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What do a table full of blind people sitting in a restaurant have in common? Turns out, a lot.

On a recent trip I had a unique opportunity to observe a large group of blind women and men having breakfast at the hotel where I was staying.  Luckily I was also in earshot and could hear the conversation.  Although listening in did make me feel a little guilty, I was glad I could do so without being noticed :) and honored for the unique opportunity to be a spectator of their conversation.

As I jotted a few notes & quotes in my Moleskin it occurred to me that what I was observing and hearing could also be applied to building and managing teams in a church.

Here are five things that I observed from the blind people at the table that can also relate to building and managing teams in a church:

1. They were in sync. The blind people at the table moved things around the table as one. Plates were moved, drinks were refilled, and salt & pepper passed with ease. It was obvious that their working together was part of their plan for success. It’s the same with church teams – moving forward together as one is important to success.
2. Mistakes will be made. One of the highlights for me was when I overheard a girl say loudly to a guy, “You know when you started the fire in the kitchen and all the alarms went off? That was so funny!” When she said the whole table erupted in laughter because they all were part of the story. Successful church teams understand that mistakes are okay and part of learning to be successful.
3. Laughter builds community. The blind people at the table did not act like they had any negative challenges. They laughed – often and loud!  To be honest they were the only ones in the stuffy and somber restaurant that were having loads of fun. Church teams that don’t laugh often and loud are missing out on true community and some of what’s most important in life.
4. Each person has their role. It was obvious that each member of the blind people at the table knew what they were best at and what their role was. One guy was great at hearing where the waiter was and flagging them down, and another was always asking who needed a refill and passed the coffee jug around with ease.  Understanding who is best at what is an important part of a successful church team.
5. Grace must be given. Things did not go perfect for the blind people at the table. Things were spilled, dropped, and knocked over. But no one stopped and focused on that, they just kept right on going with their mission – eating and enjoying each others company.

It was fun enjoying a moment in time with the blind people at the table. I was encouraged by their zest for life and inspired to live my life focused more on chilled quality, and less on rigid quantity. Hope you are too!

I have a hate-love relationship with flying.

The hate part comes from the fact that I don’t like heights so much. I get freaked out just being on top of a ladder, and as I’ve gotten older it has not gotten any better.

But I love flying too. So much so that a kazillion years ago I signed up to take flight lessons, took two, promptly ran out of money, started a family, and well the rest is non-history. I’m still an airplane nut, so much so that when I hear an airplane overhead I stop what I’m doing and look up.  And when we lived in Colorado I would drive to a local corporate jetport to have lunch in the grass while watching the planes. To me those corporate jets represented vision and they were filled with people changing the world.

That’s why I was excited when my new friend Randy Harmon asked me to go fly.  Randy’s growing company Harmony Air Charter in Nashville helps walk people through the process of learning to fly, and if they choose all the way through to purchasing an airplane.  As a Certified Flight Instructor Randy is a teacher at his core. Because he is a teacher Randy did not just take me for an airplane ride, he also gave me a hands-on flying lesson. He took the time to walk me around the airplane during his pre-flight checks, and he talked me through every aspect of the flight. It was not just an airplane ride, it was an experience.

That flying experience also taught me FIVE CHURCH PLANTING LESSONS FROM FLYING:

1. Learn first-then apply: When you fly an airplane its real important that you learn to fly before you take off on your first solo flight.  That would seem to go without saying, but just as sure as sugar tastes sweet the only thing that’s keeping some hot-shot pilot wannabes from taking off before they know how to fly is -the law. Likewise, when you plant a church it’s important to learn first, then apply. As a church planter I’m charged with learning what it takes to plant a church. To be sure I’ve had some lack of learning misfires, and the journey to plant Studio Church has at times been one step forward and two steps back. I make no assumptions about having arrived, and am committed to continual learning.

2. Teach always: Church planters (and flight instructors) are leaders and leaders are by default -teachers. On my flight Randy was constantly teaching. He engaged me, and took me along on his adventure. He made no move without carefully explaining what and why he was doing it. True leaders share what they learn. If you are not committed to teaching don’t attempt to plant a church or to teach someone to fly.

3. Commit fully: One of the things that Randy taught me was that the takeoff is the most critical and the most dangerous part of the flight. When you take off you must push the throttle forward and commit -fully. Church planting takes a full commitment too. It’s not a part-time gig. You must commit fully.

