vision casting and Jeff’s use of a white-board is legendary.
PRIESTS
Prophetic Priests
It’s easy to assume that priests are “nice guys” that help clean up the mess prophets make. However, there are different kinds of priests and when building a leadership team it’s important not to jump to conclusions about their ability to contribute to a specific need.
A prophet priest is someone that primarily processes through an existential grid yet is able to effectively communicate and bring the word to bear upon any given situation. This type of priest may actually have excellent communication skills and is able to use them to see grace renewal taking place. They use their secondary perspective to deliver their primary desire; a heart transformed by grace. In counseling, they may tend to be more monological than a priestly priest. For those who have been through gooey, “how did that make you feel when mommy spanked you?” kind of counseling, this is an excellent person to bring truth and see it believed in a counseling context. Think of Jay Adam’s as a prophetic priest. His primary concern for counsel and change is Christians thinking right thoughts. It’s no coincidence he wrote a book entitled A Theology of Counseling. If you’re ensuring that gospel-shepherding is happening in your church you probably want to discern if you’re looking for a prophetic communicator, a structural catalyzer or a gospel-counselor. If not, you might call someone to lead in a role they are not really suited for or competent in. Just being a priestly type isn’t sufficient. You have to ask yourself, “what kind of priest are they?”
Priestly Priest
A priestly priest is typically a great listener and someone who is quite concerned with leading others to feel right feelings in order to experience gospel-transformation. They are wonderful shepherds for those who have been “truthed” to death by their last church. They will usually have their finger on the pulse of the broken hearted in the church and will want to see change happen at a deep, deep relational level by encourage we listen more than speak. The idea of systems and structures are probably not going to be welcomed without a clear understanding of how the structure will serve to love the hurting. If you’re looking for someone to develop, communicate, and lead the church to engage in pastoral care, a priestly priest will need to be helped to accomplish this end. However, if you’re looking for someone to be a lead shepherd for gospel-counseling, they might be a perfect fit. They are a vital part of any church and should be cherished. We need priestly priests in our midst and shouldn’t be merely accepted but seen as vital to our health. Without them, our people may feel burned out and misunderstood. Priestly priests are much more concerned with individuals and are usually one-on-one, high-touch leaders. Helping priestly priests connect structure and truth-telling to their counseling will allow them to flourish. They will help us slow down, pray, listen and move slowly so that people are feeling loved and experiencing grace. Think of Dan Allender as a preistly priest. The Wounded Heart is a great book to grasp how a priestly priest thinks and counsels.
Kingly Priests
Kingly priests are not only concerned with shepherding the flock, they are able to effectively use structure and organization to accomplish their primary concern. They ensure the priestly function is flourishing in the church by organizing, managing and coaching other priests. They are also excellent when helping a saint apply the gospel to a particular situation. They are often concerned that you live out the gospel in your actions. In fact, they will usually counsel someone to live out their convictions until their heart catches up. They will help you walk out the implications of being changed by grace. Grace isn’t merely an abstract concept or inward feeling to them. Ed Welch and Paul Tripp are great kingly priests. Where a prophetic priest will help those who haven’t been given much truth and priestly priests will help those abused by so-called truth, a kingly priest will help someone who hasn’t been shown how the gospel is lived out in practice.
KINGS
Prophetic Kings
Prophetic kings are greatly concerned that the vision and cause are clearly communicated and understood. They won’t be content with structure unless it is connected to a greater value or truth. They are able to quickly problem solve issues of vision and values and can bring concrete clarity as they help to work out how this truth should “look” within the community. Prophetic kings are good communicators that can easily speak and teach about structure and help leaders think through bottlenecks at an organizational level. They enjoy casting vision and will typically thrive in an environment where they are asked to give a reason for why they do what they do and why others should follow. However, prophetic kings are not managers and may not be detailed. If you’re looking for someone to implement systems, a kingly king not prophetic king, will get you there. A prophetic king will help to initiate a project and then want to move on or find others to lead the needed components of that structure and manage it. A prophetic king will essentially tell you how a thing should work and what you should do to get it done. We need prophetic kings, especially when we’re in the process of change or attempting to launch a new initiative.
