Fine-tuning YOUR SYSTEMS / breakout ORANGE 09

Diane Runge led a breakout here at the Orange Conference called "Fine-Tuning your Systems" We all hope our ministries can work better / flow better! Diane did a great job helping us think through the process of doing ministry in our churches and MAKING it work WELL...here is just one section from the breakout on dealing with BUDGET since we are all in hard financial times..

Ohhh...by the way, here is what a system is...
Systems = anything you need to do repetitively in order to accomplish the END GOAL and maximize your resources

How do we spend our BUDGETS…we can use these 5 principles to guide our spending. BECAUSE...SPENDING reflects of priorities! These are IN ORDER...

Nurturing Leadership // leadership development has to be a priority, we have to make sure the leadership is healthy and growing, STAFF and VOLUNTEERS…to give away ministry you have to train and grow leaders!

Value the team // build the team = build community, equip with tools, and celebrate! THIS BUILD MOMENTUM (ideas…ideas are training events, t-shirts, gifts, notes to say THANKS)

WHY DO THESE 2 FIRST…because this is what the church is made of, buildings and budgets come and go but PEOPLE make ministry happen! If you have passionate leaders and a trained team you can do anything.

Refine the environment // put your money into creating engaging presentation and an appealing environment. INVEST for the LONG HAUL! You can have the best message but a boring room and boring presentation can KILL IT. Build environments and create presentations that HIT YOUR TARGET not the adults!!!! THE LOOK OF OUR ROOMS FOR KIDS SEND A MESSAGE TO ADULTS AND KIDS THAT THEY MATTER!

Informing the crowd // communicate news - VISION - and ask who needs to know what ad spend money getting that message across! WEBSITE, social networking, printing, etc. Do what you can to help parents know what is going on with the kids…be creative!

Perfecting the systems // administrate, details…etc…

Small Group Leaders Can Partner with PARENTS / from ORANGE 09

First BREAKOUT session from Orange was "How to help small group leaders partner with parents!" Gina and Kevin Ragsdale from North Point Community Church did a great job leading. Here are a few of the thoughts from the session...

Parents need to know what to do to be a spiritual influence in the life of their kids. Where do we want parents to move toward in their relationship with their teens…
Imagine the End
@ focus your priorities on what matters most

Fight for the heart
@ communicate in a style that gives the relationship value //

Make it personal
@ put yourself fist when it comes to personal growth // live authentically

Create a Rhythm
@ increase quantity and quality time as a family // encourage your kids to have their own faith and place a high priority on vacation time with kids!

Widen the circle
@ place your kids in line to hear other voices saying the same thing
As small group leaders we can help parents widen the circle! We can connect with the parents of the kids in our groups. We can pray for the parents of the kids in our group. Small group leaders can say the same things parents say and many time teens will HEAR IT!

Small group leaders can support parents when…
Small group leaders can make themselves available when PARENTS need answers, support, and guidance! // trust can be formed!

Small Group leaders can help their teens parents connect with other parents relationally!

Small group leaders can help parents by NOT TAKING SIDES and helping their teens see the value in their mom and dad. Small group leaders can help teens to take the first step toward their parents and not always answer all the questions.

Small group leaders can inspire parents by LIVING AUTHENTICALLY and caring for the kids in their group in and out of church.

Small group leaders can help families create a rhythm by SHOWING UP and being regular at church and connecting with kids outside of church in community activities.

Small group leaders are the most natural connection to the heart of the family because their whole job is to connect relationally!

Francis Chan @ the Orange Conference

Session 2 brought Francis Chan to the stage, if you have ever heard Francis speak there is no easy summary to be made, this was a huge talk with so many implications! Here are some of the thoughts...

People entrust us with their kids…They allow us to invest in their most precious gifts.

When we see things that shock us, hurt us, hurt others we have to leverage the influence of others to join the cause of redemption.

When others see passion of an issue we try to normalize them, slow down, tell them to not go TOO far. WHY ARE WE SUPPOSED TO CALM DOWN?

So many times with our students we calm them down, slow their passion and try to make them look like us.

We have over educated believers today…undereducated believers in Jesus day were so bold…over educated believer today are so scared.

We know SO MUCH but we live Christ so little.

When we look back how many spiritual regrets do we have…we finish our education and cannot even talk to our neighbors about our faith anymore.

Peter and John gathered people to pray that they would have BOLDNESS…they were sharing a message that was LIFE CHANGING.

What keeps us from praying for boldness? What are we trying to do that we need to pray for boldness from God?

We take BOLD PEOPLE and ask them to calm down and “learn some stuff” / the first followers of Christ prayed the bold would become MORE BOLD.

Social Justice is not PART of Christian life we add on, it is life, it should consume, Jesus is OK with us being consumed with showing God’s love to others. It is OK.