“Flying With Randy” from Studio Church on Vimeo

4. Enjoy the view.  There comes a time to throttle back, relax, and enjoy the view. Randy leveled our flight off at 2000 ft. The view of the Cumberland River was incredible, and the blooming Bradford Pear trees from the air were gorgeous. Church planting is a long push in the same direction. It’s not a 5 day/40 hour a week job. It’s a “I’m willing to bust my butt 7 days a week/24 hours a day/and do whatever it takes” job. But at the same time it’s vital to remember you’re in a marathon not a sprint. To last in a marathon you must pace yourself and schedule times to chill and enjoy the view.

5. Know when to land. Whether flying or church planting, it’s important to know when to make a decision to quit. As church planters, our landing moments come when we make a strategic decision to cut our loses and regroup. Outreach ideas and strategies should be flexible and not set in concrete. If they don’t work it’s okay to land so you can refuel and prepare to launch again.

Our family has grown up inserting WWJD (What Would Jesus Do) into all sorts of situations and have always tried to run our decisions through the filter of God’s Word.  Now we’re up to our eyelids in dreaming, learning, and strategizing how to reach our community through a new church we are planting.

The crazy thing is that our culture is changing and the target is moving. People are choosing not to attend church in greater numbers every year. Bests estimates say that in our area (greater Nashville, TN) the number of people choosing not to attend church on Sunday is approaching 70%. 70%!! Every time I say that number it sends an arrow through my heart. I find myself asking over and over not only how can that be, but what the heck are we going to do about it?

Back to Jack. My wife loves the show 24. Maybe love is not the right way to say it. My wife is totally addicted to 24 and needs help! She is a genuine 24 nut, and each week I choose to be her companion nut and watch it too.

The other day I had an interesting thought. If Jack Bauer was given the assignment to reach the 70% of people in our community who attend no church, WWJD (What Would Jack Do)?

Here’s what I think.

Jack would:

• Go after those far from God with a zeal and passion.
• Live life like time was very short.
• Try different ways to reach these dear people, and when one way didn’t work, he would try another.
• Not listen to his critics, even a little.
• Ask people over and over to step up and do really hard stuff.
• Say “thank you” a lot.
• Do more. Discuss less.
• Say “fine” a lot.
• Bounce back quickly.
• Keep his sights on the main target and his eyes on the goal.
• Not let someone who bailed stop forward progress. He would learn, adjust, and keep moving.
• Never sit down to eat or go to the bathroom.

Okay maybe the last one is a stretch, but if we are going to reach people who don’t yet care, maybe asking what would Jack do is not such a bad idea.

Question: What do you think?  What would it take to get people who don’t care about attending church on Sunday to attend?

All right, this post is getting out a little later than expected because I hit yet another snag in my quest to find the right online giving option for our new church plant. But I regress, now back to the story…

I have spent two, make that three, weeks researching the right online giving solution for our new church.

I never imagined 1) there would be so many options, 2) that it would take so stinkin’ long to sort through all of them!

I’ve included below a list with a few notes of the online giving solutions I discovered and considered. The purpose of the list is not to offer an in depth analysis, but to present a general overview with a few details that may assist if you have yet to go through this process – and you should go through this process. But before the list, a couple of things:

It’s my belief that online giving is a critical, non-optional, piece to church planting success. But not just any solution will do.

Here’s why:

• The interface must be friendly/easy to use both for the giver and the new understaffed church.
• It must look reputable. Of course it must be reputable, but people will not trust it and use it if the company does not look good online.

A couple of things to keep in mind:

• Although I’m not a finance guy and don’t want to be a finance guy, I do care, a lot, about finances as it relates to church planting.
• For those of you who have made online giving your ministry and/or business – THANK YOU! I put the miracle of online giving right up there with the calculator. You provide an incredible service that is making a huge difference.

Here’s the online giving options I discovered during my research along with a few notes.

I’ll start with the ones we liked the most:

1. eGive (www.egive-usa.com)  This is the company/ministry that overall we liked the most if we are just considering the online giving piece.  Here’s why:

• They gave us the best response from my initial inquiry email.
• Customer service is way above normal. They have a marketing edge like a company hungry for new business, yet they are relaxed in tone and courteous in responses.
• Dialog was not overly business, but was friendly.
• Although we are a just starting church with a limited budget, we were not treated small.
• We were sent an extra email with very well explained details + the forms to sign to get going right away.
• During our research we found several other churches we greatly respect that were also using eGive.