Priestly Kings
A priestly king is concerned with how the church is coming together and being organized for renewal and change. They’ll want to ensure the community clearly understands their function in a priestly way and that the church is organized to make space for gospel-shepherding. A priestly king won’t find the creation of structure enjoyable unless they connect it with loving people. They are highly relational kings and will help a church thrive that is needing to change in a way that isn’t disruptive. A prophetic king will tend to forget the feelings of others during change and structure, a kingly king might be pragmatic when helping a church change, but a priestly king will regularly push-back when they feel the structure won’t accomplish grace-renewal during change. This is needed since prophetic prophets tend to become convinced about a truth and then ask a king to create structure to accomplish their goal without properly caring for the people. We need priestly kings that will help our church to grow in loving service.
Kingly Kings
A kingly king will be concerned with the planning and execution of a church by laboring as an organizer, manager or coach. They thrive in an environment where they can be part of creating and leading structure. To them, if a church isn’t well organized, the vision it communicates and loving environment it creates is significantly hindered. This type of king is excellent at execution but will need to continually be brought back to why we’re doing what we do and what we’re trying to disciple in our people. Kingly kings are necessary to the church because they won’t let us get away with theorizing alone. They want will work towards concrete action and are naturally adept in probing to make sure we do what we say. They make great coaches because they help us to put our commitments to actionable steps. They also are great at gathering the necessary detail and facts before we pull the trigger on our initiatives. A church needing a theology of structure or a visioneering king may become frustrated if they expect this from a kingly king. Kingly kings may come across as either too practical or pragmatic, but if led well by others they can thrive as part of a team.
As you can see, it’s important that you assess someone appropriately before jumping to conclusions about where a person will fit within a leadership team. Also, I wouldn’t suggest you wait to move forward with a team until you find the perfect fit or exact kind of PPK your’e looking for. Instead, we should bless God with what He’s providentially given and simply be aware of the strengths and weaknesses as we move forward. Realizing this, we can enjoy the gifts and perspectives of one another and also the limitations so we don’t grow frustrated.
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Building an Organization to Last
Building a sustainable organization is much more difficult than you may assume. One of my goals in any new organization I’m involved with is to ensure it is ‘bigger than me’. As an entrepreneur this means you are not creating a company that provides you with a job but are building an organization that would continue on without you (Suggested Reading The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don’t Work and What to Do About It
Regardless of whether you are a church planter or an entrepreneur, recently I read a helpful book, called Predictable Success: Getting Your Organization On the Growth Track–and Keeping It There
Snapshot: ‘Predictable Success’ is the peak of the mountain, it’s what every organization does (or should) aspire towards. It is when everyone in the organization expects to succeed, where there is a healthy state of innovation and entrepreneurial new vision and the company has the necessary amount of systems and processes to help realize these expectations. It’s that state where the engine is tuned perfectly and you know that if you put gas in the tank, turn on the ignition, put it in gear, take off the brake, and press the accelerator – the organization will go forward.
The author, Les McKeown, breaks down an organizations state into 7 different phases that are:
- Early Struggle
- Fun
- Whitewater
- Predictable Success
- Treadmill
- The Big Rut
- Death Rattle
Here is a quick summary of these phases:
‘Predictable Success’ is the pinnacle, the top of the hill, what every new organization aspires towards. But let’s face facts, most businesses are born and die in the first one. In the ‘Early Struggle’, existence is all about finding the right customers with the right product or service and making a sufficient level of profit just to survive. It becomes ‘Fun’ when cashflow is positive and the business is succeeding and growing. But as the organization grows it reaches the ‘Whitewater’ – where the volume of orders and demands from customers exceed the organization’s ability to cope – fast and loose becomes fast and lost, and the organization begins to struggle because it needs more structure and process to cope with its own success. If the organization succeeds in establishing the systems and processes necessary to manage their growth, then they enter ‘Predictable Success’, but usually at some point organizations go too far with systems and processes and the culture and success of the organization begins to suffer. Left unchecked the organization falls into ‘The Big Rut’ – where people begin to work for the systems and processes instead of for the customers. And left unaddressed, companies in ‘The Big Rut’ will continue to bleed cash until they face the ‘Death Rattle’ and end up being sold or going bankrupt. Quote Source: Blogging Innovation
Reading this book caused me to reflect on my involvement in 6 church plants and 3 start-up companies since moving to San Diego CA in September of 2001. (Prior to that I started 2 companies in the 90′s and was at Mars Hill Seattle when it was relatively new at about 100 people). In all this time I’ve had some successes (eg. selling a couple companies) and failures (closing the doors on a couple companies) but all in all it’s been great to see the up’s and down’s first-hand and gain experience. But in many the phases cited by McKeown seem to hold true.