Every time God speaks to us so many PEOPLE tell us to be responsible and take it all SLOW.

What is happening around the world to REAL PEOPLE GOD MADE is an emergency, lets go global and do some crazy crap to take the hope of Jesus to them.

We never look more like God the Father than when we are rescuing!

Every breath I breath could be my last, lets live like that, no regret…bold living!

NO PERFECT FAMILIES EXSIST / night one from ORANGE 09

Night one from the Orange conference was incredible for our entire team. On facebook some folks are asking me what this orange thing is, for that go to http://www.theorangeconference.org and check out where I am at. Thursday and Friday are going to be 2 incredible days BUT wanted to recap a few things said by Reggie Joiner tonight. This is random but here were some thoughts about how we can REACTIVATE the FAMILY in our ministries...

• Many of our churches lead people to CONFORM to a picture of what we think the family should look like instead of HELPING each unique family step into the story God wants to paint in and through their family.
• Most of the ideas we have about what the family should be are just impossible to achieve. Our goals for the family are not God's goals for the family. We are just spending our parenting lives comparing our family to other families and never measuring up.
• There is NO IDEAL FAMILY (the family you think is ideal is just as broken as your family!)
• Very hard to find the model family in the Bible. (Abraham, Noah, Jacob, David...all had families who had real problems) God knows when we invite Him to join us in our parenting effort He is stepping into a broken mess. He is more OK with that than we are.
• At church many of the PICTURES we present of what family should be just make REAL FAMILIES run from God and the church.
• God is not interested making our families PERFECT he is all about bringing RESTORATION and revealing His plan through our imperfect families.
• At church we have to help families drop their IDEAL FAMILY ideas and embrace the unique story God is writing with their family. Messy is OK. We have to help families find the next step.
• Parents cannot wait to be the PERFECT mom or dad to be a faith mentor to their kids. If parents wait for that moment it will never come.
• When parents are honest about who they are with their kids and they pursue God in their imperfection kids will find a God worth following.
• Family ministry happens when the church and parents combine influence and work together to help kids embrace and follow Christ with their life!

More from ORANGE on Thursday...

Headed to the ORANGE CONFERENCE 09...

Our family ministry team is headed to Atlanta to our favorite conference of the year. I have been to tons of conferences in my time in ministry but none that fires me up more than Orange. This is the one conference that brings together youth, children, preschool, and family ministers into one environment to dream about how we are going to capture the heart of the next generation for Jesus Christ. Did you get that...all age group leaders working together. If you go to GCC you know this is the idea we are trying to live out. Imagine the CHURCH working with PARENTS to combine our influence into a child's life. Yellow and Red make ORANGE...2 influences working together...get it, ORANGE! Our team is getting away to learn, dream, evaluate, and plan. We are excited and hope to bring back new inspiration for our effort to partner with parents in Clarksville. The rest of the week I will be blogging from the conference and of course hitting my thoughts up on TWITTER (www.twitter.com/michael_bayne )

Go check out the Orange Conference at >>>> http://www.theorangeconference.org

Ideas from Tim Irwins's book...

First time to read anything from Tim Irwin. I think I picked the book up from the Catalyst pack that we get every quarter. Finished as I was traveling last week and loved Tim's insight into leadership, the people he has connected with in his career, and his investment into his family. I am a family pastor here at Grace Community so I am sucker for any successful leader that cares for his family. I want to be THAT GUY and I am working hard to make sure at the end of my time here people see that as a trait in my life. This would be a great book for any leaders looking for insight on how to live a life of significance in a world that beats us down with greed, power and mediocre dreams. Just a few quotes from the book that stood out to me.

David Levin said " We don't go to bed at night wondering why we are on the planet" - 46

In dealing with conflict... Deal with conflict promptly. Own your own STUFF. Join forces against the problem. and FORGIVE. - 140

To launch Chapter 11 Tim Quoted Max Depree..."It is important to remember that we cannot become what we need to be by remaining what we are."

Quoting Donald Miller, GREAT REMINDER..."All great characters in stories are the ones who give their lives to something bigger than ourselves."

Whatever amount of time I have been given TO WORK cries out to be used well...to be significant. - 187

Next up for my reading plan is Tony Morgan's book Killing Cockroaches and then on to Reggie McNeal's book Missional Renaissance

quick hit MONDAY

• Had a great 2 days last week in New Orleans prepping for SERVE new orleans in July with a group of GCC high school students. God opened some great doors for our team to partner with a local church and serve in the 7th ward.
• Saturday we got to go to Elliot Watts 60th birthday party. Love the Watts family and really it was a reminder that success in life is measured in relationships. Elliot has given so much to others and it was great to be able to hang out and love on him and connect with old friends! Katrina and Cassandra...you there a great party for your dad!
  