2. Fellowship One (www.fellowshiptech.com). In the movie Open Range, Boss Spearman (played by Robert Duvall) talks about what type of gun he prefers and says “I like a pistol with some heft.” Fellowship One has a lot of heft. This all-in-one church managment system includes a great online giving component. The backend of this technology is extremley effective and deep. Although it requires a good amount of time to learn, from what I’ve heard its well worth it. Hope we can use these folks one day. **Special note: They offer a special price to church planters/new churches.

3. Church Community Builder (www.churchcommunitybuilder.com). Another church management system that also includes online giving. I really liked the look and interface of this solution. Could end up using them one day. **Special note: They offer a special price to church planters/new churches.

Here’s the others that we looked at. They may be great solutions, but we choose to not go very deep in researching them for a variety of options.

4. Ministry Give (www.ministrygive.com). Mobile giving, kiosks, the works.

5. MyTithe (www.givemytithes.com).  Mobile giving, iPhone app, and more.

6. Qgiv (www.qgiv.com).

QUESTION: Are you using online giving? Which online giving solution do you like?

I love Seth Godin. The content of his brain is always pushing me and challenging me to view life from a different angle.

His new book (movement?) is titled  Linchpin: Are You Indispensable?

Seth is adding videos from Linchpins that he features on his Vimeo page.

I love this Linchpin video from Gary Vaynerchuk (Gary Vee).  He says that to be indispensable you have to “crush it.” I like that. Our passion and dream for Studio Church the church we are starting in greater Nashville is that in our community Studio will become a Linchpin, an indispensable part of our city.

Here’s Gary’s video:

QUESTION: Are you indispensable? Want to be? How?

The role of parents is important to kids and to church planters.

My childhood was anything but normal and healthy is not a word I use to describe it. My parents split up (the term used back then) when I was five years old. Even though I was so young, I vividly remember three things from the day my parents split up. 1. My mom throwing breakable items across the room, 2. My dad putting my brother and I into his Ford Galaxie and saying as we were pulling out of the driveway “You are coming to live with me.” 3. As we were driving away from the home I knew, standing up on the back seat of the car and leaning over the front bench seat  (back when seat belts were not required).

My church planting experience thus far has faced similar parental challenges. To be a healthy church plant you need healthy adoptive parents that come in the form of an existing church that provides the nurture needed for the new church to start well . So far our plant has not found a parent church. Blame it on the economy, or that I don’t fit the normal criteria for a church planter (and never will as our mission is to reach the non-normal people that choose not to attend any church). Whatever the reason we have yet to find a parent for our church plant, but as with any child waiting for adoption we hope one day soon we will.

Parents are important to a church plant because they help provide the right nutrients for growth including one or more of the following:

• Coaching – The #1 thing a new church planter needs is knowledge. A church planter needs to know what others know who have traveled that way before. They need their parent church to share their worn and tattered map with them which will help navigate the new church to its desired mission destination.
• People – One of the things that has been a surprise to me as an FTP (first time planter) is how many churches are not willing to share their people with a new church plant. In reality church planters are signing up to become new parents, and new parents need kids that can help get the new family started. Believe it or not, if a church leader called me and said “We heard you’re starting and new church and would like to let our people know so they can pray about being a part” I would probably fall face forward into the mud. Listen, I get all of the reasons why a church might not become a parent to a church plant, but maybe it’s time we quit being so protective of “our” people and take a risk for the sake of the gospel and the lost. The REALity is that I’ve never heard of a church that sowed people into a new church plant that did not reap a harvest of people and money that far exceeded their investment. The Spirit of God is well able to replace the people a church sows into a new church plant, and we all know that God never gives us less than we give, always better.
• Facilitiess – Man, it is tough to find an affordable  place where a new church launch team can start meeting and grow to 30-50. The ideal place for a new baby church to start is within an existing church that is serving as their parent. But if the parent church is not willing to sow people into that new church that relationship will become an awkward impossible situation for the planter. As a church planter you have to find people who are willing to help and cannot afford to be walking on your tip-toes wondering if someone in the parent church will be offended if you share your vision with someone in their church. It is better not to have a parent church than one that is not fully supportive.
• Money – For a planter, a little money can go a long ways. But money to a planter is more than money. It’s a personal telegram that says we care. It’s amazing how even a small amount of money can bring the courage a planter needs to keep going.