You can see this isn’t just for companies. As a church you can see how this impacts you. For example, what happens when your church grows too fast and how do you ‘process’ people? (Something I experienced at Mars Hill when they went through rapid growth, at the time I handed Driscoll a copy of the E-Myth) People can feel too systematized (treadmill) or miss opportunities to move into deeper community (whitewater).
We have experienced these phases acutely at Monk Development, Inc. (MonkDev). Many of you that read my blog are probably aware of this company (MonkDev) I began in 2003 to help church planters get a great website, but more than that, a total church web strategy. At the time, I wanted to help church planters like myself attract more visitors as well as deepen the relationship and communication with their existing community.
Since the launch of our Content Management System (birthed by Etienne de Bruin one of my two partners at Monk) we have grown from 0 to roughly 4,000 churches and ministries that use our technology to manage their presence on the web. Today, we serve large ministries like World Vision, one of the top-10 largest churches in American (Calvary Chapel Ft. Lauderdale launching soon!), church planters with 5 people in their basement and everything in-between. In this time we have gone from 0 to 20 people and this year we were recognized by the San Diego Business Journal as the 12th Fastest Growing Privately Held Company in San Diego County. With all this growth comes its share of problems. The year 2008 particularly was our ‘Whitewater’ experience. We were landing so many deals that we could not keep up with the growth and the lack of systems couldn’t keep up.
I am very thankful that this drove the leadership to seek help. In addition to prayer, this was the year I joined EO, James (our other partner who oversees operations) joined Vistage, Etienne joined the Web Leaders Collective, we brought in the 180 Group to help align us and we also were selected by the Chairmen’s Roundtable who served as a Board of Advisors for about 6-months. I really believe that by the grace of God we experienced all this pain to clarify our calling and work through very difficult circumstances as a team. It has not been an easy process at all, but it’s amazing what clarifying and unifying around vision and strategy does to the health of an organization. We agreed that: MonkDev seeks to redeem culture for the good of all using technology. We believe this means that we seek the good of our world primarily through serving the web needs of churches, non-profits and organizations that share our passion.
If you are building an organization, I recommend the above books. Also check out Small Giants: Companies That Choose to Be Great Instead of Big
GCM Collective Update
It’s been great to see the online community of GCM Collective grow to over 1,500 missional thinkers and over 10,000 people signed up on the mailing list. For those of you not involved here is a taste of what is going on:
Instead of doing a National Conference, we held GCM Everyday Austin 2010 a local conference that gathered over 300 missional thinkers in Austin. Our desire was to not have people fly from around the country, pay for hotels and the like, when we can host these GCM Everday’s in cities near you.
1. To help us plan where we host these, please put the city you are in under your Profile (if you haven’t already) so we can strategically plan these trainings. To edit your profile, click on profile on the sidebar under the “Hi, your name”.
2. To share some of these resources, we’ve created a new group called GCM Everyday Training. Go to http://gcm.cobblestonecn.com/group/browse/ to find this group & join. All the resources are an “open source” collection created by all of us in the www.gcmcollective.com. Feel free to take these resources and tweak them for personal use:
- Gospel Fluency – Jeff Vanderstelt
- 3 Marks of Gospel Community Formation
- 3 Steps for Gospel Community Multiplication
- Missional Community Leader Checklist
Lastly, join in the conversation. Recent topics include: [To participate you must sign-up at http://www.gcmcollective.com/community/ ]
- Rate of Multiplication
- Working in the tension between the ideal and the real
- Traditional to Missional
- Cell Church
- How Do We Contextualize Missional Church Resources For Our People and More…
- How do u teach the gospel to small kids?
- Immigration and the Kingdom
- Moving from Mercy to Justice Ministry
- Can Missional culture survive in a business model?
- Do we need to meet in groups?