• The close of the EPIC series was strong. We saw tons of people choose to follow Christ Sunday morning. As we talked about the end times it was wild to see the response of the people to heaven and hell. In most churches people clap and shout when you talk about Judgement of this world. It hit our folks hard because God has allowed so many of us to have real friendships with people who are not Christ followers. GREAT JOB TODAY CHAD!
• This was the last week for Daniel Doss to lead at GCC. Daniel, you are a great friend and I will miss ya. GREAT job to DDB today. On a good note, NOW I GET TO BRING DDB back for student events. HOORAY for relevant! Love Daniel and Emily!
• We are headed to the ORANGE CONFERENCE this week...SO excited for our family ministry team. Go check out the Orange Conference at www.theorangeconference.com
  
• Loved the Titans 2009 draft. I am a addicted to the NFL draft. I did well this year with not allowing it to take over the weekend. Just used my cell to stay in touch. GO TITANS!
• On another sports quick hit...GO CHICAGO BULLS! Young team, looking good!
  
• Really excited about camps and mission trip for the Relevant Student Ministry...It is going to be fun to see what God does in the lives of teens this year.
• Excited that we are starting a new series at GCC Sunday called road trip and I get to lead off the series and speak this first week. Thanks Ron and Chad for the chance to go for it. LOVE the plan for the service. Higdon and the creative team have some cool surprises coming this week.
  

Happy Birthday Kelyn! You are three!

My little girl turned three today! Kelyn I love you and maybe down the road you will look back on dad's blog and see what I said about you today. You are the joy of our house! You are a beautiful little girl,you cal three "free", you are super smart, you love to laugh, you hate bugs, and you love your Dad (that is for when you are 14!) I am so glad God have you to our family. Happy Birthday baby girl...you will always be our baby girl. Bu the way, your older sis rocks too but this is you day! I Love you Kelyn!

volunteers...need balance

It is so amazing to watch God work in the lives of our volunteers. One of the secrets to having great volunteer team is to support them, serve them, and live life with them. I love our volunteers at GCC and there is nothing better than watching them grow spiritually. Serving should always be a joy and should lead to growth in the lives of our volunteers. We have to help our volunteers find community and serve at the same time. The goal is balance. Our job is to help them serve and grow not to USE them to make our programs work better. These are PEOPLE that God loves more than we do. An overworked volunteer will not thrive if they cannot BELONG in community because they are always busy with church work. (done ranting)

Got this from a volunteer's blog in our church (she and her husband are amazing). This is a couple that is active in our community and in our church and they have done well maintaining balance. Listen to them talk about the GCC experience...this is what it is about!

Grateful for a church that I can grow in marriage and friendship, etc. From day 1, I felt that Scott and I were people…not just numbers. We have been embraced with kindness and love…and cherish all that God has provided to us through being active members at Grace. Although I am a traditionalist at heart, I truly appreciate the non-traditional setting. Yes! You can worship in flip-flops! Yes! It is possible to not necessarily be caught up in the ‘law’ of church…and just be. Come as you are and worship the God who adores you. Such freedom to love God…without being so caught up in ‘tradition.’ Being members of such a strong community has changed my heart and my life.

I am most thrilled to be raising Chandler in the Grace setting. I’m excited to teach her that God loves her no matter what and that she can find true community within our church.

Acts 4: 20For we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard."

volunteers...need to hear this

Our volunteers directly reflect our leadership. I really believe this idea is true. I also believe that everyone can improve in their leadership ability with volunteers. You have to live and learn but you can improve. So how do we get better at leading our volunteer teams? One way is to practice saying some things OVER AND OVER AND OVER...

• THANK YOU...say it, write it, email it, text it publicly and privately with your volunteers. I know I should not have to say this to anyone but I DO because I amazed at how many people do not say THANKS enough. Say it! Your volunteers need and want to hear it.
• WHAT DO YOU THINK...yes your volunteers want to have a voice and they have things to say you need to hear. When you can, get feedback and input about ministry direction.
• HERE IS THE PLAN...your team needs to have info! Work hard to keep your team up to date with info. Your volunteers need to be the first to know important ministry news, let them always have the inside scoop when you can.
• THIS IS WHY WHAT YOU DO IS IMPORTANT...your volunteers must be told the vision of your ministry over and over and over because as our Andy Stanley says, VISION LEAKS. Share the big why of your ministry as much as possible with your team.
• GOOD JOB...let your volunteers know what they are doing well! It will open the door for an open heart when you have bring instruction and there will plenty of instruction times.
• I AM SORRY...this is huge, so huge! This goes a long way with any volunteer and helps them say the same thing when mistakes are made. When you are wrong say SORRY!