Church plants, like kids, need parents. Being a church planter is not only one of the greatest jobs on the planet, but it is also one of the most important. The local church is truly the hope of the world because it is the catalyst that pushes the hope of the Gospel into new places. Stat’s prove that new churches reach new people and I believe just as with human parents, God’s intended church planting model is for older existing churches to become parents that help new church plants get a healthy start.

QUESTION: What experiences do you have with church planting? What have you seen work?

Michael Lukaszewski, lead pastor of Oak Leaf Church and initiator of  Launch And Lead has been helping church planters for some time. Michael helps churches by sharing information. He puts out in other words. He puts out the knowledge he has gained so that others can learn from him and his team. He has been one of my long distance coaches for a long time.

Recently I asked him via a comment posted on Launch And Lead: “How can a church plant get the word out about their church when 1) advertising dollars are very tight and we can’t do postcard mailings, 2) when the community you live in has sign laws that prevent you from using yard signs.”

I thought others might be interested in Michael’s 7 Steps (below).

1. Make road signs and have people put them in their own yards.

2. Print simple flyers (you can get nice full-color ones online for cheap) and get a group of your people to put them on doors personally. The most expensive part of postcards is the postage.

3. Print up some t-shirts and ask your people to them around town on a certain day or give your people bumper stickers for their cars. Or have them write with shoe polish on their windows.

4. Print business card size invites to a series (less than $50) and teach your people how to use them. Personal invitations are the absolute best way to invite people to church. About 75% of our first time guests come because they are personally invited.

5. Go through your budget and cut some internal stuff and use it on getting people there. My guess is that you could cut somewhere. You may need to sacrifice something you think is necessary to free up some money to get people to church.

6. Hire The Change Group to help you generate more operational revenue.

7. Make sure your church service is amazing. Somehow, people show up at what is good.

QUESTION: How do you get the word out about your church?

I had an interesting conversation recently with someone who made the comment that some new church plants have “celebrities” that endorse their new church plants thus helping them raise funds. These solicited high profile people help them connect with other people of influence in order to accomplish their mission. Not a bad strategy, but I must confess that the term “celebrity” as it relates to church planting did give me pause. That is, until I realized that I too have my own rock stars of church planting.

I call them my coaches. These are the people that have agreed to take time out from their busy schedules to meet with me and allow me to pick their brains on a variety of topics. What sets a real coach apart is that they are willing to share knowledge, and knowledge is incredibly valuable to a church planter. Without these coaches, I am limited to my own experiences, knowledge, and view of things. Not a pretty site!

My coaches include church finance experts, Christian business people, and pastors of newer growing churches both locally and in other parts of the country (can you tell me who is missing from this list?).

But check this: There is a BIG difference between true church plant coaches, and people who simply dispense church plant information. Along the way I have received lots of information, but what is most valuable to me as a new planter is the coach who really cares about me as a player. How do you tell the difference?  A true coach does not ignore the player. They take every opportunity to coach. Why? Because they are truly care!

Advise dispensers are everywhere. They’ll give you just enough information to make them feel like they helped, and to get you off their back. They are famous for not replying, and for five words or less email responses. A coach on the other hand looks for opportunities to coach, to pour into a planter’s life in order to make them better. They are BIG picture minded and no matter how busy they are, they take the time to engage the player.

This side of heaven my church plant coaches will have no idea how much they have helped me and the people our church will reach. They are my church plant rock stars!

Question: Do you have any rock star coaches in your life?

Last night while in bed I was praying/wrestling with God about why he asked me to plant Studio Church. I was going through my LONG list of why I should not be doing it. I’m not qualified, I’m not smart enough, I’m too old to start a new venture, I don’t have enough courage, there is a chance it could fail (again), people have told me over and over a different kind of church like this is not going to work, etc, etc. Then, all of a sudden, cutting through all of my garbage thinking came five words: “It is to glorify me.” At once I realized that planting Studio Church has very little to do about me, and everything to do about God. He will get the glory no matter what the outcome is. Throughout history God has used (for his glory) people who are not qualified, not smart enough, people that have little courage. If it should fail, I will praise him. If it succeeds, then the praises of my lips and the lips of all of those that find encouragement and hope through Studio Church will praise him. Win-win regardless.

It’s not about anything but glorifying our great and awesome God. That REALity set me free. It took a ton of pressure off and I praise him for that. Now, back to work… planting Studio Church!