- A communal life vs. a busy life
- Frontyard Parties
- equipping parents to disciple their children
- “Sending” Songs
- Launch strategy query
- What gospel-centered international local churches and/or missionaries would you recommend?
and many more! Remember, to participate you must sign-up at http://www.gcmcollective.com/community/
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Exponential Communication & Technology Track Sessions
Just finalized the Communication & Technology Track Sessions for Exponential 2011. If you do anything at a church, this is one conference you won’t want to miss!
Preconference Session: OUTSPOKEN: Conversations on Church Communications
Session facilitators include: Kem Meyer, Tim Schraeder, Justin Wise, and others.
The church has the greatest story ever told, unfortunately we don’t always do a great job of sharing it with others. In today’s hyper-connected world we need to know how to use mediums of today to communicate the timeless message of the Gospel in way that’s relevant to reach our culture. This prelab will bring together some of the leading voices that are shaping and influencing the ways churches communicate and give you the opportunity to discuss and dialogue how we can steward the opportunity we have to share the greatest story ever told with clarity.
These proven practitioners will share their insight, share how they’ve implemented significant change in their unique contexts and give you next steps to create a communications strategy for your church. All in attendance will receive a free copy of the forthcoming ebook OUTSPOKEN: Conversations on Church Communications, a collaborative ebook bringing together over 60 different voices to talk about the topic of church communications.
Breakout: The Story-formed Way: Making Disciples with Biblical Narrative and Dialogue
Speaker: Caesar Kalinowski
Is the Church speaking the language of the culture we find ourselves in? 2/3 of our planet is still illiterate, and a growing percentage of North Americans are becoming less literate. God’s story, and his interaction with man, was originally given as an oral document—a story. The Bible we have today is approximately 75% narrative. God has given us a way, for all generations, to communicate his great gospel—through story.
In this breakout we will look at the missional imperative of speaking the language of the culture and how this is being done through the use of biblical narrative to create, encourage and equip gospel communities on mission.
Breakout: Social Media for the Rest of Us
Speaker: Justin Wise
Author Clay Shirky says that we are a people “looking for a mouse.” As a society, we’ve come to expect interactivity in all that we do. What, then, do we do with a culture that expects interaction even while at church?
In this session, we’ll look at the “why?” and the “how?” of the social web. We’ll look at how you can build interactive communal experiences into the lifeblood of your church. We’ll demystify social media and see how we can harness the power of these new communication tools for the sake of the gospel. It’s social media for the rest of us.
Breakout: Reworking Church Communications
Speaker: Tim Schraeder
One of the challenges of managing church communications is knowing when you need to change. With the fast-paced culture of change we live in, being able, willing and knowing when to change is vital in staying connected with your audience. Oftentimes, conventional wisdom won’t work. Sometimes you need to REWORK how you’re communicating. Using principles and ideas adapted from the New York Times Best-Seller REWORK (Jason Fried, David Heinemeier Hansson), this session will challenge you to rework your church communications to effectively adapt your message to reach your audience
Breakout: Everything a Pastor needs to know about the Web
Speaker: Drew Goodmanson
We have all heard about the importance of a church website, social media and mobile. But how effective are these strategies really in being missional and gathering people? Learn from a 2010 study on “The State of the Church Online” involving numerous church websites & strategies where we learn what really is happening. Answer questions such as: What is an effective church website? Who is visiting your website? Where do these visitors coming from? What are best practices in design and outreach? Learn how to enhance your web ministry and impact hundreds, if not thousands of people. This valuable session will equip you with practical strategies that your church can implement whether you are an online expert or a beginner.
Breakout: Preaching on the Power and Peril of Social Media & Technology
Speaker: John Dyer
In a sermon on conflict, would you talk about email vs. face-to-face? In a sermon on giving, would you discuss the significance of writing a check vs. automatic draft? We don’t normally think about addressing technology like texting or social media in our sermons, but the people in our churches use these tools every day and they have a profound influence on everything from relationships to devotions. This session will give you a basic overview of media ecology (the study of how technology influences culture) and then use that knowledge to surface important issues you can address with your church to help them live God-honoring lives in our technological world.
Drew Goodmanson
CEO of Monk Development creators of Ekklesia 360. Co-Founder of Kaleo Church where I served as Pastor for 8+ years and helped coach several church plants in San Diego. Co-Founder of the GCM Collective, President of the Board at the Center for Church Communication, Board Member of the Entrepreneurship Organization, Internet/Technology Advisory Chair at the Christian Leadership Alliance. Connect
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